Distribute the First Lesson of THE MASTER TEACHER

Hand out only one lesson each week!

Remember this principle of teaching and learning: Short lessons that have volumes of information lead to the best learning and retention. Therefore, even though you may receive the program all at once or a month at a time, only give your teachers one lesson each week. If you distribute several issues at one time, they lose both their timeliness and ease of use. That’s because the lessons are aligned to the weeks of the school year and each lesson is designed to be read in just a few minutes. The program won’t take a lot of your teachers’ time during the week and they can implement the strategies immediately. By the end of the school year, they will have completed 36 weekly lessons. Online users will get a weekly email with a link to the eLearning portal to access the lesson.

1. Feature Article

The content is specific to one of six areas of professional focus: Professional Responsibilities, Learners and Learning, Learning Environment, Instructional Effectiveness, Assessment, and Leadership.

2. Tips for Immediate Application

Each lesson contains tips covering key topics like managing behavior, relationships with students, relationships with colleagues, student engagement, and teaching techniques.

3. Points to Ponder

Questions are provided to initiate collegial dialogue during individual, small-group, or large-group teacher training in order to allow staff to continue making connections regarding the relevance of the training topic.

4. Inspirational Quote

The quote offers third-person support to the message of the feature article and is designed to inspire and confirm the work and mission of teachers and the school.

Posttests

plan the first day of school, consider how you can leverage stories to help students absorb important form small groups, show the picture they selected, and share its significance through a story. With permission, some students might share an interesting or compelling story from a classmate with the entire class. You will be amazed at how quickly students connect, how comfortable they become, and how fast trust emerges. Of course, while the first day might be for storytelling, storytelling is not just for the first day. As the year unfolds, look for opportunities to use a story to convey needed messages, provide reassurance, reinforce an important value, or share your confidence that challenges will be met and success will follow.

The Master Teacher knows that powerful, well-told stories can

The Master Teacher understands and taps the learning value of stories. Stories are a part of the fabric of learning communities. They can provide context for current problems, answer important questions, and remind us of values we cherish. Like great teachers throughout history, the Master Teacher collects, composes, and shares stories

As noted earlier, the benefits of storytelling are not confined to the first day of school. Storytelling can play a valuable role in building culture, modeling problem-solving, and making connections throughout the year. We can make it a practice for students to share stories, possibly through class meetings or as part of the start-up routine at the beginning of class. The topics can vary from recounting personal happenings to learning-related experiences. As students share stories, they share their knowledge, build trust, bond, and create a common language. Stories also help students get to know one another beyond being classmates and occasional team members.

Invite students to share their learning struggles and strategies through storytelling. When students recount their experiences, they can often make more sense of their strategies and better understand connections between their actions and the outcomes they experienced. For example, we might ask one or more students to talk about the challenges they faced with a specific project or task. We can help frame their story with questions such as What did you find to be difficult about the assignment? What did you try? How did it work? and What did you learn?

We can also use storytelling to draw students’ attention to values and behavior we want to foster. When we observe a student or students demonstrating actions we want to highlight, we can share what we observed as a story using four elements: What was the situation? How did the circumstance present a challenge? What action did the student or students take? What was the result? In just a few minutes, we will have shared an important lesson and reinforced the behavior of the student or students involved.

1. What stories might you tell to help your students get to know you and what to expect from you as their teacher?

2. How might you help students connect with the content and skills they will learn through stories you share?

3. Discuss with colleagues the stories they tell students as a means to lessen anxiety and build connections on the first day.

The telling and hearing of stories is a bonding ritual that breaks through illusions of separateness and activates a deep sense of our collective interdependence.

Volume 55No. 1

The Master Teacher knows that powerful, well-told stories can become anchor points for the culture we create. Once told, they can be referenced and retold when needed. They can be added to and modified as the year-long story of each class unfolds. Stories become our history and shapers of our memories. The first day of school is a great time to

–Founder and Executive Editor

Arthurs, S. (2018, August 15). Build student trust by sharing https://www.edweek.org/ teaching-learning/opinion-build-student-trust-by-sharing-stories-

What makes storytelling so effective harvardbusiness.org/what-makes-storytelling-so-effective-forCulture-Builder. com. https://www.culture-builder.com/everyday-culture-building/

Posttests are additional questions you can use to offer teachers a way to earn Professional Development Points (PDPs) or Continuing Education Units (CEUs) for reading and reflecting on THE MASTER TEACHER Weekly Pd PROGRAM lessons.

Print-Only Users:

If you choose to award credit, we recommend 0.5 credit per lesson (including reading the lesson and completing the posttest questions), for a total of 18 possible credits. You can download the posttest questions online at www.masterteacher.com/ mtpd-program and find the Leader’s Answer Key on pages 16-17. This process will need to be completed by the program administrator in your school.

Online Users:

At the end of each online lesson, posttest questions are provided to check for understanding. Upon successfully passing the test, the lesson is considered complete. A completion certificate is generated, and the teacher will receive 0.5 credit. For your convenience, a comprehensive transcript of all completed lessons is provided.

Note: The criteria and requirements for PDPs and CEUs can differ from state to state and even from district to district. Please make sure that the material provided meets your state’s regulations before having your teachers complete the questions and awarding credit. THE MASTER TEACHER® does not award credits.