Recharging your Batteries over Break

YOU GUYS! We did it! We made it to Winter Break without completely losing our sanity—well, most of us that is.

As you begin to prepare for the holidays and the happy chaos, that comes with that, be sure to take some time for yourself.

This entertaining article provides 12 ways to recharge your teacher batteries over the holidays.

Here it is at a glance:
- Reflect on the positives of last term
- Don’t go to work!
- Turn off your email
- Set specific time aside for work if you need to
- Get enough sleep
- Eat well
- Plan something to look forward to
- Get creative
- Get some fresh air
- Create a relaxing environment
- Indulge yourself
- Play!

Have a restful break. You deserve it!

Waiting Strategies to Meet Student Needs

For many, the holiday season is packed so full of things that we have to do and things that we want to do that the stress can be overwhelming. Throw in lessons to plan, papers to grade, restless students (all the way through December 22--eek!), staff parties and holidayevents, and, suddenly, we wonder if we can even survive.  Perhaps what we need most is to settle back, take a deep breath, and practice waiting.

In “Waiting is the Hardest (and Best) Part,” Neil Finney reminds us that our students often   learn even more when we wait, rather than act immediately. Read his full blog here 

(https://www.edutopia.org/blog/waiting-hardest-and-best-part-neil-finney).  

Collection Systems for Formative Assessments

Ever find yourself drowning in the assessment data you’ve been collecting since September? Haven’t quite figured out a streamlined way of organizing this data? Or, do you have a HUGE binder stuffed with student work that needs to be organized?

Google Forms is one way to keep your formative assessment data orderly and easy to access!

In this short and informative article, it explains how Google Forms can be the perfect solution to your collection system problems. Google Forms automatically creates a spreadsheet of your data that you can store and organize AND access whenever you need it.

Thanks to Kimberly Allison's expertise, here are some helpful websites you can visit to get you started:

· A “How To” from Google: https://gsuite.google.com/learning-center/products/forms/get-started/

· A formative assessment example: http://alicekeeler.com/2016/03/29/google-forms-quiz/

· An article that addresses the quiz option: https://edtechchange.blogspot.com/2016/08/google-apps-for-education-updates.html

Please know that you can contact Kimberly Allison ( kallison@tahoamsd.us ) if you need any support with using Google!

Visit our previous blogs for formative assessment ideas to help you create an assessment to use with Google Forms.

As always, we gladly take suggestions for future instructional tips.