Teacher Burnout. It’s one of my biggest fears. What if in 10 years I am just exhausted and I want to quit?
At the Administrator Panel on Tuesday, Josh urged teachers to leave The Comfort Zone. The best teaching and learning happens in the Risk Zone. Teacher Burnout lives in The Danger Zone. That framework really informed my reading and thinking this week. I’m going to use Book Clubs when I teach, and implement Inquiry Units. Where’s my risk zone? Where’s my danger zone?
When discussing the best way to implement Inquiry Units, Daniels and Zemelman tell me “Don’t start too big! A project that takes three or four class periods can be plenty” (Daniels and Zemelman 2004, p. 226). It’s one of those pieces of advice you might think is so obvious, no one needs to hear it. But I really needed to hear it! ‘Inquiry Unit’ makes me think Important Month Long Interdisciplinary Project. As a first year teacher, that sounds like The Danger Zone. I loved their advice on really training students for Book Clubs, and starting off with “‘modified student choice’” (p. 205). I’ve never run a Book Club before, so I’m immediately in either The Risk Zone or The Danger Zone. But giving students a few days to browse through books, and then using student ballots to create artful groups sounds like The Risk Zone.
At the Administrator Panel on Tuesday, Josh urged teachers to leave The Comfort Zone. The best teaching and learning happens in the Risk Zone. Teacher Burnout lives in The Danger Zone. That framework really informed my reading and thinking this week. I’m going to use Book Clubs when I teach, and implement Inquiry Units. Where’s my risk zone? Where’s my danger zone?
When discussing the best way to implement Inquiry Units, Daniels and Zemelman tell me “Don’t start too big! A project that takes three or four class periods can be plenty” (Daniels and Zemelman 2004, p. 226). It’s one of those pieces of advice you might think is so obvious, no one needs to hear it. But I really needed to hear it! ‘Inquiry Unit’ makes me think Important Month Long Interdisciplinary Project. As a first year teacher, that sounds like The Danger Zone. I loved their advice on really training students for Book Clubs, and starting off with “‘modified student choice’” (p. 205). I’ve never run a Book Club before, so I’m immediately in either The Risk Zone or The Danger Zone. But giving students a few days to browse through books, and then using student ballots to create artful groups sounds like The Risk Zone.
I appreciate that the text addresses assessment, and have discovered a relevant Youtube Subgenre: Student Book Trailers! Here are two examples, one students made for the book Holes by Louis Sachar and a more elaborate trailer for Mice and Men by John Steinbeck. Students could make them as a final project, and they could be used in lieu of book talks for future Book Clubs.
What do y’all think your Risk Zone and Danger Zone activities are as new teachers?
Colleen I agree one of my biggest worries is burn out. I felt that the panel this week was very informative on how to avoid this. the reading was also good when it pointed out that you should start small on projects and then evaluate what worked and what didn't so as to better fine tune them for the next time. Remembering to not be too ambitious on the first projects you introduce and then fine tune them to figure out where the difficulty needs to be.
ReplyDeleteColleen,
ReplyDeleteI definitely think my Risk Zone/Danger Zone activities as a new teacher will be trying to incorporate the arts into scientific education, and anything to do with scientific communication. The first is something that I'm really interested in doing and have tried doing in the past, but I'm not sure that I've ever been entirely successful with it. As for teaching scientific communication, I'm not even sure at times that I'm that great of scientific communicator, in spite of that being my last official job title!
I also agree, burn out is scary, but I've learned that taking projects and assignments piece by piece with students and really breaking them down into steps is beneficial to them as well as you, the teacher.
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