We are constantly striving to enhance the learning process, but one of the biggest challenges we may face when trying to effectively teach our students is their behavior. Students come to us without the ability to cope and manage in the classroom—they can often struggle to focus and attend to the learning. Some of these behaviors and more common and more extreme than they were in the past.

Because of this, it is important for teachers to be ready for these students stepping into their classrooms. Having a plan is always important, so here is a guide for how to put together a data-driven behavior improvement plan for an individual student.

For the last twenty-something years, I’ve been a teacher. I’m extremely proud of my vocation—I see the reactions I get when I tell people I teach, and I am always glad to get to talk about what I do. Most people know that teaching is not easy. It’s tiring, heart-wrenching, and frustrating at times, but it is also fun, energizing, and amazing at its best. Teaching has given me a purpose, a paycheck, and wisdom. I’d like to share with you some lessons I’ve learned from teaching that apply both in the classroom and the real world:

For even the most experienced teachers, back to school time is often filled with a blend of anxiety, hope, and excitement. A great deal of time is spent in the weeks prior to the start of school preparing classrooms, organizing resources, and planning lessons. This time of year can be especially complicated—and even overwhelming—when new instructional technology is introduced into the classroom.

My generation of students has established the personal device trend, utilizing smartphones, tablets, and laptops in nearly all of our everyday tasks and interactions—both inside the classroom and out. With the number of apps expanding exponentially every day, I’ve surveyed a number of my high school friends and their siblings to compile a list of our top ten app picks for students:

The beginning of the year is the best time to set goals. It is not only a clean slate for all the kids and the teachers, but there is a great deal of openness to achieve and grow. The whole year is in front of us!

First, let’s make sure we understand why we should set goals. Goals are important not just for growth, but for clarity of priorities. Like Steven Covey told us in The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, we should all begin with the end in mind. By doing this, we know where we are headed and where we want to go—it gives us a target for the rest of the year. As we make progress (or don’t), we can adjust the goals as we go. But unless we know a destination, we can’t start down a path.

Coding has become part of the curriculum in many schools across the country—even for our youngest students in elementary schools. Coding has quickly grown over the past few years to be considered a fundamental basic literacy skill as it teaches students to be problem solvers and critical thinkers in a digital world. With an estimated 1.4 million programming job openings over the next 10 years, coding is one of the fastest growing job markets for our students as they move from school to the workplace.

Teaching coding in elementary schools is easy and so much fun. Over the past few years, many companies have created block coding apps, programs, robots, and more to help educators scaffold learning for our younger students. Block programming offers a simplified model of coding, with each block representing different commands. Block codes allow students to easily drag and drop a sequence of blocks together to create actions. Programs fall into the two main categories: Puzzle, where students use blocks of code to move an avatar through a series of mazes; and creation, where students drag and drop blocks of code to create their own program, story, or game.

We all want to create fun lessons and activities that make learning engaging and interactive for our students. However, we don’t want it to take forever or be overly complicated. That’s why I use MimioStudio™ classroom software, which conveniently works with any projector or interactive display. Whether you are using the MimioTeach portable IWB and your existing projector, an interactive projector, ProColor Display, etc., it just works. MimioStudio software is the powerhouse behind it all and is designed with the teacher in mind to be easy to use, intuitive, and powerful. 

This certainly is an exciting time with the start of a new school year! It’s another opportunity to build relationships with students and truly make a difference in their world in ways we can’t even fully imagine. As an educator for 22 years, I have always loved the beginning of school—especially when I have the opportunity to have a fresh start. It’s a lot of work to get the ship ready to sail for the voyage ahead, but I truly enjoy it. Whether it involves creating the perfect lesson plans for an exciting new project, making curriculum tweaks to provide the latest great resources, or finding new ways to integrate teaching tools to make learning more interactive and fun, I find this hard work really satisfying.

Whether you're a building principal, department head, or member of a grade-level team, there's a good chance you'll be working with new teachers as you start the school year. Being strategic and systemic as you meet with the teachers can be an important first step to starting the school year off right.

Using personal devices in the classroom continues to be one of this year’s biggest EdTech trends. Whether you have a smartphone, tablet, or laptop, apps are the best way to take advantage of everything your device has to offer. However, with over 2 million apps and counting to choose from, finding apps to download can be a daunting task. To help you decide which apps can be the most useful to you, we’ve compiled a list of our top ten app picks for teachers: