Santa Clara Splash - Resources for Teachers

Teaching Tips & General Advice
For many, this may be your first time teaching. There will be a lot of variety among classes: everything from academic material, demonstrations, activities, discussion, or anything else you desire. Regardless, here’s some advice to help you accomplish your goals:

Presentation
You may remember presenting your English PowerPoint about Macbeth in front of class back in high school. But presenting as the teacher for the first time can be really daunting! Here are a few tips to help students understand the material:

Make sure to be loud, clear, and to make eye contact with your students.
Try to modulate your voice to the situation- when you sound enthusiastic, your students will feel the same!
Clearly state your name and the topic of the class (or a brief agenda) at the start of the class- most classrooms will have a board for you to write this information down (write largely and clearly!)

Organization
A good start to organizing a class for the first time is to make a syllabus and lesson plans for your class. These don’t have to be detailed—just an ordered outline of what you expect to cover is enough to keep yourself on track.

Start off by planning out the material that you want to cover, and then determine how you want to divide it up. Then, fill in your outline with the more specific points you want to cover.
Make sure you don’t over-fill your syllabus! Remember: Quality over Quantity!
It’s also a good idea to plan out extra points so that you can fine-tune your class based on students’ interests, and have material around in case you have extra time- but don’t rely on this.
Plan your time well and don’t rush!

Communication
Communicating with students is obviously your most important task. To do this in an effective and exciting manner, you’ll probably need some mixture of lecturing, handouts, board work, projected images, and conversation.

Communicate important information in more than one way, if possible. When explaining concepts in math or science, be wary of PowerPoint—many teachers find it’s easier to explain something clearly as they write it out, rather than reading it off a slide.
Should you choose to use PowerPoint, try to follow the 5/5/5 rule: no more than five words per line of text, five lines of text per slide, or five text-heavy slides in a row.
Remember, material that you’re very comfortable with may be completely new to students. Explaining new ideas in multiple ways is very effective, and students are happiest when they understand what’s going on
Class Supplies

If you need any class materials, send an email to Santaclarasplash@gmail.com with an itemized list of the supplies that you will need.

Teaching Tips &amp; General Advice	 For many, this may be your first time teaching. There will be a lot of variety among classes:&nbsp;everything from academic material, demonstrations, activities, discussion, or anything else you desire. Regardless, here’s some advice to help you accomplish your goals: Presentation You may remember presenting your English PowerPoint about Macbeth in front of class back in high school. But presenting as the teacher for the first time can be really daunting! Here are a few tips to help students understand the material:<ul><li>Make sure to be loud, clear, and to make eye contact with your students.</li>
<li>Try to modulate your voice to the situation-&nbsp;when you sound enthusiastic, your students will feel the same!</li>
<li>Clearly state your name and the topic of the class (or a brief agenda) at the start of the class- most classrooms will have a board for you to write this information down (write largely and clearly!)</li>
</ul>
 Organization A good start to organizing a class for the first time is to make a syllabus and lesson plans for your class. These don’t have to be detailed—just an ordered outline of what you expect to cover is enough to keep yourself on track.&nbsp; <ul><li>Start off by planning out the material that you want to cover, and then determine how you want to divide it up. Then, fill in your outline with the more specific points you want to cover.</li>
<li>Make sure you don’t over-fill your syllabus! Remember:&nbsp;Quality over Quantity!</li>
<li>It’s also a good idea to plan out extra points so that you can fine-tune your class based on students’ interests, and have material around in case you have extra time- but don’t rely on this. </li>
<li>Plan your time well and don’t rush!</li>
</ul>
 Communication Communicating with students is obviously your most important task. To do this in an effective and exciting manner, you’ll probably need some mixture of lecturing, handouts, board work, projected images, and conversation. <ul><li>Communicate important information in more than one way, if possible. When explaining concepts in math or science, be wary of PowerPoint—many teachers find it’s easier to explain something clearly as they write it out, rather than reading it off a slide.</li>
<li>Should you choose to use PowerPoint, try to follow the 5/5/5 rule: no more than five words per line of text, five lines of text per slide, or five text-heavy slides in a row.</li>
<li>Remember, material that you’re very comfortable with may be completely new to students. Explaining new ideas in multiple ways is very effective, and students are happiest when they understand what’s going on 
Class Supplies
</li>
</ul>

<div>If you need any class materials, send an email to Santaclarasplash@gmail.com with an itemized list of the supplies that you will need. </div>

Last modified by OmarRM on March 01, 2020 at 12:14 p.m.