The Teaching Advocate

 As a teaching advocate, decorating your classroom is essential for your students because the classroom is a safe space for them. Decorating your classroom encourages the students to learn and allows them to feel comfortable. The teaching advocate will provide tips for decorating your classroom in today's blog.  1.) Establish up with a theme. Some teachers tend to base their themes on cartoons or books to be relatable to the children.  2.) Make colorful and fun anchor charts for the class. Always remember that anchor charts are essential for learning in a classroom.  3.) Hang up students' work in the classroom. This is critical because it makes your students feel special and motivates them to do their best.  4.) Make your seating charts flexible. Don't subject students to sitting in rows; put them in groups so they can do collaborative work with their peers.  5.) Keep your classroom organized!!!! This factor plays a crucial role in maintaining a welcoming...

  As a teacher, your day never really ends. You teach in the classroom during the day and then go home and grade papers or make lesson plans in the evening. When do you ever really have time for yourself? As a teaching advocate, I am here to tell you that teachers' mental health matters, too!   As teachers, we sometimes swarm ourselves in so much work for our students that we forget to breathe. We're spending 90% of our day, when we're not sleeping, lol, on thinking about ways to improve teaching methods and ensuring that all of our students are passing.  I am writing to remind you that you are a fantastic teacher! Please give yourself a break and quit stressing! Stop giving yourself headaches from worrying about things in the classroom. Students and Faculty see that you're trying!  Take a mental health day for yourself and relax! Those papers that need to be graded can wait till Monday. As teachers, we are dedicated to our students, but we must remember to be dedica...

  Is technology effective or ineffective in the classroom? Technology usage in the classroom is an ongoing debate within the education field. As a teaching advocate, I have mixed feelings regarding this topic. Therefore, I took the time to personally ask fellow educators their opinions on using technology in the classroom. I received some positive and some negative feedback about the topic at hand. In today's blog, I've listed the pros and cons of using technology in the classroom. Pros- Allows access to resources: Technology allows students to look up and research any topic they are learning. The internet has hundreds of textbooks, worksheets, and educational videos for every school subject. Students are more engaged: Teachers can use websites like Kahoot, Quizlet, Google Classroom, etc, to teach the material and do homework. These websites have many ways to keep students engaged and ensure they retain information, like animations, videos, learning games, and presentations. ...

  Today's blog will be a vulnerable side of the teaching advocate. As a current education major preparing to enter the classroom to teach, I always think: will my classroom be safe enough? Over the years, violence in schools has increased rapidly, whether it be violence against teachers or school shootings . As teachers, we must prepare ourselves for the endless possibilities of violence that may occur within the schools. From teacher to teacher, I can honestly say that I am very nervous about my safety when entering the classroom. There have been way too many incidents where parents send their children to school, which is supposed to be a "haven" for students, and something violent occurs. If I were a parent, that would honestly scare me. Schools are beginning to lack the safety and security that students and teachers need daily. Weapons entering our schools is something students, teachers, or administration should never have to worry about. Still, you must enter school...

  Interactive learning is a teaching approach that actively engages students when learning material. Interactive learning encourages students to participate, work with their peers, and use critical thinking skills.  As teachers, we must remember that in this day and age, our students' attention spans may be weaker than others, so auditory learning is not the only approach teachers should take when teaching new material. As a teaching advocate, I believe any material taught in the classroom should be interactive to engage all students. The more students are engaged, the more they will likely retain the information well.  Here are several ways to make learning more interactive within a classroom. The group discussion method allows students to discuss the material being taught and shows how well they understood and retained it. The use of stations within the classroom is an effective interactive learning method. Stations allow students to work together or sometimes alone al...