The first month of school is critical!

What to expect this week:

6 min read

Before we begin, we have a favor to ask. We’re trying to reach and support as many teachers as possible. If you like what you’ve been reading so far, tell your teacher besties about us 🙂

This week, we look at the importance of first impressions at the start of the school year and how teachers can best prepare. Here’s what we’ve got for you:

• Tech Talk: The best resource for planning those first 30 days 😎 

• Brainy Bits: Why your students’ first impressions actually matter 😨 

Surplus Scoop

Here’s our weekly roundup of interesting education stories from around the world before we get started. Click each link to learn more:

• Student ends up in handcuffs for falling asleep on a fieldtrip - let that be a lesson for ya!

• 50,000 parents stand up to South Korea’s plan for AI-textbooks in the classroom.

• Relax and pour another cup of coffee - all that caffeine can help prevent dementia (apparently)!

Tech Talk

Start on the right foot with Managed.

The Problem:

We’ve all been there - it’s your first week at a new school or grade. You may have some curriculum resources given to you, but outside of that, where the heck do you begin? 

This is the most important part of the school year, and it all comes down to first impressions. Not just for you to the staff, but for your new students to you. If you teach Special Education, this first impression is even more important.

In Spec. Ed., your first impression doesn’t just impact your students, but their families, classmates, and any other classes your students belong to; there’s a lot of pressure to get these first few days right.

For these teachers, the first 30 days aren’t just about creating a welcoming environment - it’s also about setting up initial plans, scheduling IEP and progress meetings, and collaborating with other classroom teachers to give your learners the best chance at a successful year. 

How can you start off on the right foot?

The Solution:

We’ve got a different tool for you this week; it’s not an app but a great virtual download that’s come across our desk. Introducing the First 30 Days Special Education Checklist (click to get your copy).

This interactive download is not just some random list; it comes from the Special Education experts over at Managed. Their main product is a virtual system designed and backed by Project Idea to help shorten the IEP workload (we’ll check out Managed. itself in the future, but for now just know that they’re the real deal in the special education space).

This checklist is more than just a bunch of boxes and is more like a guide. Split into 3 key areas to cover the first 30 days, the checklist covers what teachers can do before school (but still very useful even if the year has started), during the first week, and then the following three weeks.

Each area contains guiding questions, external resources, and even some accountability portions should you want to assign duties (hello department heads!).

How about YOUR classroom:

The first 30 days, especially if you’re new to your students, can really impact the year’s success. Taking preliminary steps to sit down and plan is crucial. This tool lets you accomplish that in a fraction of the time and without skipping a beat.

IEP set-ups and case management overviews are built right in as well to help develop appropriate milestone timelines. We hear from tons of new Special Education teachers (ourselves included) that these timelines can be the most overwhelming part.

There are quite a few external resources directly linked in the tool that will bring you to their contact page. We’ve chatted with their team before and can vouch that these are some of the most willing-to-help educators we’ve met - you’ve got nothing to fear!

Cost wise this tool is 100% free - just click our link above. We recommend you print this one out or keep it on your desktop. This way you can easily check-in with it at the end of each day.

With some very interesting tools coming out in the near future, you might want to stay in the loop with Project Idea and Managed., especially if you’re a Special Education teacher this year.

Brainy Bits

Just be yourself - right?

The Study:

Whether it’s your first year or your tenth year teaching, every new class is a chance to make first impressions that can shape your school year with staff, students, and parents. This can be a great source of anxiety for teachers.

Researchers in this week’s peer review dive used experimental manipulation in new conversations to find out if telling our students (and ourselves) to just “be yourself” actually leads to a positive first impression.

204 young adults first completed a questionnaire about their own personalities. Each participant then participated in a series of interviews. Questions here included personal and professional items.

But - before the interviews began, half of the group was explicitly told to “just be themselves” while the other group went in blind. Everyone then wrapped up with an exit questionnaire.

The Results:

This study tracked many things besides first impressions. For example, they found that outgoing personalities stick out the most in first interactions.

This is a strong reminder to us teachers to pay attention to our quieter students, especially in those first days. 

But we’re most concerned with first impressions here. Results showed that the group that was explicitly told to be themselves actually were themselves to a significant degree more than the other group.

More so, these participants felt that they were actually being themselves more than the other group, leading to higher confidence levels.

The interviewers attested to this difference. But they also showed that whether someone was told to be themselves or not, they liked everyone just the same. This means that this simple advice is more about building personal confidence than actually influencing what people think about you.

How about YOUR classroom:

This is a psychological study - not an education study. So what’s its value to our classrooms?

Well, first impressions happen non-stop in those first few days of the school year. Studies like this show us that we have more control over how we present ourselves in these nerve-wracking situations than we think.

From a teacher perspective this means that yes - be yourself and more importantly, tell yourself to be yourself before meeting anyone new. This study shows us that while our students will view us just the same, it’s a neat little brain trick to help us overcome our nerves.

From a student-well being perspective, there’s actually a lot we can take from this study. Our students are making even more first impressions than us in those first days - especially if they are new to the school. This can be an insanely stressful time.

If you have new students, research like this shows us that teacher encouragement, even as small as pulling them aside and letting them know to “just be themselves”, can actually make a difference. Not in terms of how many friends they gain, but in how valuable they see themselves.

It really is the small actions that matter the most. So go ahead - be yourself!

Interested in growing with us? Want us to feature your tech tool, resource, or research? Hit reply to start a conversation.

Like what you’ve seen? Forward us to your friends and colleagues so y’all have something to talk about next week. 😎

Have an idea for some classroom tech, strategies, or research that you think is valuable for the community? Respond to this email and let us know.

References

This week’s issue adapts information from the following sources:

Tech Talk:

Project Idea (2024). Reduce special educator workload so they can focus on the craft, not logistics . Retrieved from https://project-idea.org/managed/

Brainy Bits:

Mignault, M.-C., Kerr, L. G., & Human, L. J. (2023). Just Be Yourself? Effects of an Authenticity Manipulation on Expressive Accuracy in First Impressions. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 14(5), 562-571. https://doi.org/10.1177/19485506221101000