Consider Benefits

Not many high school or summer jobs include benefits such as insurance, 401k, flex time, tuition reimbursement, paid vacation and sick leave. It seems natural then that students may overlook these items when considering where to apply or accept a position. As a teacher, you know that not only do different districts have different pay scales, but there are also differences in benefits offered. In the corporate world, it varies even more. Check out this quick video on working for Google and you’ll see what I mean.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6h-gm01Fb0

Hold a class discussion on benefits. Share standard benefits to look for and some of the perks available as well. The following site has a nice list to get you started:
http://www.career-resumes.com/blog/category/job-benefits/.

Career Development Tip for October 23, 2008

Company Visions Activity

Last week’s posting included a tip on personal branding. It reminded me of a fun activity on visioning we put together for a youth leadership conference. The activity had students match vision statements to familiar companies. It led into a discussion on a vision for their leadership teams. If you’re not familiar with the concept of vision statements, they are essentially a collaboratively developed statement that expresses where an individual, organization or company wants to be within a certain time period.

I think a small version of the activity would be a great bell work activity and/or could be used to tie in your school’s vision, your vision for your classes or to help students develop a vision for the semester/year.



Here's a few to get you started:

Leadership Development Tip for October 23, 2008

Google Docs

There is a lot of emphasis placed on teachers working as teams: team teaching, small learning community teams, Professional Learning Communities, department teams, etc.. I buy into the concept 100%, but feel like I speak for many when I say, “it does require extra time and effort.” Without a common prep period or extra time after school, it makes it difficult to collaborate. Our friends at Google get it. While they can’t fix everything (yet) they do have a few tools that can make our lives easier. One such tool is Google Docs. In its simplest form, Google Docs allows groups to share all sorts or documents (including spreadsheets and presentations) and track changes. It eliminates the need to send attachments back and forth, passing around thumb drives and the guessing game of which version is the current version.

Common Craft does an excellent job of explaining Google Docs in less than three minutes. Check it out! Share it with your teams! It’s easy and secure.

I’ve already heard of one team using it to track student discipline issues and parent contacts. When a teacher needs to document a parent or student interaction, they log into the team and create a document with the students name (if it doesn’t already exist) and add a short description of the interaction. This helps everyone on the team stay informed of the student’s progress and behavior in other classes and serves as great documentation when meeting with parents.

Professional Development Tip for October 23, 2008

Genius Playlist

My husband and I are the world’s worst “name that tune” or artist players. It’s not that we don’t like music, it’s just that we don’t remember the names of songs, artists, movies, actors or actresses. It’s not the worst handicap to have, but considering my students lived and breathed music, I was certainly out of the loop. I liked to play a little music in the classroom when appropriate, but making a playlist wasn’t my favorite task.

Now, i-tunes is making it easy with their Genius feature. Choose any song, click on the Genius playlist button and voila! Genius sorts through your music and creates a playlist of as many similar style songs as you wish.

Classroom Engagement Tip for October 23, 2008