Hey everyone! Yes, it’s been a long while. Being back to work full-time made it a little bit not easy to blog, and now I’m having a week off from work due to Pchum Benh Holidays here in Cambodia. What is Pchum Benh? I want to lead you to this blog, click the im if you want to know more about it?
But yes, anyway, here I am having too many things planned to write about. First, let me give you an update about how schools are now here in Cambodia during this COVID19 pandemic.
Since the 1st week of August, schools here started to reopen after receiving approval from the Ministry of Education Youth and Sports . To those who are not aware, schools who have opened earlier definitely means that they have facilities, equipment, and resources to operate their schools despite all necessary precautions needed to be followed. I don’t have any certain list of these schools, but if you want to know specific details, please do send me an email, and I might be able to clarify some questions you may have.
Teriz Effective Teaching Tips
It has almost been a month that I have been back to school; and now, I want to give you some tips on how to overcome automatic stress that this covid19 pandemic gives to all teachers. Don’t get me wrong, I am fully aware that this stresses each and everyone of us. Before I start, I would love to let you all know that I have been teaching for 14 years now and definitely this passion and dedication that I put to my craft has never been changed. It only gets better even right now. I do this not only for my students but more importantly, for myself. I do find this as one of the means to fulfill myself and to enhanced my well-being. It is important for me to feel good about what I do, and yes, I owe that to myself. We all owe that to ourselves. I do have simple techniques that I use and that I want to share with you all on how we can be effective teachers even during these difficult times.
Here are my effective teaching tips
- Tip#1-Make a weekly plan ahead
<li><span style="color: #0000ff"><strong>weekly planner</strong></span></li>
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- Tip#2-Daily Details– Spending atleast 30 minutes every day before your class starts will tremendously help you achieve a productive class. Depend ofcourse on how fast you can think or use devices to make sure everything you need for your class is ready digitally and in hard copy. Yes! Due to the fact that now, some students are studying online and some are attending schools, I do have a digital copy of everything we do in the classroom just to make sure students who are studying online are not missing any or atleast they grasp the main lesson each day. Keeping a schedule of when you are going to do this is vital. Just follow your schedule and do not over think for the following days coming. Just think to prepare for your class one day at a time.
- Tip#3-Be Tech Savvy– Born in 1985, definitely I am not, however, I always search for some ways on how to improve my ICT skills, may it be asking colleagues, online free workshops, or just by simply google research. I love to learn something new, and as a teacher I think we all should be. So if you think you are a little behind with this, please do join some facebook groups that shares enough resources to support you. Here’s the group I am in and that I found very helpful.
- Tech Savvy
- Tip#4-The power of Resilience
- Resilience
- Tip#5-Time Management- How do you define work? For me, work is expected to be undone. I mean it doesn’t stop. It goes on and on and on. Have you ever told yourself one time “yes, I’m done with my work” ?. I bet not. Work is an ongoing task and if it is done, then it is not work. Many of us for sure face an 8 or 9 hour work shift, and I bet many teachers forgot to give themselves a time to pause, refresh, and rewind during our daily work. Giving yourself time to laugh, chat, and chill is an important factor in our career, and if you don’t know how to manage your time, you will lose this chance to relax in between your work shifts, and later on lose yourself maybe. We don’t want that do we? Lunch Breaks, snacks time, give that to yourself. Do not feel guilty if you do so, we all need that, and once you have given that to yourself, definitely you will perform better on your next shift or class. If you have no idea how to give this to yourself, please check this site out.
- Tip#6-Follow your time IN and time outt
<li><span style="font-weight: 400">feel good I know. So I think, setting that daily alarm clock not just to wake you up each day, but also when to pack up and get ready to leave your work, will give you this positive feeling that you have done your job right, and that you deserve to go home and be with your family on time as well. I do voluntarily work overtime at times but that is rarely. That doesn’t mean I missed something I need to do, but maybe because I want to add more creativity to the craft I am about to present to my class the next day. Again, this is a personal choice, do what makes you happy.</span></li>
- Tip#7-Smile– Work, workplace, and boss sounds stressful already, isn’t it? One of the best ways to deal with this is to smile everyday to everyone, regardless who they are and what they do. I know for some this is not an easy thing, and good thing is for me, I find this thing to be natural and yes, I do smile a lot, not to please anybody, but for me to give myself the beautiful day I do deserve. Give it a try, entering your workplace with a genuine smile makes a BIG difference. Maybe you are saying, “oh yeah?smile? Are you kidding me?”. Well, actually not. Sounds very cliche but we all do know that, it is easier to smile than to frown. If you want more scientific proof, scientists discovered that our body has to work harder and use more muscles when we frown than when we smile. So yeah, do you want to add more hard work to your job? ..hahaha bet not! Start smiling.
- Tip#8-Laugh– Other than smiling, laughing at things that pisses you off, frustrates you, and challenges you could only be the thing that you fail to do so. If you find laughing alone crazy, then find someone to laugh with. Good thing I got atleast one or two buddies at work that I can laugh with. Well, without them, work life could be un enjoyable. Thanks to you both, Gigi and Angelo.
- Tip#9-Safety first– With the COVID 19 precautionary measure strictly implemented, we as dedicated and passionate teachers may tend to forget these safety measures. Having posters posted in your classroom to remind you about all these will definitely help you deliver your lesson plan to your class without compromising your safety and well-being. So, start printing out those signs, or better yet ask your students to do that for the whole class. Make it as a class project. Students would love making those, and at the end, these benefit everyone including yourself. If you are looking for some free covid19 posters, here’s a link for that. Take these covid19 measures seriously. I do.
- Tip#10-Healthy Snacks, Healthy Lunch– Being busy should not be an excuse for us all not to be able to bring healthy snacks and lunch to work. I am a real preoccupied mom and a homemaker, and I always make it a point that I am able to bring healthy options for me to eat while at work. I prepped everything I needed to bring to school a night before and that has been a routine so far. I can’t imagine facing daily stress at work of looking for healthy and clean food to eat. I do believe in the power of food. You eat well, you feel well. So if ever you had a bad day, try to ask yourself, “What have I eaten?”, certainly you will know the reason why. In line with this, I am now compiling simple recipes that you can try and that are perfect food to take to work. Hopefully I will be able to finish that soon, and that would be all shared to all my subscribers for free. For now, you may check this blog out.
So there you go dear teachers. My 10 teaching tips during Covid19 pandemic.
I know these tips are not new to you and am I hoping that reading this blog will motivate you to do what you have forgotten to do for yourself. I do hope that we will all have productive days at work, and that we continue to guide and inspire young learners to be better individuals that could help this world become a better place to live in.
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