Season 1, Episode 28.
Welcome to Little Things are Big Things Education with K-Dub and T-Free. I’m Tim Freeburg, I teach high school math in Bowling Green, KY and am working on my 7th year of teaching in the classroom. In addition, I have facilitated social and emotional learning workshops around the country for 2 years with a group called Challenge Day. And I am David Kilpatrick-White. I have taught both middle school and high school social studies and am working through my 10th year. I also have coached primarily football, soccer and track over the past 20 years. I have been both a head coach and a department head. We both want to welcome you to a conversation about how valuable relationship building is with our students in the classroom. We will cover topics like; connection activities, how relationships can be used to encourage student growth, and sharing our favorite memories from teaching. Everything we have accomplished in our classrooms goes back to the relationships we build with our students and is totally replicable. Feel free to use, share, adapt everything we provide here. And if you would like to go even deeper, we would love to have you join our Live Monthly Group, called the “Teacher Vault,” where we go live, with you, every month for an hour and deep dive into the latest research and tools available for you to use in your classroom and connect with students. You will also have access to teacher resources we have created and use in our classrooms. Now, without further ado, let’s get on to this week’s episode.
Welcome back to Flexibility Week as we dive a little deeper into our big idea. Have you ever taken a moment to think about all the things students are dealing with today? Supporting the family financially, working multiple jobs, building a college resume with extra curriculars, multiple AP classes per year, on top of being a hormonal roller coaster! Yes, I’m absolutely driven crazy when students refuse to put in effort, AND I’m learning to find out why they might be shutting down, creating a flexible schedule to get them back on track, and remembering the two biggest goals; never give up, and keep as many doors open as possible. There is value in having false deadlines to keep students on pace to succeed, but we also need to have flexibility with all of the ways students can get overwhelmed and over committed. What is the REAL deadline? Is it the end of the unit? End of the quarter? Maybe even the semester!?!? Keep that door open for a kid that wants to get back on track. They won’t all follow through, and there has to be hard end dates and consequences for falling short of the requirements to pass, but try as hard as you can to keep every door open and have flexibility for as long as you can. Be Flexible and Firm.
For additional resources and to join our Teacher Vault, please check out our website at https://LittleBigEd.com and https://PeakStateMathematics.com.
Until next week,
“Remember to always learn in a Peak State.” ~ T-Free
and
“Make it a great day!” ~ K-Dub. __________________________________________________________________________
Big thank you and shout out to the artist that is providing today’s intro music! Check ’em out!
MUSIC LINK Give by Silent Partner https://youtu.be/KGE5ZoafsY8
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