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How to Find Free Teaching Resources

Planning is upon us and we are all excited about our new classes for 2011. Proper preparation prevents Teacher stress and burn out in the long run. Phase meetings and subject meetings need to include analysis of this year's results and failures so as to prevent these common mistakes and shortcomings next year.

A carefully constructed and graded approach to planning for an English department must for example outline exactly how teachers will build on and add new skills and content to the curriculum each year in each grade. Teachers often spend hours pouring over new textbook samples , seeking content. Teachers need to realize just how many free teaching resources are available "out there" and shown just how easy they are to access.

Teachers need no longer purchase expensive resources and materials to find content for their lessons or assessments. Teacher resource websites contain a wealth of information. These sites offer lesson resources, such as worksheets in every subject for every grade (K to 12). You will even find time saving resources such as ready made assessment rubrics and assessment tasks.

English teachers can access literature packs and resources for well-known authors whose books are often used as class readers. If your setwork book is changing next year, have no fear. Read the novel or play and sit down at your computer for a few hours. You will find author biographies and many activities, worksheets and lesson plans to assist you in making your lessons interactive, informative and fun.

One of the greatest challenges today's teachers face is the trend towards inclusivity, that is , the need to work with children of different abilities within one class. Often teachers have to draw up three to five different assessment tasks for each lesson to cater for students' different levels of understanding and capability.Now you can download already graded exercises and allow learners to work at their own pace and slowly work towards the required standard set by the teacher and the curriculum. Set your gifted children "free" to go ahead of the class. Make sure you have your extra resources box ready for the new year. Keep comprehension reading cards on hand for children who finish their classwork long before the others. Make sure you attach a reward to the completion of extra work.

Children, like adults long to be affirmed and praise goes a long way toward motivating students to work even harder.Download various comprehension passages and questions from a teaching site and make sure that the content is relevant and modern and encourages twenty first century children to read. You can also download word searches, puzzles, crosswords and fun games as additional resources for the classroom.

If you do have computers available for your students, allow the faster children to go ahead with an online test or quiz as a reward. These interactive tasks encourage students and motivate them to keep learning. A variety of activities during class time is essential to keep the children's interest and to increase student participation.

In our schools we often find disparity in the quality of work presented by teachers. School managers are tasked with counseling staff members whose work is poor or substandard. Sometimes it is a presentation issue where teachers hand in hand-written notes or assessment tasks.Clearly in a well-resourced school with access to computers, the Internet and printing facilities, this unprofessionally presented work represents bad planning on the part of the teacher.

Poor content is more of a problem to address, but school managers would be well-advised to spend time with the staff member and take them on a guided tour of the very best teacher resource sites available on the Internet. Once a teacher understands how easy it is to access high quality content, notes, worksheets and assessment tasks, he or she will be inspired to do more of the same. It is only a very small percentage of teachers who may find themselves being fired for incompetence. Sometimes a lazy teacher just needs a very firm push in the right direction from a school manager who is not willing to accept shoddy work.


Don't leave the counseling of weaker teachers until next year. Address the issues now and insist on seeing preparations for classroom activities and assessments each week so you see that teacher X is well on track with the presentation of professional end products for use in the classroom.



This post first appeared on Public Schools Of Substance, please read the originial post: here

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How to Find Free Teaching Resources

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