If I could have a nickel for every time someone has made the comment to me “Oh, you’re a teacher.  That must be the perfect job for a mom!,” I would be a millionaire. Unfortunately, when my girls were younger, I typically only felt like a “good mom” two months out of the year. Summer was that blissful time of the year when I could rejuvenate myself, take classes to better my professional practice, and dedicate my time to my family. The other ten months of the year, however, my family took a back seat to my job.

This post is not going to be the traditional “We are overworked and underpaid.”  Everyone in teaching knows that it is going to be a labor of love and not without sacrifice.  Rather, I want to spend some time giving advice to younger teachers regarding life balance.  These are words of wisdom I wish someone had shared with me when I started teaching over twenty years ago.  Teaching will never be a 40 hour a week profession, but we can put some things in place to make it not so life consuming.  I wish I could say that I always do these things myself. I do not!  I have however tried to be mindful of each of these in the hopes that I will get better at my life balance each year.

My Top 4 Nuggets of Wisdom:

1.  Plan out a schedule and stick to it!  You will never get it all done, so don’t try. Look at your family calendar and figure out when is the best time to get your work done.  Can you have a family study time each night where you all sit at the kitchen table and work for an hour? Are you an early morning riser that can squeeze in an hour before school each morning? Can your husband/wife take the kids every Saturday morning while you head to school to knock out your work for the week?  Once you have your time set aside each week for extra work, do everything in your power to stick to it.  Remember that each extra hour you give to your classroom you are taking away from your family.
   

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2.  If you have to choose between kids, always choose your own!  This one is a hard one. We see our own children as blessed.  They have parents who love them, food to eat, and support at home.  That is not always the case with the students we grow to love in our classrooms.  Unfortunately, I have seen several children of my colleagues over the years turn to drugs and engage in other harmful behaviors.  Even children in the best of homes need attention.  Your primary responsibility is to your own children.  If your students have an evening performance, bring your own children to watch.  If you have parent/teacher conferences one night that takes you away from your children, carve out extra time for them from your weekly schedule (see Wisdom #1).  Let your kids see you set up pictures of them in your classroom and share with them the stories you tell your students about them.  They need to know that they are the most important people in the world to you.
   

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3. Take time for your significant other/spouse!  I love this post by Tom Eggebrecht where he writes “If You Can Read This, Thank the Husband of a Teacher.”  It is not easy being the spouse of a teacher.  Often times they need to pitch in more (especially at the end of each quarter when grade cards are due!)  It is important to let your other half know how important they are to you.  Carve out time just for them when making your schedule (see Wisdom #1).  Remember, that God willing, they will be the one by your side when your teaching days are over, and your children are gone.
   

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4. Take time for yourself!  If you think #2 and #3 are hard, this one is going to be a killer!  You will be no good to anyone of you are not good to yourself.  Schedule “Me Time” each week.  Whether it is exercise, an out of the way trip to Starbucks before school each Friday, or sitting out on the deck with a good book, you need this time during the school year to carry you through until those blissful days of summer are back again.

Here is to a better life balance, friends!

-Tammy
I’m sure our readers have other words of wisdom to share.  Please post your thoughts below.  

One thing that we quickly realized when we entered the world of blended learning was that parents could easily feel disconnected from our classroom. No longer were paper worksheets and tests coming home in backpacks. Even our tech savvy parents were unable to easily gauge where they students were in regards to grades and achievement. It became abundantly clear that we could either spend extra personal time at the start of the year helping parents to understand how to navigate our classroom (we hosted these events without any time or monetary compensation) , or we would spend the remainder of the year trying to individually explain to our 100+ parents how their child was performing. We decided to host a series of “Parent Academies”. These classes were offered in the evenings to help accommodate working parents’ schedules. While optional, parents were highly encouraged to attend. We chose to focus each academy on a specific topic and tried to time the information to help the parents when they would most need it. While certainly not a perfect fix, the academies did help bridge the gap for our parents between the classroom experience they had and the one their children are currently experiencing.

Here are some of the presentations we have used for our parent academies:

BLC Jumpstart Parent Academy

The Home/School Connection

The Grading Monster

We are now working on delivering the information in a more “flipped” format with videos. It is so hard to find a time that is convenient for busy families. We are hoping that all parents will be able to view the videos on their own schedule to get the information they need.

When did the word “data” become so pervasive in classrooms around the country? Certainly, the Common Core curriculum brought the buzz word front and center and yet data collection is something that teachers have always done. The difference between the data of the past and the data of today is how it is being utilized. Data once was used to see how classes as a whole were progressing. The mean was far more important than the range. Today, the range has become of paramount importance in the classroom. Each child is expected to grow at least a year and students at the lower end must grow more to close the gap.

Technology can help tremendously with the collection of personalized data. The “artificial intelligence” now present in many online curriculums can give a measure of each child’s individualized performance on each standard. Why then do we find ourselves spending more time than ever looking at this data and trying to create meaning from the numbers? The answer is simple; one number cannot possibly be utilized to determine a student’s mastery of a standard.

We have done a tremendous amount of research over the past four years on mastery-based grading. From the readings, discussions, and personal observations, we have developed a few guidelines that we use when determining a student’s mastery of a standard:

1. A student must show that he/she has mastered a minimum of 80% of the material presented on whatever assessment is utilized in order to demonstrate competency of the standard.
2. A student should be able to show mastery in three different settings and on three different dates to demonstrate competency of the standard. These settings could include online assessments, in-class assessments, projects, discussions, etc.
3. A student should have the opportunity to demonstrate mastery of a concept after the formal assessment window has passed. Students must be explicitly taught how to advocate for themselves in this area and should be supported in ways they can demonstrate this learning.
4. Parents need to be explicitly taught how mastery-based grading works within our classroom and given an easy way to track this performance for their child.

Over the years, we have created several tools that we use with the students to track their progress. Here is a reading example we used last year. Teachers completed the top section based on online assessment data. Students received a sticker for each data point they earned (standards are grouped by our grade card criteria). While time consuming for us, the cards were a very easy way for both students and parents to track mastery of the standards. We would love to hear your ideas on how to use data to track mastery in your classroom.

Blended learning is a beast. There is no way to sugar coat that fact. Anytime you give up control to another, whether human or technology-based you are taking a calculated risk that the other person/tool you are putting in front of your students will do a better (or at least comparable) job to what you do. We also hope that the students will begin to take ownership of their own educational needs and let us know if they need more than what we are offering.

We feel that blended learning has made us better at our jobs and have loved assuming the role of facilitators. While we do not always have the control we would sometimes like, the benefits to our students have been incredible.  One of the greatest assets to us as we navigated the shift from teachers to facilitators was the fact that our district implemented Schoology district wide at the same time we were making the pedagogical shift in our instruction. Schoology has allowed us to share information with our students in ways that give them both structure and independence.  Rather than our previous stagnant websites that just delivered information one way, Schoology allows our students to interact with content through a multitude of methods. In Schoology they can message their teachers 24 hours a day, watch flipped lessons, blog with their peers, complete quizzes and assignments, post to their online portfolios, discuss, and the list goes on. Parents can see grades in real time, stay connected to the daily work of their child, and see events on the class calendar. We would strongly recommend utilizing an LMS if you are taking on blended learning. It has helped us tremendously!