For students, getting a new teacher, after they have already started with another, can be very rough. It disrupts whatever flow they have been in, and causes anxiety, confusion, and often resentment at the system.
That resentment is often directed at the new teacher, who often experiences the stress of all his/her students. Here are five tips to minimize the disruptive influences of taking over a class in the middle of the year.
Learn Students' Names
Though these are in no particular order of importance, learning students' names quickly may produce the biggest return on investment of effort. There are dozens of ways to learn names – from using index cards, and placards to playing games and having students decorate personal posters. The teacher who wants to be successful early will pick one and execute.
Get Students to Buy In
Laying down firm expectations should go without saying. Students should know that their new teacher is different from the previous teacher in important ways; but the disruption affects them deeply, in subtle ways.
Giving them an opportunity to set some of the terms will ease those ill-effects. Research has shown that when students exercise their powers of choice, motivation and achievement increase. It's wise to let them have a stake in the new order by voting on class rules or deciding which types of assignments or assessments to complete.
Giving students the feeling early on that they have some control over a situation that was out of their control will go a long way to establishing a new teacher's legitimacy as a fair.
Introduce Incentives in the Class
Rules are so restrictive. They need to be, but students need incentives to do the right things as much as they need restrictions on doing the wrong things. A clear incentive system could be the use of coupons or a classroom money system, class points towards a party, or homework passes.
These incentives will get students to see the teacher as someone they can work with, and make it worthwhile to them to go along with the changes in routine.
Change Something Obvious
While students thrive in consistency, the worst thing for a new teacher to have to deal with is constant comparisons to the former one, fair or not. Changing one mundane but highly visible thing is one way to constantly remind students that teachers are unique. It could be the seating arrangement, the board layout, or a regular classroom routine. The important part is to make it obvious, reasonable, and easy to comply with.
Naming it will reinforce it; for example, if seats are moved into a new group configuration, the groups can be easily named to give the room a new identity. The new identity will be something positive and memorable that students associate with their new teacher. They will see her as a creative person who is thoughtful about her daily interactions with them.
Invite Others into the Classroom
Having the principal or dean in the classroom will show the students that the changes being imposed on them are sanctioned by school leaders, giving the new teacher credibility, and taking away any hope they may have entertained that complaining to the principal would have an impact. It will also make clear to them that she are confident, something that students can sense easily.
More importantly, it shows that the change in teachers is a school change, not just a personal change for them individually. Inviting school leaders and other teachers into the classroom early on is good advice.
For teachers, starting a new teaching assignment after students have already begun their school year is as stressful a job as it is for any students. These five things will make for a smoother transistion and more successful remainder of the year.
Richard Stowell - Rich Stowell teaches educational technology at the University of San Francisco and high school math at a charter school in Richmond, ...
