January, 2019 - Porter Has Class

Top Five Habits of Highly Effective Teachers

Post published:January 27, 2019
Post category:Blog

There are some habits that are common among all effective teachers, and in this week's blog, I describe the top five habits of highly effective teachers. I’d like to preface this blog by admitting that I am not a teacher extraordinaire. I have not been awarded any Teacher of the Year awards. However, I do feel I am a very reflective teacher and learn from my mistakes daily. Through my experience, and perhaps my OCDness, I’ve learned an effective teacher needs habits. Habits strengthen your procedures and help you focus on the most important part of your classroom - your…

Funny Story: 100th Day of School

Post published:January 20, 2019
Post category:Stories

Many schools across America celebrated (or will be soon) the 100th day of school. This is a classic school tradition that teachers use as teachable opportunities and lessons in a celebratory fashion to increase student engagement. Teachers create numerous lesson plans revolving around the one-hundred concept such as: Asking students to imagine themselves at 100 years oldResearching what life was like 100 years agoCounting 100 snacks, coins, or whatever interesting item a teacher can imagineDoing exercises in the counts of 100Dressing up as if students were 100 years old There are countless ways to incorporate the 100-day celebration into lessons,…

Funny Teacher Story: Things You Thought You Would Never Ask

Post published:January 13, 2019
Post category:Stories

After going a couple of weeks looking at more serious topics facing educators, I felt it was time to bring a little humor back to the blog. If you prefer a more serious topic, please read "Top Five Issues Facing Education in Mississippi” or "Teacher Shortages: Why Is This Not Trending News?” For those that enjoy a good laugh, this story comes from a special education teacher and her assistant teacher. Story Time While testing their second-grade students, the assistant teacher hears a faint noise and asks “What was that?” One of the students quickly pointed and said, “It was…

Teacher Shortages: Why Is This Not Trending News?

Post published:January 6, 2019
Post category:Blog

This week’s blog is a follow up to last week’s “Top Five Issues Facing Education in Mississippi.” As I pointed out last week, I decided to cover topics that were trending the most. This helped me stay as unbiased as possible since the issues I personally may face may be very different than statewide issues. I want to thank everyone for the feedback on last week’s post. Because of your feedback, I chose to research one of the mentioned issues - teacher shortages - from my social media comments. I agree with this being a dire issue; however, the real questions…