Sustainable Teaching
It is a common misconception that being an effective and inclusive teacher requires significant overwork and self-sacrifice. Being an effective and inclusive teacher does NOT mean overworking yourself. You need and deserve to eat, get enough sleep, have downtime, maintain your physical well-being, and have the time and energy to enjoy hobbies and relationships with others.
From our Partners at the IDC
Sustainable Teaching Tips
Sustainable teaching practices enable you to be an effective teacher consistently over time, while honoring you as a full person with many other important aspects of your life. Below are some sustainable teaching practices to get you started.
Classroom Community
Investing time early in creating community pays off strongly throughout the semester. Your students will be more comfortable with you, keeping you in touch with their needs; as well as with each other, making them more likely to fully engage with the content.
Student Names
You are not expected to have all student names memorized, especially not for the first class! Name tents, tags, or other aids help you to use student names before you’re familiar with them, they allow you to see how a name is spelled to help with pronunciation, and it gives students a low-pressure way to share their preferred name and pronouns with you and their classmates.
Setting Expectations
You don’t have to create a perfect, comprehensive set of expectations before day one! In fact, involving the students in the creation of these shared expectations eliminates work for you and increases students’ investment in the final product.
Outcomes-Based Design
Identifying the learning outcome first might seem like extra work, but this small effort will save you and your students plenty of time down the road. When the teacher knows the learning outcome, they can avoid spending time developing, revising, and explaining material that isn’t aligned with the goal of the lesson. When the students know the learning outcome, they understand what they need to get out of the material, and can direct their questions and time towards the concepts that matter.