Student Debt

Advice for New Teachers

Earlier this year I participated in in a twitter chat (#cdnedchat) discussing 'Advice for New Teachers'

You can read some of the highlights from that chat on this Storify Board:
http://storify.com/MsAmandaLong/advice-for-new-teachers

Here are some other basic tips:




Via: http://www.pinterest.com/pin/180636635027203901/

Presenting to Student Teachers: Perks of TTOCing

This week I am doing two presentations to student teacher groups. I love the energy and enthusiasm student teachers have coming out of their practicums, ready and eager to find jobs! The reality is, that many get hired, first, as a TTOC (Teacher-Teaching-On-Call) and my workshop looks at what life is like as a TTOC.

I also do workshops for the BCTF on Classroom Management for TTOCs, Work-Life Balance, Stress Management, Reality 101, and a few others. It is always a pleasure to present and today was no different!

Today's group had a lot of previous classroom experience as EAs or such and had some awesome ideas and knowledge to share. They just finished their SFU 405 practicum (Long practicum) and I spent the afternoon with them.

One part of my workshop looks at the benefits of being a TTOC.

We brainstormed some of the perks of being a TTOC and here are some of the things we came up with:

• Flexibility 
• Set schedule
• Variety (grades, subjects, areas)
• experiment with different instructional strategies
• develop professional connections, network
• no report cards
• minimal marking
• less "out of school day" work (prep, plan, mark, etc.)
• Gather ideas, resources, etc.
• try things out repeatedly

While teaching on call is often a stepping stone to contract teaching, many choose to teach on call because of the many perks it offers. Although sometimes unpredictable, many teachers enjoy the benefits of being a teacher-teaching-on-call.

What other perks are there to being a TTOC?

VanSun: In today's digital world, teachers should be best and brightest

It will come as no surprise to anybody who has been paying attention that kids in today's classrooms with their BlackBerrys, iTouches, iPhones, thousands of apps, Google, Wikipedia, Face-book, Twitter and laptop windows on the world are making a new kind of demand on public education and its teachers.

"Digital" has always been in these kids' cultural DNA, they've likely never written in cursive, their cellphones tell them the time and are their social lifelines, they can organize a flash mob in two minutes and anything bizarre that happens in a classroom will be on YouTube later that same evening.

Teaching this group in a classroom is not getting any easier.

Today's kids are awash in a computerized technology that does not distinguish information and knowledge. So it will be up to their teachers to help them distinguish gold from dross.

Read More at Vancouver Sun