Blog

A Six-Item Checklist to Close Out the Year

Many schools have formal checklists for finishing the school year. These tasks are, appropriately, designed to ensure an orderly close-out to the year, and they are often heavily weighted toward logistical and procedural tasks. As examples, most end-of-year checklists include items such as putting away materials and equipment, completing maintenance and repair requests, and finishing any remaining storage and inventory tasks. Our completion of these and similar tasks will make it easier for maintenance, purchasing, and other staff to complete their work over the summer.

However, these are not the only important steps we need to consider as we wrap up another year. Often, there are things not yet said that should be said, steps not taken that need to be taken, and commitments not made that deserve our attention and action before we leave. They may not be on the formal checkout list, yet they can be even more important those tasks that are. Here are six steps that can make the summer better—and the fall worthy of anticipation.

First, if you have a lingering conflict, disagreement, or other unfinished business, tend to it now. If you need to apologize or make things right with a colleague, student, parent, or other person, don’t leave it for later. We cannot know what the summer will bring. There may not be another opportunity, and carrying an unnecessary emotional burden can drain the very energy you need to be replenishing.

Second, if there is someone you need to thank, someone whose support needs to be recognized, or appreciation that needs to be shared, do it now. What you have to say may be exactly what they need to hear. There may never be a time when what you have to say will mean more. The longer you wait, the less weight your words are likely to carry.

Third, if you are part of a team, schedule time to meet before everyone scatters for the summer. Now is a good time to create an initial plan and list of priorities for next year’s work. Time spent sorting out logistical, alignment, and resource issues before you leave can relieve pressure in the fall and give everyone a head start on their thinking, planning, and arranging as they have time over the summer. If someone new will be joining the team, this also may be a good opportunity to get acquainted and begin building the new team.

Fourth, consider what you will need immediately in the fall. As you put things away, be sure to place the items you will need first in easily remembered and easily accessed spaces. You might even make a list of a few things that you want to remember and attend to first and create a file or place the list in a desk drawer or other handy place. Having a few things ready when you return can ease some stress, save some time, and help you have a smoother re-entry when you return.

Fifth, if you have not done so yet, finish your professional learning plans for the summer. Time will pass quickly once the school year fades into history. Committing, scheduling, and registering for professional learning events and activities now can ensure that they are not overlooked or forgotten. By making commitments now, vacations and other summer activities can be scheduled around the learning you want to gain.

Finally, once this year has been “tied off,” it is time to refocus your attention on recharging your energy and rejuvenating your spirit. Returning in the fall with renewed passion and a fresh mindset is much easier to accomplish when time with family and friends, pursuing hobbies, or just engaging in activities that feed your soul has been a focus for the summer.

The final days of the year, especially once students have departed, can be filled with mixed emotions. We may want to leave as soon as possible! However, we cannot afford to leave the year with unfinished business that can compromise our effectiveness, sap our energy, and add to our stress in the summer or fall.

May 09, 2024

Seven Reflection Questions to Capture YOUR Learning from the Past Year

The end of a school year is a good time to pause, reflect, and glean important learning from the past year’s experiences with students, instructional strategies, curricular challenges, and other aspects of our practice while they’re still fresh in our memories. Now is the best time to capture what we have experienced and turn that into learning.

We might think that having the experience is enough to build our learning. However, learning is not the result of experience. After all, experiences can be repeated endlessly and with little gain. Learning, on the other hand, results from reflection. Here are seven questions to stimulate reflection and transform your experience into learning.

How did your most challenging student(s) frustrate you this year? What lesson(s) can you learn that will prevent reoccurrence of the experience next year? There is a philosophical view that in life, we will continually experience frustrations or failure until we learn a lesson that shifts our thinking and behavior, and once the shift is made, we are no longer challenged by the situation. If you discern the lesson your students’ behavior can teach you and identify ways to implement potential solutions, your frustration will likely diminish.

What student(s) surprised you, and how did that experience change your expectations? What we expect is often what we choose to see. However, occasionally something happens that challenges what we expect and changes what we experience. Over the course of the year, it is likely that at least one student’s insight, behavior, or observation challenged what you expected. What can that experience suggest about adjustments to what you expect?

What learning activity or activities did not go well? What was the cause? Might your approach be recast, redesigned, or recontextualized to have it connect with students the next time? In most cases, something might be salvaged, adjusted, or otherwise repurposed to provide value. Even if you conclude that the activity should not receive more attention or be repeated, you have learned something to avoid in the future.

What curriculum content did not connect with students? Curricular items present a different challenge than a strategy or activity that did not work. We can abandon a strategy, but curricular content is part of what we promise to students and for which we are accountable. It may be time to find new examples, concrete applications, or other ways to help students see the value and purpose of the content for next year. Of course, consulting colleagues who may teach the same curriculum or similar content can help to generate ideas and options to consider.

What advice did you receive from a colleague that you need to accept and act on? How will it change your approach or practice? Over the course of the year, you probably received much advice, some of which may have held little value for your work. Other insights and suggestions, though, may be worth keeping and even improving upon for future use. Making a note of what you want to recall and how you might apply it can preserve it for use during the next school year.

What did you discover about yourself this year that is worthy of note and implies an adjustment in how you view yourself? The challenges, surprises, successes, and even setbacks contain important lessons about our own selves. Take a few minutes to reflect on the high points, low points, triumphs, and missteps you experienced. What can you learn and apply to your planning for next year?

How did you typically spend your time each weekly cycle throughout the year? Did your use of time reflect your priorities and provide enough balance to be productive without being exhausted? Where do you need to decrease your time investment to create opportunities and energy for other endeavors? Do you need to find more and better times to disconnect, clear your mind, and refresh your soul? Where will you start?

The end of the year can be an incredibly busy time, but failing to pause, reflect, and learn is a mistake. Some of your most important learning can happen now.

April 25, 2024

Six Secrets to Success and Sanity in the Final Weeks

The end of another year is only a few weeks away. Until then, we may have complete and detailed plans for all that we want to accomplish. Yet, much of what will actually happen in the coming days will compete with and even disrupt what we have imagined. We will also feel the added pressure and stress to finish instruction, wrap up learning, and finalize other tasks and projects. Ultimately, the time we have left will likely not be enough to do all that we would like.

The challenge we face is to successfully wrap up the year without feeling as though we are losing control or becoming overwhelmed with frustration and stress. As we anticipate the coming days and weeks, here are six proven strategies to make our work more manageable and our experience more enjoyable. They can help us to find success without losing our sanity. As we think about these strategies, we might consider the safety instructions we receive when beginning a flight: we must put on our own oxygen mask before we can help others to do the same. In this metaphor, the “flight” is, of course, a symbol of our approach to the finish line.

Set boundaries and create space. Despite the inevitable stress and competing expectations, finding time to do things we enjoy, making memories with family and friends, exercising, and just relaxing are important to being our best selves. If we are stressed and exhausted, we will not do our best work.

Support and rely on colleagues. Trying to manage and complete everything that must be done by ourselves can be overwhelming. Collaborating on projects, sharing resources, and stepping up to help each other can make a huge difference. Beyond sharing the load, feeling support, and sharing ideas, working with others can lower our stress and increase our sense of connectedness.

Focus on what really matters. We need to be realistic. The amount of time available is limited, while the number of potential tasks and activities lists are likely to be long. We might consider what we can let go of or postpone. Not every meeting must be held, not every deadline must be firm, and not every expectation must be met.

Look for small wins. It might be tempting to focus on what might go wrong. We can balance this pressure by focusing on small wins to keep us positive and optimistic. We might reach out to a student with whom we have found it difficult to connect, or we may help a struggling student across the finish line. We might complete a project or perfect a skill with which we have wrestled for some time. The key is to recognize that despite what may feel like chaos, we are still making a difference.

Be flexible and adapt. We know that not everything will go as planned. There will be surprises and disruptions, and communication will not always be timely and complete. Expecting perfection only adds to our stress. Choosing to “go with the flow,” stay loose, and expect the unexpected can reduce our frustration and help us to maintain our balance as we approach the end.

Reflect, celebrate, and be present. We, our colleagues, and our students have come a long way. We have faced a myriad of challenges and experienced many accomplishments, and we have all learned and matured. Hopefully, we have also collaborated and grown as we engaged with our colleagues. Now is the time to reflect on what has happened and celebrate what has been accomplished. We also need to allow ourselves to be fully present, appreciate the moment, and experience the sense of completion that the end of the year offers.

This is a special time of the year. There is much to celebrate, but we can become caught up in the tasks, projects, and challenges that distract us from the big picture and undermine our appreciation of what has been accomplished. Taking time for ourselves, setting reasonable expectations, remaining flexible, supporting each other, and celebrating all that has been achieved can help us to end the year with pride, joy, and satisfaction.

April 25, 2024

Tap Cognitive Science to Keep Students Learning in the Final Weeks

As we near the final weeks of the school year, we might struggle to have students remain engaged in their learning. Yet, the time we have with students at this point in the year can be exceptionally rich—if they remain focused and challenged. We know our students; we have built relationships and established trust. Some of the best learning of the year should happen now. Further, if students remain focused and engaged, we can avoid many behavior challenges and distractions that often accompany this time of the year.

Fortunately, there are several strategies based in cognitive science upon which we can draw to maintain momentum and stimulate continued learning. Here are six strategies to consider and tap.

Coming attraction: What now? Often referred to as “priming questions,” we can capture students’ attention with questions that preview new learning and pique their curiosity. As examples: “How can knowing fractions help you to become rich?” Or “How can listening become a personal superpower?” The questions can also be used to define the purpose of new learning. The answer to the question becomes something to actively discover rather than information to be passively received. Questions can also be more interesting than a learning goal statement. The questions become even more useful when we pause instruction periodically and invite students to describe their evolving knowledge and understanding of the question and what it means.

Confounding: What’s this? We can break up routines by adding mystery, conflict, novelty, and surprise to capture attention, generate excitement, and pique curiosity. As examples, we might provide just enough information on a topic to pique students’ interests. We can offer a short overview without sharing too much. We might invite students to speculate, question, and imagine. We might surprise students with the arrival of an unannounced visitor with a problem or mystery for the class to solve. We might unveil a picture that invites discussion or investigation. We can allow students to “light the path” to discovery as we respond strategically to their interest, curiosity, and growing understanding.

Connecting: What’s new; what’s old? After we have introduced a new piece of content or skill and students have grasped the essentials, we can challenge them to connect their new learning to what they have already learned. For example, we might have students form small groups to discuss connections with past learning. We can provide them with a resource packet to assist their efforts. For example, we might share a syllabus, a description of past learning standards, past assignments and assessments, and other related items. After revisiting their learning and discussing connections, groups can report the connections they have identified. Meanwhile, we can monitor what may be missing and may require reteaching. Not only will students make important connections, but we will also be stimulating and extending their recall of past learning.

Consolidating: Can you teach it? One of the most effective ways to ensure students learn and retain new content is to have them teach each other. Students might be allowed to choose what aspect of new learning they would like to teach. Their instruction might be to small groups or the entire class, depending on variables such as the time available and the topics to be taught. Teaching others what they have learned generates greater purpose for learning, more focused attention, more authentic responsibility, and increased integration of what has been learned.

Contemplating: What’s your question? Having students generate questions about what they have learned is a great way to increase comprehension, consolidate learning, and extend recall. Consider having students submit questions for possible inclusion on a future learning assessment. Of course, we may need to teach how to frame a good question, including how to encourage depth of response and elaboration. While it may not be realistic to include all the questions students submit, we might commit to a set number of questions from those submitted. Beyond the learning benefits of forming assessment questions, students are often eager to respond to what they and other students have submitted.

Collecting: What do you recall? We might periodically select content that we want students to solidify in their memories. Called retrieval practice, this activity has students list everything they can recall regarding a concept, skill, or topic they studied. Students might make a list, create a mind map, or verbally discuss what they can remember. We can invite students to fill in each other’s recollection gaps. Multiple studies have shown retrieval practice to be exceptionally effective in building long-term memory and improving recall.

The final weeks of the school year can be a time of disruption and distraction—but they can also be a prime time for learning. It is a good time to tap what cognitive science has to offer to support our efforts and our students’ growth.

April 03, 2024