Strategies to Avoid Teacher Burnout

As we transition into the second half of the school year, it's crucial to reassess our teaching strategies and classroom management techniques. In this video, we delve into the concept of Return on Investment (ROI) in education, examining how to balance innovative teaching methods with the practicalities of time management and mental health. We discuss the pitfalls of adopting every attractive idea seen on platforms like Instagram and Pinterest and the importance of setting boundaries to prevent burnout.

Key takeaways include:

• Evaluating the sustainability and effectiveness of new classroom strategies.
• The significance of establishing routines that align with part-time teaching without overextending.
• Practical examples like the "blurt bean jar" and its implications on classroom management.
• Efficient parent communication methods and the balance between thoroughness and manageability.

Join us as we explore actionable tips for maintaining a healthy work-life balance while delivering impactful teaching experiences. Whether a full-time educator or juggling part-time responsibilities, this episode will equip you with strategies to enhance your teaching efficacy and overall well-being.

 #TeachingEfficiency #ClassroomManagement #EducationalROI #TeacherWellbeing #MidYearStrategies #TimeManagement #EducationTips #PartTimeTeaching #TeachingStrategies #EducatorBurnout

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Transcript

Patti: 0:15

So it's that time of year again where we are moving into the second half of the school year and a lot of the things that maybe we started off with great intentions in September perhaps have fallen by the wayside. We need to come up with new plans, new ideas, or we need to realize that the plans that we came up with in September just aren't sustainable and haven't been working, so maybe it's time to scrap them. This is one of the things that we need to sort of focus on and work on when we are in our classroom, and it all comes down to setting boundaries and specifically looking at the return of our investment. So, if we are focused on what are we doing in our classroom and how much time of hours is it taking to implement this great, cool idea and is it worth it? Is it actually having the impact that I wanted to have, based on the amount of time that I'm putting into? Now? This is a business strategy that we often talk about is a return on our investment? How much time is something going to take us versus how much reward do we get out of it? Now, in teaching, we often don't think of that and we crawl across Instagram or Pinterest and we see all of these amazing ideas, classroom management strategies, teaching methods that we want to implement in our classroom. But the question we need to be asking ourselves is the amount of work that is required to put this into action in our classroom, the amount of routine and procedure and movement and management that we are required in order to make this routine or this new idea a reality. Is it the most efficient use of our time? Is it helping to contribute to our overall mental health, and is it actually doing us a disservice and contributing to our own burnout so that we don't have a lot of time to do the things that we actually want to do?

Patti: 2:20

Now, one of the things that I have learned as I have dropped down from a full-time teaching position to a part-time teaching position is I needed to make a promise to myself that I didn't want to work full-time hours for part-time pay, that I really needed to set some very clear boundaries for myself and my own mental health that allowed me to work and teach at a part-time level without working still the full-time hours. So I had to sort of establish some rules and routines for myself and set some boundaries that would allow that to happen, because there's no point in cutting down your hours to part-time if you're still going to work full-time hours and put in a full-time workload even though you're only getting paid for part-time. So some of the things that I needed to implement for myself is really questioning this concept of ROI or return on investment, and I come across so many different great ideas that I see on Pinterest and on Instagram and things like Blurrp being jars or classroom management strategies or parent communication tools or just different events and things that I want to do in my classroom. And whenever I say yes to one of these new strategies, it's also really important for me to question whether or not I have the time not only to implement this great cool strategy, but whether I have the time and how much time is it going to take me to establish that routine in my classroom, to maintain that routine, and how much outside of instructional time this new idea might take. So let's use the Blurrp being Explain strategy as an example. So I see this one a lot of the times.

Patti: 4:12

This is where you have a jar, whether it's an actual jar or whether it's like a paper jar that has little buttons on it One of the things you have to ask yourself is we're all annoyed when students shout out and it is an ongoing problem that we have to deal with in our classrooms. So the Blurkebean strategy is one of those strategies that you can use and it is going to be effective. I think that most of the teachers that use this would probably argue with themselves or argue with others that this is a great strategy and motivating for students. It's a very visual way for students to track how often they're talking out. But one of the other things you need to actually question is when you're implementing one of these strategies is do you have the time to establish this as a routine? So you have to think through in a day to day basis. Do you actually have time to do this? Do you have time to put something into a jar? Where will you keep those beans?

Patti: 5:12

Whether sometimes people use pom-poms so let's imagine this is pom-poms in an actual jar. Where do you store the pom-poms? What do you do if a student is blurting out and you're on the other side of the room? Do you stop your lesson, walk over there and put the blur-pom-pom in the blur-t jar? How are you going to facilitate this? Where are they stored? How are you moving them around? Where are you putting them? Are students allowed to touch them? How do you prevent students from touching them? Really, thinking through all of the routines and rules, all the routines and rules and procedures that are required, just to have this blur-t jar and remembering that there is going to you have to think through them. You're going to have to think through how they work. There's probably going to be some classroom management pieces that you're going to have to put into place that involve this, and while this may seem like a great idea, it may actually not work for your teaching style and it may take a lot more mental load and energy to be managing that, as opposed to simply just establishing a routine and a structure that's more natural for you in the classroom, where you just tell students to stop blurting out.

Patti: 6:23

Maybe you have some contracts individually with students. Is it simply the matter of you've got one or two students that are constantly blurting out? You make arrangements for them that they get like five warnings and they know when you stare at them sternly in the face and hold up your finger, they know what that means. That's one, that's two, that's three warnings. They know there's a consequence at the end. They know it's something that you're tracking.

Patti: 6:46

You've worked with the parents which one's going to take more routine and rules and do you have actually the time and energy to establish and maintain that routine over time? For me I often don't and I'm only there for half a day. So it's a routine that I'm going to establish for half a day and if it's not going to be the same routine in the afternoon for their other teacher, is that actually going to work? So I really have to question that. Another is parent communication. My daughter's teacher is wonderful and sends home these beautiful folders and I hope that she has the space and the time in her schedule to send home these folders that send in all of her work for the month and she sends them home and I sign it and it sends back and I hope she has time. She's got a huge class this year so I really hope that she has the time and this is not taking a tremendous amount of time away from her in her evenings and weekends and after school and prep time, because that's a lot to manage.

Patti: 7:50

You have to have routines in your classroom where students are putting their stuff in this portfolio system. You need to send it home. You need to make sure it comes back. You need to make sure everything's marked by the end of the month. There's a lot of pressure to get everything marked by the end of the month, to get it marked really promptly so it can go in that portfolio, so that it can go home, so that you're communicating with parents how kids are doing on different on different assessment pieces. You're tracking that it's coming back. Where do you store it? What happens if you don't get it back? You're going to have to follow up with parents. There's a lot going on with that. Is it a great system? No doubt it's a fabulous system.

Patti: 8:30

I'm well aware of what's happening in my classroom. Are there just as efficient strategies that might take less time? Yep, you could send home the work and have it come back the next day. You could have a checklist. Where there's not a portfolio system, you could just have an online system where one of the things I'm doing in my class is my mark book is also has the ability with a docio, which is the app I'm using this year, that when I mark something and I have a rubric, I have the option of automatically emailing parents the rubric so they don't have to send anything back because I don't actually need them to collect it. I've already sent it. They have a copy. I have a copy, we're all good. So that's just a click of a button for me to send home that assessment data as I mark it, and then it's in my mark book.

Patti: 9:20

So is that a strategy that is going to be more efficient? For me it is, and I think the big question here is when we make decisions in our classroom about what it is we're going to be doing, about new ideas, different ways that we manage our classroom, manage the paperwork, manage communication with parents, manage our assessment. We really have to be looking at not just this is a good idea, because probably it is. It's probably an amazing idea but we also have to take it and look at it one step deeper and say is this something I have the time and space and ability to commit to the structure that is required to be able to manage this? Do I have the time to organize 30 portfolios every single month? Do I have the energy to bring that back? Yes, it could get more routine later on, but is that just something you're willing to do? Is it something you're just willing to commit to and you're going to make the time and space for it, then do it.

Patti: 10:24

But I think when we make, sometimes we take on as teachers, we take on way too much of this and we chase these new ideas and the shiny objects and we want to try all these things, but we don't have the time, the energy or really the ability to maintain and manage all of these things. So for me, I have to say no to really cool ideas and I have to say I don't have time for that. Or there is a simpler way that is just as efficient, or maybe it's not as efficient. Maybe I'm not communicating nearly as much with my parents as my daughter's teacher is communicating with me. But is that okay? Probably it's probably okay that I need to look at what is the minimum expectation that I'm required to communicate with parents and can I do a little bit more than that? Do I have to go for the A plus level communication teacher, or can I just go for like a B minus and I'm communicating? I'm not over communicating, I'm not under communicating, parents are informed, but it's manageable for me and therefore I have the ability to maintain it and sustain it over the long term and I think this is really the question, and I would challenge you to really take this opportunity at the beginning of the second term of learning, as we're moving into the second half is to evaluate your structures, your routines, your strategies for classroom management, for assessment, for marking, for classroom movement, pencil sharpening, all of those routines that we establish for parent communication.

Patti: 12:15

Really evaluate those and take into account how much time each of those things takes up of your mental load every day.

Patti: 12:26

And if you have something that is just sucking time from you, time that you're really not going to get a great return on because there's probably a more efficient way for you to do that that will take you significantly less time and still result in a decent outcome, I suggest and I recommend that you really start cutting back.

Patti: 12:47

Cut back on some of the things you're doing, cut back on the amount of time you are taking to do certain things and look for more efficient ways that it can be accomplished so that you yourself aren't trying to do way too much and it's going to reduce, perhaps, your burnout. It'll reduce some of the mental load that you carry as a teacher so that you can leave at your contract hours or shortly after, but not feel like you are overworking constantly, and I think that evaluating those things that we choose to do and saying no or simplifying the things we do will help us to set some better boundaries with ourselves and our job and give us a little bit of that time back when we really truly evaluate the choices we make in our classroom and how we're getting a great return on investment. Thanks for watching. See you next time.