We have to determine the barriers students may be facing and why they disengage. What can we do to support and remove barriers? Not only identify barriers for students but staff as well.

• Lack of purpose
• Mindset
• Past experience
• Fear of failure
• Peer pressure
• Motivation

Is the list above for students or staff?

Can it fit both staff and students? I think so! Barriers like those listed can exist at any age. Lack of purpose can be found when we are uncertain of the direction we need to take our lessons if we do not have the background knowledge to comprehend the lesson’s purpose. How can we help when we identify this as a barrier? Reminding them of “why.” Why did you become a teacher? Why do you want to be a _____?

Mindsets are essential in how we approach all aspects of our lives. We have been made more aware of this through others like Carol Dweck. When we are promoting a growth mindset, it benefits all.

Past experiences and failures play into our hesitations into taking risks, chances, or trying something new. As we provide safe working and learning environments, barriers are removed, and opportunities are available to stretch into new areas.

Peer pressure can be positive or negative. Drive peer pressure to become positive by promoting leadership. Turn leadership in your settings into a way to work to be inclusive, collaborative, and engaging. Student leadership is a way to build skills needed to grow and enhance learning. Teacher leadership builds capacity and expands knowledge, focusing on improving everyone.

Motivation drives teaching and learning. As the world fights the fears and realities of the pandemic, education has been hit hard. Humans want to feel validated, appreciated, safe and secure. It is hard to find motivation with so many negatives daily. Thank you to all who are showing up each day! We will do all we can to help provide the best conditions, support, and resources to promote motivation! Positive messages, fewer extras, more acknowledgments, and gratitude!

Every chance you have, empower others to work hard to achieve dreams. Today is a present; tomorrow will be a gift, and there are no exchanges, so make them incredible!

The delivery of instruction changed and left educators rediscovering the learning inequities as the environments flipped from virtual, hybrid, and in person. We can look at how these changes have caused us to pause and rethink homework, relationships, and assignments.

In addition, recognizing building relationships is essential and prioritizing working intentionally together. Being connected is not about technology but individual human relationships. We can look at learning and relationship building during the shifts we continue to experience.

Changing venues from virtual, hybrid, and in-person provided teachers with opportunities to learn along with their students on how these changes impact the learning environment. No longer would homework be looked at in the same way. Building classroom community took a mind shift as the virtual world flipped to the students to help take a more significant lead for sharing the responsibility of defining a safe and supportive learning community. They were helping to hold each other accountable.

Teaching Approach-Student Leadership

We can either use our strengths or abuse our powers as leaders; the choice is ours to make. It is always a choice to be part of the problem or the solution. Our future leaders sit in the seats in front of you today.

• Explain the value of the learning and the connections to real life.
• Increase ownership in education by providing students with choices.
• Teach students goal setting.
• Create opportunities to learn how to reflect on the work completed, the planning process, the steps in monitoring, and make adjustments based on assessments.
• Model effective strategies for assigned tasks, projects, or assignments.
• Provide direct and specific feedback.
• Teach study and organizational skills.
• Build vocabulary and background knowledge daily for students.
• Establish an environment where it is safe to make mistakes and encourage students to justify responses.
• Understand there is always a solution to every identified problem.

Homework was used to practice skills taught at school, but now we look at homework to complete the work not achieved in the workday. It is also used as an extension to enrich and apply critical thinking. We do not want to add stress to homes during times like these, but continued learning growth is essential for our students.

Learning journeys are individually driven. Each individual has a different skill set, interests, strengths, and weaknesses. We have common goals we want to achieve, and some will get there faster than others. We must provide what they need along their journey and feed their intellectual, emotional, and physical well-being.

Covid-19 contributes to our systems, with new variants popping up to prompt officials to review practices and issue mandates. Schools look at the numbers rise and wonder if they will recover. How can they continue to motivate staff and students? Will educators have rewards for the hard work they are doing this year? How will students recover from interrupted services and be motivated during challenging times?

Working with school leaders, I hear, feel and see the levels of exhaustion, frustration, and desire to “fix” everything. Reality sets in, and acknowledging the facts of the resources available to utilize are the critical barriers they face. Looking at the most valuable resource, staffing, and realizing pieces are missing.

Several years ago, before the pandemic, we predicted teacher shortages and administrative shortages as well. Education is not a field individuals were looking to go into as a career. The enrollments in these programs have been dropping. Now we have shortages, a pandemic, and a high need for support.

In a survey of 1,000 K-12 educators, changes were identified they thought would best support students’ learning as we continue to recover from the pandemic as follow:-Horace Mann Educators Corporation. (2021) “Closing the Learning Gap: How frontline educators want to address lost learning due to Covid-19.”

• 53% recommended to focus on fewer grade-level standards.
• 34% think schools need more paraprofessionals to provide support to struggling learners.
• 30% recommend more social-emotional learning resources to help students process the effects of the past year.

Recover

Strategies are utilized to help with staffing shortages. Some states are making accommodations to licenses and are working to approve non-traditional professionals to step into teaching. This is a short-term fix, and we need to build into our programs “grow your own” to elevate these shortages. The goal of the number of people to fill positions is critical. Current staff is taking turns to cover classrooms to assist and support the needs. Educators are exhausted.

Currently, the staff is working to help students recover from learning loss as they fight against the staff shortages. In a classroom, you could find the learning levels of students stretch across several grade levels. It is hard to help meet the needs of all these different levels, engage all learners, help to keep all motivated, and not let students disconnect because they see no hope. How can we help students?

• Move to student choice activities where they can see themselves in the work they are doing.
• Teach in deeper levels.
• Provide students with opportunities to set goals.
• Meet students where they are, not where you want them to be.
• Do not talk down, but talk up. Students will rise if you start them with high expectations and believe in them. You begin with talking down; they will not increase even if they can.

Motivate

Every day is an opportunity to share with others. Motivate daily! There are many different ways to motivate, and I have not found a magic wand that works on everyone, so you have to try other things to see what works for an individual or group.

Reward

In teaching and learning, I have always found the reward in doing them. Some people need more than a feeling as a reward. Many would like to see themselves as the Teacher of the Year, Principal of the Year, Student of the Month, and so many other individual awards you can receive.

The rewards we look for as educators are children’s eyes as they finally solve the math equation they have been working on today. The students look when their name is called as their essay was selected as the winner in the scholarship contest. The excitement when the robot the students built takes its first step. So many moments we get to share as the students share their learning journey with us.