I will be starting a new teaching job this Fall as a high school resource room teacher for 9th and 10th graders. Having never taught at the high school level before, I am concerned about starting the year off right and organizing myself now so that things will go smoothly in Sept. Any suggestions on these or other hints for a successful year? Thanks.
Re: high school resource room
You might want to get a desk calendar just for the “drop ins”. Have students “sign up” (between classes, day before etc.) with the class period noted and that they may be coming in for a test or additional assistance. My para and I continue to encourage (and “train”/remind) the high school students that we can be more helpful if we know when they are coming in and for what subject. It does help us in that we know who is coming in for a history test and then one of us is more easily available (doesn’t go do some copying, etc.) Also if we know that several are coming from the same class, then only one of us reads the test to several students. Also it signals to us that a teacher is giving a test, and then we know that some of the other students - who forgot about the test or forgot to tell us that they were coming - will be showing up. We have copies of all our LD the student schdeules, so it isn’t hard to check the students who didn’t sign up.
Also we have begged & borrowed the textbooks of the core classes. Those textbooks are not to leave our room, and usually we don’t lose them. However, getting them was a chore! You might want to use all your skills and try to get those at the start of the year. Many of the textbooks in our system cannot leave the mainstream room anymore, so a student comes in for assistance and no book! That was one of the frustrations for a while (had to send students back to class to try to sign out a book! It was silly to send students without materials!).
Eventually, you may want to order the textbooks on tape through RFB &D (Recordings for the Blind and Dyslexic). In order to do this however, you have to apply for the student and our district does pay the fee of about$75 per student, but you may want to check that. Then when the students have a reading assignment, they use the room to listen to the tape. Remember you need to purchase the special type of tape player from RFB&D to play the tapes which costs several hundred dollars. However, it is good to start thinking/planning these items and get the ideas and requests for money. It takes the system time to get this underway and was years for us to build!
Well those are my summer thoughts at the moment. Have fun and good luck! It can get crazy at times but it is a helpful service to studentnts.
Re: high school resource room
What focus is your resource room expected to have or is that up to you? Resource rooms seem to me to take one of two directions. Some offer intervention and work toward building fundamental skills while others offer homework support for other classes.
Having a clear direction or giving yourself one would be my suggestions for getting off to a clear start. Decide which of those approaches is the approach for your resource room.
I might also be so bold as to suggest philosophical questions for consideration like - is your role to support the students or their teachers? There are times it can be hard to do both.
Good luck.
My suggestions:)
Make sure you know where everything is. There is nothing quite like having kids in the room and not being able to find the pencil sharpener.
Sit down and meet with your para’s- have lunch or something- before school starts. Many paraeducators have had their jobs for years and have watched different teachers organize different systems and how they have worked. So I always ran my thoughts about scheduling and whatnot by them for reactions. I might not have used their suggestions but then again… At any rate, you will be sharing space and evaluating with these people and it makes sense to start off well. Find out what your administrative/supervisory responsibilities are too- I had eight paras one year (individual aides) and had to do 2 evals- fall and spring- on each of them. You don’t want to be surprised.
Meet your teachers.
Read all your IEP’s and decide how you want to communicate that with the teachers. (and how it has been done before)
Relative to all the other things you will need- like ordering supplies and stuff, high school is not too different for elementary. Actually, the kids aren’t really different either- they are just bigger. Treat them with respect and show them they are capable- you will be fine!
Robin