Four Classroom Tips to Ring in 2025!

On behalf of the staff at eMINTS Professional Learning, we want to thank you for your service to education and wish you a very joyous, safe, and restful New Year!

Here are four tips to help you rejuvenate yourself and bring new life into your teaching in 2025!

Create a School Year Class Playlist.

Music activates the brain in multiple ways helping to give learners life skills needed to make decisions, focus, plan, problem-solve, and juggle multiple tasks.

• Ask learners to choose a song that reminds them of the school year and share it in a presentation including their “why."
• Link the songs from YouTube to their slides OR create a playlist using an audio streaming service.
• Play the music on the last day. Share the presentation and/or class playlist.

There are too many reasons not to embrace using music in the classroom, and what a great way to round out the year than with a class playlist. There are so many options to capture your Class Playlist. Some of our favorites include: Spotify , Apple Music, and YouTube , but there are many other services out there!

Reaffirm Your Goals and Values.

It takes hard work and effort to make it through the first semester, especially November and December, the Persistence and Challenge Phases of the year. Know that you are appreciated! What better time than January, or “The Rejuvenation Phase,” to reaffirm yourself and your practice? Start by releasing negative self-talk. Then, reframe your mindset to stress less. Forbes recommends:

1. Ask: “Is this helpful?” rather than “Is this true?”
2. Recognize patterns in both your various states of mind.
3. Avoid perfection because it inhibits productivity.
4. Forgive yourself. (Read more here: bit.ly/Forbes-ReframeMindset.)
5. Lastly, realign your goals and values within your practice.
6. Bonus: https://www.instagram.com/reel/C25yvymv3Pv/

These steps will help your high-quality lesson design and help you, as an educator, facilitate high-quality lessons with your learners.

Seek New Opportunities.

Goodbye 2024; hello to a new year! Looking at the past semester and beyond, we salute educators for turning challenges into opportunities for growth and innovation… for yourself and your students!

As we step into 2025, the education landscape is brimming with exciting opportunities for growth, innovation, and professional transformation. Educators can expand their horizons by:

• pursuing advanced certifications like becoming an eMINTS Teacher or pursuing the eMINTS Affiliate Trainer program.
• exploring online learning platforms like a free account on eMINTS eXpedition, filled with resources, mini-courses, and articles.
• completing an online course such as the eMINTS Bullying Prevention or Dyslexia courses.
• attending professional development conferences and sessions like a 3-day professional learning session to help level up inquiry through Design Through Inquiry (DTI) or Problem-based Learning (PBL).
• networking through education associations or social media like our eMINTS Educator Facebook Group.
• and staying current with emerging educational technologies like AI-assisted learning tools and how to use them effectively in your educational practice.

Remember: You Can.

As you dive into the second semester, it's time to reignite your passion and strategic approach to teaching. Here are some ideas:

• Prioritize self-care.
• Set realistic goals.
• Reflect on the previous semester, and leverage first-semester insights to refine classroom strategies in the new semester.
• Create engaging lesson plans that maintain student momentum.
• Build in moments of flexibility.
• Collaborate with colleagues for support and fresh perspectives.
• Remember that consistent small steps lead to significant end-of-year achievements.

Stay focused, be kind to yourself, and keep your eye on the finish line—Summer is closer than you think!

Follow @emintsnc on social media for more #TuesdayTips to help you improve your #teaching practice.

Thank you to the eMINTS National Center staff contributors for this article: Brooke Higgins, Haylee Anderson, Nicholas Linke, and Chelsea Peters.

Have ideas for #emintsTips that you'd like to see or that you think would be helpful? Reach out to Haylee at: [email protected].

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