Back to School Teacher Must Have

Dreading a New School Year?

I don’t know about you but going back to school with new students used to get my tummy turning. Dread hung on my shoulders and motivation was nowhere to be found. How was I to keep control of new students, teens I didn’t know and who were different from me? But my experience as the training coordinator for a youth development organization saved me. I learned to maintain control of kids I didn’t know and that it’s all about classroom management relationship-building.

Don’t Make Classroom Management All Business

To keep control of new students when going back to school, classroom management is essential. But setting boundaries and rules upfront at the beginning of the school year, being consistent, having clear expectations and consequences, effective transitions, and intentional classroom layout as well as other strategies are only half — the businessy half — of classroom management.

Get to Know Your Students when Going Back to School

An illustration of teens sitting at their desks in with classroom management
Image from Freepik

The softer strategies of relationship building, the engaging with and understanding of students, is the other half of classroom management that makes the businessy side to maintain control of new students fall into place without much effort. Getting to know your students is one of the highest forms of respect. Everyone desires respect and once gained, young people will rotate to and honor its source — you!

Classroom Management Relationship Building Bundle

For the upcoming school year, I have put together a bundle of, not only my favorite youth development-based classroom management resources to help maintain control but my students’ favorites! With the “What’s Your Style,”Circle of Community,” and “Strong Suits” resources in the “Classroom Management Relationship-Building Bundle,” students are not the only ones who will engage, understand, and learn about their classmates ( while building communication skills). Teachers will too. While figuring out what makes students tick —why they do what they do — you’ll also empower and engage them, all at the same time.

A picture of the aws Studios.art cover of their Classroom Management Relationship Building Bundle available at the aws Studios.art Teachers Pay Teachers Store

Let me know if you have any questions about the aws Studios Back to School Must Have

Contact me at: alis@awsstudios.art

This is a picture of Alis Wintle Sefick of aws Studios where she is an artist, a writer and a mental health educator specializing in boosting mental health and social emotional learning. At the Studios, Alis also shares her artwork of recycled fabric and paper collage landscapes and other works of art.
Alis
This is a picture of a young person with their arms raised in celebration on a mountain after climbing to the top. The picture is a metaphor for learning how to fear less when it comes to doing things we want or need to do and the steps it takes to fear less and accomplish our goals.

And don’t forget to check out our new Facebook group – Fearful to Flourishing: Courage Builders’ Community!

You Won’t Get Classroom Management Without This

Dreading a New School Year?

I don’t know about you but a new school year with new students used to get my tummy turning. Dread hung on my shoulders and motivation was nowhere to be found. How was I to keep control of new students, teens I didn’t know and who were different from me? But my experience as the training coordinator for a youth development organization saved me. I learned to maintain control of kids I didn’t know and that it’s all about classroom management relationship-building.

Don’t Make Classroom Management All Business

To keep control of new students, classroom management is essential. But setting boundaries and rules upfront at the beginning of the school year, being consistent, having clear expectations and consequences, effective transitions, and intentional classroom layout as well as other strategies are only half — the businessy half — of classroom management.

You’ve Got to Get to Know Your Students

An illustration of teens sitting at their desks in with classroom management
Image from Freepik

The softer strategies of relationship building, the engaging with and understanding of students, is the other half of classroom management that makes the businessy side to maintain control of new students fall into place without much effort. Getting to know your students is one of the highest forms of respect. Everyone desires respect and once gained, young people will rotate to and honor its source — you!

Classroom Management Relationship Building Bundle

For the upcoming school year, I have put together a bundle of, not only my favorite youth development-based classroom management resources to help maintain control but my students’ favorites! With the “What’s Your Style,”Circle of Community,” and “Strong Suits” resources in the “Classroom Management Relationship-Building Bundle,” students are not the only ones who will engage, understand, and learn about their classmates ( while building communication skills). Teachers will too. While figuring out what makes students tick —why they do what they do — you’ll also empower and engage them, all at the same time.

A picture of the aws Studios.art cover of their Classroom Management Relationship Building Bundle available at the aws Studios.art Teachers Pay Teachers Store

A Classroom  Management Professional Development Activity

Classroom Management Professional Development

Don’t waste your teachers’ precious time this summer! Have them take part in the Circle of Community™, a perfect activity for classroom management professional development.

Circle of Community™ is a team building / community building activity for groups working together in classrooms, teams, families, or on the job.

Cover for Circle of Community a classroom management activity

Works For Both Teens and Adults

In particular, the activity builds social emotional learning (SEL) not only for teens but also for adults. In prior presentations, staff found this professional development tool useful as well as entertaining. Participants receive both personal gain and the ability to practice with the resource before sharing with their students back in the classroom.

Improve Group Dynamics and Solve Misunderstandings Between Members

An illustration of a stalk of celery trying to mediate between two angry onions

At its core, Circle of Community™ works to resolve misunderstandings between group members. This improves group function, group member relationships, and the group’s success. Furthermore, the activity works to develop communication, problem solving, and goal attainment skills in a fun and engaging way.

How It Works

  • Using The “Identify your Gifts” handout, participants learn about their own and others’ personal strengths and challenges.
  • Then, in their respective “gift” groups, participants work together to solve a fictionalized real-life scenario related to a common critical issue or problem faced by the larger group.
  • Using the provided facilitation questions and learning about personal strengths and challenges, participants begin to see and understand how groups and their members often approach and solve problems differently. Often, staff receive insight into how “diverse” groups with a mix of strengths and challenges are best at solving problems.
  • In the end, all participants receive a “Reaching Our Potential Together” poster, the “Gifts and Challenges” and “Social Styles” handouts, and a special personal gift of a colorful “Totem Card” representing their own “gifts” / strengths.

In Short…

You can’t go wrong with the Circle of Community™ classroom management professional development. Don’t take my word for it – see a preview of the resource below.

Circle of community poster with gifts/strengths and corresponding totem animals

“Freshman Success:” Creating a supportive environment for 18-25 year olds

This image shows the cover of the Freshman Success Refresher resource for teachers, professors and parents

How “Freshman Success” Can Help You Succeed

Is your 18-year-old driving you crazy? Or maybe you’re new to working with freshmen and would like some direction. Or you’ve been teaching for a while and just need a boost to prepare for the new school year. The “Freshman Success…” resource has got you covered! This PowerPoint (ppt) presentation will get you and other teachers, professors and parents — even employers — going stronger into the new semester. With this resource, you can:

  • Learn or refresh your learning about the distinct differences between adolescence and young adulthood (18-25).
  • Build better relationships with young adults with these easy-to-use strategies.
  • Check your approach with the “Tiers of Influence,”
  • Discover the “factors of functioning” and
  • Find out how much you can influence and help during this developmental stage.

Download the resource and do it on your own time!

Though “Freshman Success” was originally developed for staff development, the resource can easily be reviewed by an individual on their own time, used for professional development or for departmental meetings.  And though information in the presentation is based on older research, even with the internet and social media, at their core, young people haven’t changed significantly in the last decade. Plus, you may think that now that your young person has reached the end of their teens, they shouldn’t need you anymore. “Freshman Success” will show you how they can still use your help and guidance.

Don’t Delay, Download the “Freshman Success” Resource Today

It’s the best way to support your older teen, freshman or college student. Plus, you’ll have fun creating the presentation’s “Recipe for Success” for them!

If you would like more information, check out the resource’s description here and don’t forget to tell your friends. They will need “Freshman Success” too!

How to Get Along with Others

Building a Circle of Community

Just about everywhere – school, work, families, neighborhoods – we have to work and get along with others. If conflict is kept to a minimum, everyone “gets along” better. And the group, team or committee accomplishes its goal more effectively and efficiently. But key to this effectiveness and efficiency is knowing “how” to work together. Often, we’re expected to do this with no instruction or guidance. Teaching about keeping conflict to a minimum and get groups to their goal or “win” often lacks in education. My activity, Circle of Community™, shows teams how to work together to keep conflict to a minimum giving them a better chance of reaching their goals.

a picture of the Totem Animals used in the Circle of Community team building resource that helps students learn how to get along with others

Teamwork

A scene in Apollo 13 provides my favorite illustration of positive teamwork. The astronauts stranded in their capsule need to get back to earth. The NASA scientists and engineers work together to solve the problem. I enjoy challenges with a problem to solve. But not unless I do it with others. For me, there’s comfort in working on a team. I like offering my strengths to the group but I don’t have to know or do everything!  Where I lack certain knowledge or skills, other members’ strengths compensate.

Reducing Conflict and Bad Feelings

But thrown into groups, there’s an expectation everyone will get along. With no direction for how to deal with different personalities, ways of thinking and problem-solving methods, conflict and bad feelings arise.

A Way to Get Along While Working Together

Circle of Community™ helps groups bypass conflict and bad feelings by showing them a way to work together. The activity provides a fun and easy way to build communication skills by assessing each member’s strengths and challenges. By understanding why members do or say what they do, inner team conflict decreases paving a solid road to their business of problem solving.

Circle of Community™ is an activity that works to build community within groups, teams, families, etc. It provides a playful way to learn about each other’s strengths and challenges, illustrating how working together and getting along is an effective strategy for solving problems and attaining group goals.

The activity is for teachers, trainers, Human Resources, parenting educators, parents or any teams or groups working together in for-profit and non-profit organizations.

Every team needs Circle of Community™!