TL;DR:

• Managing your time better leads to enjoying teaching and life more.
• Setting goals can help you be productive and avoid burnout.

This New Year, I wanted to encourage you to manage your time. Your busy time, your spare time, and your alone time. I can’t think of a better time to blog about this topic than now as we make new years resolutions for the upcoming year.

I can honestly say that if you organize your time well as a teacher, you will be able to work during work hours and build your family and friendship lives separately. Then you can explore life the way you would like.

If you organize your time well as a teacher, you will be able to work during work hours and build your family and friendship lives separately. Then you can explore life the way you would like. Click To Tweet

As a mentor or mentee at any given moment in your teaching career, time management skills will help you accomplish everything you want and not burn out in your profession. Remember it’s a career, and you need to explore the learning opportunities, balanced life, and enjoy the moments as we teach daily. So here are my thoughts. Please feel free to share yours…

Strategies that have worked for me!

• Using a calendar that is user friendly
• Setting goals weekly
• Timed To Do List daily

Plan with a Backwards Design

• Plan the ending of your lesson first
• Then plan your goals
• Then plan the steps that will accomplish your goals
• Consider student input in how you plan things out
• Set learning goals for your students and lesson

Maslow vs. Blooms Taxonomy vs. Vygotsky

• Put the needs of the students first, with high expectations
• Remember all students have to feel like they belong to make significant contributions
• Make the space so that you can advocate for your students
• Remember relationships are the key to considering your developing teaching philosophy
• Each student is learning at their own pace is what Vygotsky’s educational research on the Zone of Proximal Development is based on.

It is always important to draw connections between Maslow’s basic needs to ensure they are met and Vygotsky’s learning expectations as we develop skills for students.

We build amazing lesson expectations so that we can guide discussions and lead students to think with higher-order thinking skills when approaching problems. We encourage them to look at situations they face with a problem-solving mentality to develop their comprehension skills and resilience.

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Reflection: What are your New Year’s resolutions as an educator? Write them down with timelines. Then, SMART goal them. That’s my goal for you as a reader of my blog!

Yours in Education,

Nilmini

References

Maslow Graphic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs

Blooms Taxonomy Graphic https://inquirylearninginhsies00105812.weebly.com/what-comprises-effective-teaching/category/vygotskyfa3d134703

Zone of Proximal Development https://www.verbaltovisual.com/visualizing-the-zone-of-proximal-development-vtv007/

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About Nilmini Ratwatte-Henstridge

Nilmini Ratwatte-Henstridge teaches in Brampton, Ontario, Canada. She was born in Sri Lanka and immigrated to Canada with her family. As an elementary school teacher who is passionate about equity, social justice, and human rights in education, she enjoys teaching the younger generation to be global-minded citizens.

Discovering the world by connecting with others is an opportunity that we have today in our society today and she loves meeting new people! She is always learning while traveling to understand the inter-connectedness of this beautiful earth we live in! Nilmini LOVES cooking great meals, watching movies, and the latest fashion trends! Family and friends are close to her heart as she looks forward to balancing social media and navigating professional learning communities in education to network globally this year!