How Teachers Can Use Summer Break Productively
Sleep:
- Aim for 7-8 hours of sleep per night during the school year, but not much more or less!
- Studies have shown that adults who get less than 5 hours of sleep per night are absent 1.5 times more often and see a productivity loss of 1.9 times more than adults who get more sleep.
- When teachers feel tired, they are absent 2.7 times more often and experience 4.4 times as much productivity loss as well rested teachers.
Eat Well & Stay Active
- Diet has the largest impact on your overall health, as much as three times as much as a low activity level.
- Poor diet contributes to the three most significant healthcare epidemics in the country: diabetes, heart disease, and obesity.
Classroom Reorganization:
- Reorganize your classroom at the start or end of the school year to take inventory of what you need and don’t need.
- This is a great opportunity to modify lessons and activities for the next school year.
- When people are more organized at work, they tend to feel more accomplish, in control, confident, and motivated.
Rework Your Curriculum
- Take the time to focus on how to improve lessons that are ineffective or not engaging to students.
- Nearly 9 in 10 Americans say a teacher had a large impact on them throughout their lifetime
- Teachers will have roughly 3,000 students over the course of their careers — that is a lot of students!
Embrace Professional Development
- Refresh your mind by picking one new thing to focus on during the summer to further your professional development.
- When new teachers receive mentoring and support, their students’ achievement increased in as little as two years!
