CopyRoom Chat

Flexibility in our career is such an important skill. We've already been tested on this quite thoroughly. Hello?! The last three school years?! But, let's remind ourselves that this has, and will always be, an important skill for teachers, and all school staff. In this episode we talk about how setting the stage for flexibility will help us adapt and change as the year progresses

Welcome back to the Chat!! Take a quick listen to hear what is up coming this season on CopyRoom Chat!! This season we will dive deeper into many classroom topics. New this season we are going to be bringing on special guests as well. We are so excited to be back!

In this episode, The Practical Teachers chat about how important it is for us to ask for help, advocate for ourselves and commit to a culture of sharing so teachers in all stages can feel safe sharing challenges and success with others. Since there is always more to learn, if we remain open to sharing and asking for help, we can continually find new and different ways of doing things and stop reinventing the wheel!

This week Reyne and Amy have some exciting news. Our Practical Math Intervention program is ready for Kindergarten and First Grade classrooms. Join our fall pilot program and help us make math intervention easy to implement and accessible for all learners. This week we will share the real passion behind our standards-aligned math intervention program. It comes after years of teaching math, and watching students learn math and experiencing the joys and challenges of impacting student achievement and growth in math Check out or website: www.thepracticalteachers.com Flyer for Pilot program: https://thepracticalteachers.com/pilotprogram/

This week we are talking about something that is happening all year, in all classrooms, everywhere. We are constantly managing a myriad of in class assessments and the data we gain from these different tools. These assessments are so important to inform our teaching, as well as giving us a full picture of what is happening in our classroom and school. The proctoring of these important assessments can sometimes feel like a passive time. However, managing these important tools in your classroom should be a verb; an active process that you are planning for, thinking about and managing. If we address some simple tips and carefully plan we can create an environment that is optimal for students doing their best work.

In this episode, The Practical Teachers talk through some important reminders when thinking about building classroom resources. How can we ensure our students have the resources and supplies they need when the school budget may be depleted? Even when school budgets are limited, that doesn't change our desire to want the best for our classrooms and our students. In this episode, we brainstorm some new ideas and revisit some tried and true ways of finding opportunities to fundraise in the school and classroom community.

Are you maximizing all possible teaching time or are you still finding yourself bogged down in procedures and systems you feel your students should be managing independently by now? Creating autonomy for our students in our classroom is important for many reasons. The more we can allow our students to own, the more time we can spend on teaching. Also, this creates a true sense of community in our classroom and allows students and teachers to both feel ownership of how far we've come and all that has been accomplished. Let's chat about the times in the day we can turn over to our students so our focus can be turned to the important skills we need to be teaching.

Sometimes we just have to brag about ourselves! Administrators get busy and sometimes our hard work can seem to go unnoticed. In this episode we are chatting about the importance of “tooting your own horn” from time to time. If we forget to share all our celebrations with others in our building, and people are busy juggling the day to day deliverables, lots of successes could get missed. Don't let this happen. Take some time and remember to share all the wins with others. Afterall, it's contagious and spreads positivity!

Whether this year has seemed to drag on and on, or flown by faster than ever, performance evaluations are quickly approaching. You have all your goals in the back (or front) of your mind while you also juggle all the balls of the second half of the year. How can we effectively get all this in? In this episode we are chatting about maximizing these formal (and informal) classroom observations and all other aspects that make up the performance review process. Let's not get surprised this year by an evaluation that doesn't seem to completely match up to all the amazing strides we've experienced this year. Instead, let us become experts in our own evaluations, just as we are each the expert in our classrooms.

In this episode Reyne and Amy talk about the important task of family engagement. With our ever-changing school landscape we need to remind ourselves, and support each other, in keeping this a priority. From remote learning classrooms in living rooms to students in person without families being able to join, we need to chat about ways to keep families feeling included and involved and yet not create another overwhelming layer to our daily responsibilities. We will brainstorm simple, effective ways to engage families no matter what your school environment looks like this year

In this episode we take a look back at some of our most memorable field trips and provide some tips and tricks to plan and execute these educational opportunities thoughtfully. Field trips are an essential part of the learning process. As educators, we should be tapping into every resource available to make these opportunities accessible to all our students.

In this episode we take on Part 2 of the "Elephant in the Classroom". We all need to be able to identify why we do the things we do, why we choose the paths we choose. We want to chat about remembering, revisiting and redefining your why. Without an authentic why, it becomes harder to do what is required of us. Why did you choose education? What has changed about that, if anything? What learnings from the pandemic can, and will, inform your thinking as you move forward in your career? Let's chat about the importance of us all defining these whys and sharing them with our community.

In this episode we are just taking a minute to digress from our regular classroom topics to chat about how teachers are feeling right now. There didn't seem to be an appropriate was to move forward without chatting about the elephant in the classroom. There is always the normal cycle of a school year and normal ebbs and flows of expected burnout but this, right now, seems to feel different. What is that about? How are teachers feeling right now and can we reflect on that to find a way forward?

In many schools, conferences with students' caregivers are just around the corner. There are many parts that go into the full picture of a student. What areas are important to assess, to discuss and to highlight at this time of the year? As always, we may find ourselves short on time so let's chat about how we can prepare for these meetings to be useful to us, and to the students and caregivers. We have a unique opportunity now to connect with families and build a partnership for the year to come.

Are routines slipping in your classroom causing unwanted behaviors to drain everyone's energy? In this week's episode Reyne and Amy tackle this authentic classroom struggle.  The struggle is real and here are some tips!

Implementing small groups in your classroom can be overwhelming. However, now is the time if we are going to efficiently capture time in the school day to re-teach, remediate, teach new skills and even pre-teach critical competencies. These all important interventions are where we can strengthen our academic relationships with our students and celebrate the hard-earned wins. Let's chat about some best practices to simplify kicking this off in your classroom.

In this episode we simplify lesson planning. Let's chat about the importance of planning engaging lessons (this often helps with many of your classroom management concerns), a plan for differentiation, an opportunity for independent practice, a check for understanding and even some fun.

During this weeks episode we dive into the hot topic around building classroom community. Are you teaching remotely, in-person or somewhere in-between? What challenges have you faced in building community? Join us in the CopyRoom as we discuss challenges and perhaps some changes to building classroom community.

In this episode, we are talking through some easy ideas to get family conversations and partnerships off to a strong (and early!) start. The year is off to a busy start and we can so easily get into the details with lesson planning, assessments and other classroom deliverables. However, we all know how important our relationships with student's families are! Let's make those partnerships thrive!

Setting up your classroom learning space for the new year is an important job of any teacher. It's often the one thing that teachers think about all summer. Join us for a chat about what is most important when building this space and how to survive the hours of school PD requirements that come during these busy weeks.

What is one way teachers can ensure a great school year? On this episode we focus in on one tip that will help you get off on the right foot this school year!

As teachers, the start of a new school year is such a uniquely important time. We can so easily become overwhelmed by all the tasks required of us, and those we put on ourselves. Let's chat about how to triage these several weeks most efficiently.

Are you looking for mentorship and support? The CopyRoom Chat podcast is a place where we provide practical tools and ideas to tackle authentic classroom struggles. This podcast is geared towards all teachers, whether you are in your first year or starting your thirtieth year. We want to provide quick useful tools for teachers to thrive instead of just surviving in their classrooms.