As a non coffee drinker it is still hard to understand the need or demand people have for coffee to start their day. I see it is an addiction but whatever time my wife wants to get up I make sure she has coffee steaming when she arises or I wake her up. I, on the other hand once I wake up I am raring to go. Yes, as most of you know I don’t get much sleep as there is so much for me to do and learn each day.
During my many years of carpooling we had to stop before getting to school to fuel up on coffee. Later, when I was the early morning person in my school I would start a pot of coffee for my colleagues. Yes, I used to get to my school at 6:00 am (I am still on that time schedule so it is no problem for me to wake up early for the stimulating #bfc530 chat on school days) to answer the telephone for teachers calling in to be absent. I then had to figure out how to cover their classes. We had an average of ten teacher absences a day and without subs it was a difficult task. When we did get a sub they wouldn’t last when they saw what they had to face. My East New York page
The hardest job for me as a classroom teacher and curriculum writer was the motivation, Do Now or get started part of the lesson plan. I used to spend an inordinate amount of time trying to decide what would grab the attention of my students right from the start. My Lesson Plans page
I tried to figure out what made my students tick. I spent a lot of time finding out what songs, movies and activities my students enjoyed. I used this as a basis for the beginning of lessons. I needed something they understood to motivate them and get them started on learning more.
We need to start from where are students are at and then build from there. Never assume students know something. I can vividly recall the countless times when I introduced a topic and my students would tell me they had that already. However, when I questioned them they could not respond. Yes, they may be familiar with the term but do they really know what it is all about. That is another reason why I strongly feel they will remember more if they are involved in the learning. I found what they remembered were those special projects, cooperative learning activities or such. Project-Based learning is a great way to engage students. Have them find a situation that needs improvement and let them figure out a solution.
My Project-Based Learning #PBL page
Spend quality time, after you have your coffee, on ways to jump start your students learning. Keep in mind where they are at and what motivates them. Have awesome days of learning.
I also recommend starting each day with your students with a morning meeting and then ending the day with an exit slip of learning:
And for administrators (#satchat #satchatwc #satchatOC #cpchat) make sure you get your schools off to great starts each day. You can find some stimulating ways on
PS
I would be remiss for not mentioning those that get my learning day started: Scott Capro who started the Breakfast Club Chat #bfc530 and now Jessica Raleigh @TyrnaD who has kept it growing and @alicekeeler who came up with the #coffeeEDU idea and @RemindHQ for sponsoring them.
I started the Twitter Education Chat Schedule many years ago when there were very few chats so that I could keep track of them. I used to be able to tweet out each day the chats for that day but it is impossible now with so many of them. I want to sincerely thank @thomascmurray @cevans @conniehamilton and @jrochelle for taking my original primitive chat list and improving on it.