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Keeping Students Engaged All Year Long, No Matter the Season [episode 165]

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Overview of episode 165:

Did you know that just like there are four seasons in a year, there are seven seasons in a school year? And just like there are positives and negatives to each environmental season, the same applies to the seasons of school. But one thing that stays consistent is the need to engage your students. So in today’s episode, we’re sharing ways for keeping students engaged all year, despite the seasonal changes. 

In order to maximize the seasons of the school year to maintain student engagement, we revisit our idea of adjusting the balance between novelty and structure. As we discuss each school year season, we highlight the goals, predictability, ways for preventing headaches, and how to enjoy the magic that comes with it. Each season needs their own approach to keeping students engaged in academic and behavior management, which we address, along with examples and activities. 

Student engagement is the key to a successful lesson, effective classroom management, and happy teachers and students. It requires teachers to respond to what’s happening in their classroom at the moment and adjust accordingly. But if you want to continue keeping students engaged all yea and prevent headaches from occurring, listen and implement our engagement ideas for each season of the school year.

Highlights from the episode:

[00:50] Today’s morning message: You’re home sick. The last person you saw on TV is your sub. Who’s subbing your class?

[6:06] Engagement ideas for back to school season

[8:20] How to engage during settling in season

[9:22] Balancing structure and novelty during holiday ramp up season

[11:55] Engagement ideas for back to work season

[14:39] Engaging students during spring fever season

[17:00] How to engage during testing season

[19:09] Engagement ideas for making it to the end season

[21:30] Today’s teacher approved tip for choosing a child to reach out to.

Resources:

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Read the transcript for episode 165, Keeping Students Engaged All Year Long, No Matter the Season:

Emily  0:36

Hey there. Thanks for joining us today. In today’s episode, we’re discussing how to maximize the seasons of the school year to maintain student engagement and sharing a teacher approved tip for boosting school community.

Heidi  0:50

We start our episodes with a morning message, just like we used to do at morning meeting in our classrooms. This week’s morning message is, you’re homesick. The last person you saw on TV is your sub. So Emily, who is subbing your class?

Emily  1:04

Well, if you heard my extra credit last week, then it should be no surprise that mine would be either Adam Brody or Kristen Bell. But frankly, I trust Adam a lot more than I would trust Kristen.

Heidi  1:15

Oh yeah, Kristen’s gonna get them all riled up.

Emily  1:18

It’s so true. Who’s subbing your class, Heidi?

Heidi  1:20

Well, I’ve got Titus Burgess coming in. Poor Titus, he doesn’t know what he’s in for.

Emily  1:27

No for sure, not.

Heidi  1:29

His new show, The Last Bite Hotel is really fun. I recorded it, but I haven’t watched it yet, but you’re in for a treat.

Emily  1:34

We have some fun responses from our community. Sheldon Cooper is going to have a very busy schedule because he’s subbing for Holly, Jessica and Allison. Abby’s sub is Ichabod Crane.

Heidi  1:46

Oh no. I hope the Headless Horseman doesn’t show up.

Emily  1:49

Kathy has Hoda Kotb. I think she could, she could do it. Yeah. Leah’s sub is Noel from the Great British Bake Off. Or, depending how much British TV you’ve been exposed to like us. You might know him from other things.

Heidi  2:04

I would pay money to watch that. That would be hilarious.

Emily  2:07

That would be hilarious. Katie’s got a whole sub crew, the cast of How to Get Away with Murder, which is interesting, because Scarlet’s sub is Dexter. Maybe they can show up on the same day. Yikes. Tammy’s subs are Jane Fonda and Candace Bergen.

Heidi  2:25

I think I trust Candace Bergen over Jane Fonda, Oh, for sure, I think Candace Bergen would follow the plans.

Emily  2:30

Yes. And Jason’s sub is someone who would never follow the plans. And that’s Michael Scott.

Heidi  2:36

Oh no.

Emily  2:38

We’d love to have you join the conversation over in our teacher approved Facebook group.

Emily  2:43

Now we’ve shared this idea before, but just hold with us again as we explain about how student engagement is like an old timey balance scale. One bucket is structure and the other bucket is novelty. In the middle where it’s more or less balanced, our students are engaged. If the scale tips too far to the structure side, kids are bored. If the scale tips too much to the novelty side, kids are overwhelmed.

Heidi  3:08

Good teaching means you respond to what’s happening in your classroom in the moment. To keep kids engaged in that learning zone, you are constantly tweaking the levels of structure and novelty to maintain that balance between boredom and overwhelm.

Emily  3:22

It’s that old buzzword from college, monitor and adjust. Yes, and it really is constant work. The arrival of a new student, a student teacher in music class, a last minute change of the lunch schedule or a fire drill, all seem like minor disturbances. But they can quickly overflow that novelty bucket and tip your class into overwhelm if you’re not paying attention.

Heidi  3:46

On the other hand, having the same seating arrangement for too long, using the same fast finisher after every lesson, and expecting too much seat work, are structures that can create boredom if you’re not careful.

Emily  3:58

Maintaining student engagement really comes down to a minute by minute dance of monitoring and adjusting, like we said, but even though we have to adapt on the fly, if our plans aren’t working, that doesn’t mean we can’t anticipate some of the ups and downs of student engagement.

Heidi  4:14

Right. Like you can’t predict that on October 29 a bee will get into your class and disrupt the rest of the morning. That happened to me, or a spider on the wall.

Emily  4:25

Yep, that happened too.

Heidi  4:27

But you can guess that on October 29 your students are likely to be more restless than usual, because they’re excited for Halloween. And so you can make your plans accordingly.

Emily  4:37

Because kids are kids, no matter where you teach, the seasons of the school year, and the pros and cons of each one will apply to most classrooms.

Heidi  4:45

And we’re not talking about the seasons of fall, winter and spring. We are talking about the seven seasons of school year. Did you know there were seven?

Emily  4:53

But of course I did.

Heidi  4:55

If you’re on a non traditional schedule, or, you know, if you teach outside the US, these might not perfectly align with your classroom, but I think for most classrooms, we can kind of fudge these to make them fit most school settings.

Heidi  5:08

We start with back to school season, of course, that moves to the season of settling in, the holiday ramp up, back to work season, testing season, spring fever and making it to the end.

Emily  5:21

Yeah, that’s a perfect distillation of a year of school. Unlike natural seasons, the seasons of the school year can have wildly varying lengths. The holiday ramp up might be three weeks, and the back to work season that starts in January can last two or more months.

Heidi  5:37

Or it might be much shorter than that, if you have to dive into heavy duty test prep right away in January. The specific seasons of your school calendar will vary, but there are a few things that are constant.

Heidi  5:49

First, each season brings its own hoorays and headaches, and each season needs its own approach to engagement in academics and behavior management. A lot of the ups and downs of the school year are predictable, and that means, if you’re aware of them, you can plan in advance for how to address them.

Heidi  6:06

So let’s take a deeper look at each of our school seasons, starting with our favorite, back to school season.

Emily  6:13

Oh, it really is our favorite, because there are so many big hoorays that come with starting the new school year. The fresh start, meeting your new class and getting to try new things is so much fun, but the headaches that come with back to school season are real and they’re intense. It is so much work to start the year. You are at your most tired, at the time when you need your most energy so it can take a toll.

Heidi  6:38

For students, novelty is the highest it will be all year during back to school. Everything is new. So as the teachers, we need to lean really hard into creating structure. We are teaching dozens of procedures, building routines and creating a class culture.

Emily  6:55

When it comes to academics, the main goal is to figure out where everybody is. That means lots of assessment. We also need to make up for the summer slide and review last year’s content to refresh their little memories.

Heidi  7:07

We have three goals that come with behavior management, prevent, plan and predict. We’re going to prevent problems all year long by laying a strong foundation during back to school season. We use strategic seating, te teach and reinforce our attention signals and transition expectations.

Heidi  7:25

Our plan for addressing problems can often be handled by teaching procedures and expectations. These guidelines will help students know exactly what to do, and we predict problems by establishing clear and consistent consequences. We want students to know early on that when they don’t meet our expectations, they are invited to try again correctly.

Emily  7:46

Ideally, we are preparing in advance for each of our school seasons, but since this episode is going out in the middle of October, we’re not going to dive into all of the back to school resources we have available to help you with that season. You’ve got a few months before you need to worry about that again. So we’ll just put a little pin in that.

Heidi  8:04

But keep listening, because, you know, we’ll swing back around to it in a few months. However, if you are listening to this in the spring or summer, scroll back through our podcast episodes for a very robust catalog of back to school tips. We’ve definitely got you covered when it’s time for back to school prep.

Emily  8:20

So we’ve made it through the first few weeks of school. We’re now in the golden season of settling in. Hooray. Classroom community is taking shape. Everyone is getting a sense of this is our class, and this is who we are. These early days have their own kind of magic.

Heidi  8:36

And they also have their own kind of headaches. Once students start to feel comfortable, they start pushing boundaries. This is where the prevention that we established in back to school season becomes important.

Heidi  8:37

Predict that this will happen and have a plan in place for reinforcing your expectations when the boundaries are pushed. At this point, you might need to do your first desk switch. Check out our interactive seating chart, tool to learn our system for strategically assigning seats to minimize problems.

Emily  9:05

As kids settle in, structure and novelty become more balanced. Your students are used to the day’s routine so boredom can start to creep in. Try introducing some surprise and delight to keep things fresh. You can hear all about surprise and delight in episodes 35 and 156.

Heidi  9:22

Depending on what holidays are celebrated in your community, the holiday ramp up season may start early in the school year, or wait until right before winter break. Halloween may be the entry point, or maybe Halloween is just a blip, and things don’t really kick off until the end of November.

Emily  9:38

Regardless of the official starting point, we want to make sure we’re ready when that day arrives. I love seasonal fun, so for me, holiday ramp up season came with a lot of hoorays. We did themed math games and fun writing activities. But of course, all that novelty brings its own headaches.

Heidi  9:57

Right. When novelty is increasing, we need to balance that by leaning into structure, make sure you’re being consistent with your procedures and expectations. As the holiday ramp up season goes on, you might need to actually increase the structure in your classroom. In that case, you might consider adding a reward system.

Emily  10:15

Now we are not big fans of doing a year round reward system, because they just don’t work. Kids get tired of them, and they become a big hassle for teachers to manage.

Heidi  10:25

Also for a lot of the year, during most of these seasons, kids can manage their behavior just fine without external rewards. So why make your job harder?

Emily  10:34

Exactly. However, when novelty reaches a point that kids can’t control themselves, they need us to provide support. So we talk in depth about short term reward systems in episodes 104 and just recently, in episode 158. Check those out if you want our deep thoughts and best tips for using a short term reward system.

Heidi  10:55

We have some resources to help with both novelty and structure during holiday ramp up season. Check out our festive breaks for some holiday fun that won’t cost you your sanity. And check out our holiday behavior helps for support with setting up a short term reward system. And there are links to both of those in the show notes.

Emily  11:14

And make sure to check out our December teacher survival kit if you want some extra resources for managing your students behavior during holiday ramp up season.

Heidi  11:23

That kit also has some suggestions for managing academics in the holiday season. You want to do your best to stay on track with your pacing guides, but you will reach a day in December when it is pointless to introduce new content.

Heidi  11:36

Either you don’t want to teach important material right before a long break, or your kids are just going to be too hyper to learn, or maybe, you know, a mixture of both. So schedule your stop teaching new content date, and then make a plan for how to fill the remaining days of school with meaningful, low prep activities.

Emily  11:55

And when you come back to school in January, you’re ready to kick off back to work season. This season combines the best of back to school season and settling in season. You have the magic of a new beginning round two, but you’re not back at square one. You’re starting over with a fresh chance to get things right, though.

Heidi  12:14

It’s important to use the first few days back to re-establish those important structures that make your classroom runs smoothly. Reteach and practice important procedures, have class discussions about how things were before and how they better improve going forward.

Emily  12:30

After the New Year, sparkle has worn off, though the back to work season can drag. There’s too many days of inside recess. The kids are bored of the same routine, day in and day out. After so many big gains early in the year, learning progress can start to stall.

Heidi  12:44

When you hit the midwinter blahs, look for ways to freshen things up. Introduce a new center choice, give opportunities for more group work, integrate art into less creative subjects, rearrange the seating more often, and of course, look for some chances to sprinkle in some surprise and delight.

Emily  13:01

If you haven’t been doing it all year, you probably want to schedule a dedicated time for spiral review each day. It may feel a long way off, but testing season is right around the corner from back to work season.

Heidi  13:13

Spiral review is a form of retrieval practice. It’s how our brains turn information we’ve heard into information we can remember. It’s absolutely vital to learning and the best way to prepare for testing. Our favorite way of incorporating spiral review is through our morning work. But that doesn’t mean you only have to limit spiral review to the morning. You can do spiral review any time of day.

Emily  13:36

Yep, there aren’t many things that we’d say that pretty much every single classroom needs to do, but spiral review really is a must. If you want more information on spiral review, retrieval practice, or morning work, check out episode 91.

Heidi  13:51

Depending on your testing schedule, you may hit testing season right after back to work season, or you may have spring fever in the middle of it all.

Emily  14:00

Because testing windows vary so wildly from place to place, the last three seasons of the year are hard to match up to exact months. If you live in a state that does end of year testing in January or February, your back to work season may just be a few days of relaunching your class and then a deep dive into test prep.

Heidi  14:19

But if you have the other extreme, and you don’t test until May or June, you may have a long stretch of back to work season and spring fever before testing season really kicks off. Adjust our examples to fit your calendar, but for the sake of simplicity, we’re going to assume you test near the end of April or early May.

Emily  14:39

That means between back to work season and testing season, you might have a long stretch of spring fever.

Heidi  14:44

Spring fever is tricky, because it doesn’t just affect the students. It hits teachers so hard as well. Finally, winter is over, or, you know, we’ve had a couple sunny days and so now we have the hope that winter will someday be over. That first warm, sunny day feels like the lights have finally turned on. It can be such a relief after so many dreary months.

Heidi  14:46

But of course, there are some headaches that come with spring fever, and I don’t just mean allergies. Those are bad, and they do give me headaches, so bad.

Emily  15:21

Spring fever headaches come in many forms. For example, it feels like school should be wrapping up, but you might have a full term or more left. The regular structure of the classroom starts to feel confining, things that used to run smoothly in your class suddenly develop potholes.

Heidi  15:37

To manage these headaches, one thing you can do is to try offering more choices. The options don’t have to be big or complicated. You could try letting kids choose if they want to do the work in pencil or crayon, right? Simple, you still get the work you need done, and the kids have a little bit of freedom. Or you can try letting them decide if they want to write in their journal first or do their science vocabulary first.

Emily  15:59

Letting kids have a little more control is an easy way to add some novelty without sacrificing too much structure. Also, don’t be afraid to revisit your procedures and expectations more often during the spring fever season.

Heidi  16:12

We definitely don’t want to fall into the trap of thinking that because we are getting close to the end, it’s too late to fix behavior problems. You’ve still got time. We’ve got some handy procedure rating slides to guide a class discussion on what’s going well and what needs to be better.

Emily  16:30

Or you could make procedure review just a part of your daily schedule going forward. Pause before going to specialty classes and have kids reflect on how they need to act, or have a quick discussion before recess starts. Keeping your expectations alive in your classroom will make spring fever much more manageable.

Emily  16:47

And if you need some more help navigating the season of spring fever, check out Episode 124 where we go all into the details about the difficulties of spring fever and how to survive them.

Emily  17:00

And once you make it through spring fever, now it’s time to move into testing season.

Heidi  17:06

Just thinking ahead to testing season is a downer. It’s really not my favorite time of the year, so I had to dig really deep to come up with any hoorays for this season. But I did find a few. So because you know each other so well by that time of year, it’s a good time to really focus on social emotional learning.

Emily  17:27

And leaning more into SEL is a good way to plan for addressing the behavior problems that crop up because your class is so comfortable together. You know it’s coming, so you may as well be ready to address it.

Heidi  17:38

That class familiarity also makes testing season a good time for class projects. Maybe you use this time to plan a performance or have your kids get involved in a service project. Lean into the advantages of the class bonding that is also making it trickier to get things done.

Emily  17:55

Because there’s so much to review before testing, we don’t want to burn kids out with drill and kill. Add some novelty to a time of high structure by using games to review instead of relying on worksheets all the time.

Heidi  18:07

When you get to your actual testing days, you will likely need to adapt your daily schedule. Keep the time before the test predictable and calm, help students feel grounded and prepared, and then after the day’s testing, make sure you’ve planned activities that are lighter and more fun. Kids need novelty after so many hours of intense structure.

Emily  18:28

Because your schedule is going to be out of whack for a few days. You may need to increase your behavior management system. You might need to plan some extra behavior supports the same way you did before the holidays.

Heidi  18:39

You might even need to start with this before testing season starts. I found that usually by the end of February, my classes were just kind of over it. So I needed a longer term, short term plan.

Heidi  18:51

For me, a class economy worked well. I would have my second graders earn plastic coins because we had to learn how to count money, and when they had $1 they could buy something from the reward catalog. And that worked pretty well for a couple months, right up until we got to making it to the end season, and then all bets are off.

Emily  19:09

Yeah, as hectic as it is, making it to the end season can be fun, too. Once testing is out of the way, it feels like one big hooray. I love to add more hands on math projects and crafts and fun celebrations, but that season is also one giant management nightmare.

Heidi  19:27

Right. You are so exhausted by that point, and the kids are checked out, and there are still so many hours between you and summer break. Normally, when novelty is high, like that, we would recommend increasing the structure. But the structure is part of the problem, because after eight months, the kids are bored of just the same old, same old.

Emily  19:48

But you can’t add much novelty, because they’re about an inch away from tipping into complete overwhelm. So you need to add structured novelty or novel structure.

Heidi  19:57

Either way, you just need something new that doesn’t require a lot from the tired teacher. That’s why we love theme days during making it to the end season. The theme adds some novelty to your regular classroom routines, but it also increases the structure. That’s going to cut back on a lot of out of control behaviors.

Emily  20:18

But don’t be afraid to launch a new reward system, if that’s what it takes to rein in the excitement. Adding a new system is another way to increase novelty and structure at the same time.

Heidi  20:28

Plus you don’t have to worry about kids becoming dependent on these rewards because you’ve got a built in end date. You’re almost a summer break baby.

Emily  20:37

Even though we’ve got five more seasons to get through before we actually get to summer, the end of the school year will be here before you know it. Making a strategic plan for what’s ahead is one way to prevent burnout, plus it’s kind of helpful just to have a vision of where we’re headed this year.

Heidi  20:54

And to help you with that planning, we have a freebie available to the members of our Facebook community. To access it, all you have to do is join the teacher approved Facebook group and then head to the file section on our page.

Heidi  21:06

There you can get a PDF or an editable Google Sheet that breaks down each of the seven seasons of the school year. There’s space to note the hoorays, the headaches, you can make a plan for how to maintain structure and novelty and no academic and behavior management considerations.

Emily  21:21

Make sure to come grab that freebie and let us know how you plan ahead for the seasons of the school year. You can find us in the teacher approved Facebook group.

Emily  21:30

Now let’s talk about this week’s teacher approved tip. Each week we leave you with a small actionable tip that you can apply in your classroom today. This week’s teacher approved tip is choose a child to reach out to. Tell us about this, Heidi.

Heidi  21:43

Well this is something that my principal had us do at my last school. As a faculty, we made a list of the kids that we were worried about on an emotional level. You know, the little ones with the home lives that make you cry. Oh gosh, just thinking about it, or the ones that always seem lost. We especially focused on our internalizers, the ones who hold everything in and are just carrying so much. We had a lot of homeless kids in our school, so our list was pretty long.

Heidi  22:11

And then every adult in the school, the teachers, the lunch workers, the custodial staff, the support staff, each chose one of those students to look out for. The idea was to choose a kid who wasn’t already in your class, but who you cross paths with during the day, and then when you saw your little friend, you made sure to connect. It could just be a quick smile or a quick check in, but the idea was that each child knew that somebody cared that they were at school that day.

Heidi  22:36

Now obviously, we kept all of this confidential. We made sure the list of names wasn’t left out and about, and we didn’t tell the kids that we had picked them for a project. Can you imagine? But I appreciated having a structured support for being the kind of teacher that I wanted to be.

Heidi  22:52

Because, of course, it was so important to me to be a loving influence on students, but in the day to day demands, it is hard to remember to make time for that. You know how it goes, but having just one student to focus on helped me to prioritize connections with all of my other students, and it made it feel like I could make a difference without having to solve every student’s problem by myself.

Emily  23:16

Now that you’re a couple months into school, maybe this is an activity that your school staff could get behind, or, if not the whole school, maybe just your team.

Heidi  23:24

And if not your team, maybe it’s something you can do by yourself. There are so many stories of kids who, statistically, should have taken really dark paths, but one caring adult made the difference and changed the trajectory of their whole lives.

Emily  23:39

Oh, I love that.

Heidi  23:40

To wrap up the show we are sharing what we’re giving extra credit to this week. Emily, what gets your extra credit?

Emily  23:45

I’m giving extra credit to Sharon McMahon’s new book, The Small and The Mighty about 12 Unsung Americans Who Changed the Course of History. We have been big fans for years now, otherwise known as Sharon Says So on Instagram. We’re not talking about the fact that she’s coming to Utah in a couple of weeks and we were not able to get tickets. Fine, and we are fine about it, but the book is truly moving and inspiring, and she is a fantastic storyteller. If you listen to the audiobook, especially, you will not be disappointed.

Heidi  24:18

It’s so good. I just remember listening and thinking like, I’m so glad I’m a teacher.

Emily  24:24

It is sort of a love letter to teachers.

Heidi  24:27

In so many ways, yeah. Like, golly, some amazing teachers.

Emily  24:31

Yes, thank heavens for teachers. Incredible things. What are you giving extra credit to Heidi? Besides teachers?

Heidi  24:37

This is much less dramatic. I’m giving extra credit to the GroupMe app. It’s just such a handy way to connect with a big group at once. We’ve got a really hopping neighborhood GroupMe and I love it so much. People offer up their extra zucchini, and they track down lost kids bikes, and if someone runs out of eggs or milk or sugar in the middle of fixing dinner, they can post a quick request for help, people ask for plumber recommendations and schedule carpools.

Heidi  25:04

And I know like in some neighborhoods, like if you had some weird neighbors, I could see this being unpleasant. But luckily, I have really good neighbors, so it’s just really nice and handy way to connect with everybody and see what’s going on out in the wide world.

Heidi  25:18

That’s it for today’s episode. To help maintain student engagement plan for the upcoming seasons of the school year, and remember to reach out to students who need a little extra attention and love.

Emily  25:29

Don’t forget to grab the freebie in our teacher approved Facebook group. And if you enjoyed this episode, please consider giving us a five star rating and a review or sharing it with a friend.

Emily  25:41

We are working really hard to meet a podcast milestone before the end of the year, and we need your help sharing it with other listeners to help us do that. So leaving a rating and review helps new listeners find our show, and you can share it with another teacher friend, and we would so appreciate it.

More About Teacher Approved:

Do you ever feel like there’s just not enough time in the day to be the kind of teacher you really want to be? The Teacher Approved podcast is here to help you learn how to elevate what matters and simplify the rest. Join co-hosts Emily and Heidi of Second Story Window each week as they share research-based and teacher-approved strategies you can count on to make your teaching more efficient and effective than ever before.

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