March momentum: How to plan, reflect, and prepare for the second half of the semester

0:02 Hello Edu Magicians, welcome to the Edu Magic podcast with your host, Doctor Sam Fesich. Doctor Sam is a professor of education, author of Edu Magic, and a Pumpkin Spice Latte fan. This podcast is designed for pre service teachers. Remember friends, teaching doesn't begin at graduation, but during that first class at 8:00 AM. Let's get this party started. This podcast is a proud member of the Teach Better Podcast Network, Better Today, Better Tomorrow, and the podcast to get you there. Explore more podcasts at www.teachbetterpodcastnetwork.com.

0:44 Now let's get on to the episode. Hey there, Edge Magicians, and welcome back to another episode of the Edge Magic Podcast. My name is Doctor Sam Fasich, and today we are doing a March momentum reset. How to plan out your best semester before it even starts. So I'm so excited to have you back, especially here in March. We're ending out March because I know what this time of the year feels like. It feels like we are in between exhaustion and hopeful and excited and the spring weather is coming. A little bit of spring fever, midterms just ended or maybe they're winding down. Maybe you just ended spring break or maybe it's just coming up somewhere in your head.

1:29 You start to think, Oh my gosh, this semester is almost over. I have 5 or 6 weeks left. What happened to the spring of 26? Well, that's where you are. This episode is just for you. Welcome, my friends. Today we are talking about planning and not in a super stressful way. We're going to plan with purpose because here's the thing, March, it's kind of like a gift, right? It's a special window time where we can look back what we've what's happened, what's going on in our placements and in our course and look forward to things that are happening at the end this semester, things we want to accomplish, our goals that we have. So let's talk about how we can take advantage of that special window of time, and then we're going to walk into the next semester ready to rock'n'roll with clarity and confidence. So let's jump into some of this March momentum. First things first, before we plan to go forward, we got to kind of look back on the rearview mirror, right? We want to know what's going on right now in our placements, in our coursework.

2:41 No judgment, no pressure, just a gut check. How are things going? So if you are student teaching, I want you to think about how your semester placement during student teaching has gone so far. Maybe you just switched placements, you're getting to know a whole bunch of new kids. Maybe you are in the 10th week of your 16 week placement and you're really feeling it. You know, really think about how things are going. What are you enjoying about teaching? What are some of your glow areas? What are some things you really rock at and what are some challenge areas? Really be honest with yourself and be real with what's going on.

3:25 What lessons have you learned? What lessons have you taught well? What content are you really confident with? Which lessons have you taught where the students were engaged with you from start to finish? What about classroom management? What strategies are working? Do you need to rethink classroom layout? Really think about some of these ideas and use them to reflect upon so you can end that student teaching, student teaching semester strong. For those of you on our courses who are going through coursework right now, how are you doing with as midterms are ending? How are you doing with your grades? Are they really reflecting what you're doing in class, how you're showing up, how you're participating and engaging in course content?

4:13 What about with the assignments? Are you keeping up with the assignments? Are you keeping your planner updated? Put building in study time. Are you really going through those readings and analyzing what's going on in the content and how it's relating to course objectives and outcomes? Really do a honest gut check. How are things going in your coursework? Are there some class you're like, Yep, I got this, I'm rocking out with it, I know what I'm doing, I feel comfortable in it. I know it's expected for the next few weeks. Are there others really? Oh, I don't know really what's going on. I'm a little lost. Go ahead and just reflect upon that. Now back to our student teachers. We talked about the glows, right? We talked about some things that are going well. Now flip it.

5:02 What are some things that did not go well? And think about why. Even if you've had a I'm using air quotes bad lesson, there's always a positive part of that lesson. But think about why maybe that lesson flopped. Was it pacing? Was it materials? Was it your instructions or grouping students? Did you not anticipate how long it would take students to a certain part of the project? Did you lose them after like the first 5 minutes of your hook? Did you forget to close with an ending statement and understanding of what's going on in the lesson? So really think about why something did not go as well as you thought it would be. Did it have to do with planning, preparation, the way you delivered the instruction, the way you engage students, the materials and the content?

5:52 And then back to my students who are in coursework, When you think about, OK, things that went really well, now think about things that did not go so well. Was there a certain test you did not do great on? Did you forget to turn in that one assignment that's worth like 40 points? It's OK. Go ahead and plan that out. Plan out. It's time for study. Maybe you didn't put in enough time to study for that class or that test. Maybe you forgot to put that assignment on your planner to fell off your radar. Regardless, you know, you can always reach out to the professor and say, you know, I'm so sorry I forgot to submit this assignment and see if you can get some points back. You never know unless you ask and everybody makes mistakes. It's OK.

6:35 All right. So let's go ahead and continue working through our reflection of where we've been and where we're going. So when we think about the momentum that we've made this semester, what or who has helped you this semester? Has it been a family member, a friend, a colleague, A peer, a professor who has been a great support system for you? Or maybe you've changed up your routine. Maybe you started eating healthy or working out or implementing some mindfulness or meditation into your routine. Is that helping you out?

7:15 So think about some practices that have helped you. And then on the flip side, what can you kind of take away and not put put back on your plate? Think about what are some things that are not helping you? What are some things you just need to cut out and think, Think about those things and reflect upon them. All right, we've done our gut check. Now let's talk about what we do with all that. So I want you to hear there's a difference between surviving student teaching and using it as a learning opportunity. Both surviving and getting it and learning from it get you to that finish line of graduation.

8:00 But only one helps you get ready for what comes next besides crossing the stage of graduation and getting a job, right? So let's talk about, for our student teachers, how to build a semester road map for the next part of your placement. And we're going to talk about it really simple. We're not going to go all color-coded and Google Docs. We're talking about 3 simple things. Thing one, pick two or three measurable goals for the rest of your student teaching placement. And I'm not saying get better across your management. That's way too big. I want you to try something like by the end of the semester, I want to have tried two different classroom management strategies for transition times to be able to describe what worked and what difference and what didn't. So there's a difference there.

8:50 It's specific, it's observable, observable, it's timely, it's reflective. And then you can find some time to research some classroom management strategies for your grade level content area related to transition from one time of the class to another. So thing one, pick two or three measurable specific goals for the rest of your placement. Thing two, talk to your cooperating teacher now. And I know it can be a little intimidating, but you can share something like I've been reflecting on my practice and I want to see and I want to be really intentional about what I developed before the semester ends.

9:34 What do you see as an area of growth for me? And just start that conversation. Ask for some insight, ask for some resources, ask for some ideas so you can start to grow that area now instead of your first year of student teaching. All right, thing three. Decide what kind of teacher you want to show up and what you want to be for the rest of the semester. Think about it. Who are you going to be for these next 6-7 weeks for your students? How are you going to show up for them? Does that mean greeting them at the door, saying reaching the, reaching out to them during class, seeing how things are going, building into minutes of reflection?

10:19 Pick something intentional and do that and really show up for yourself these last few weeks of your placement. Practice something new, practice a new technique or tech tool. All right, so let's review thing one, pick two or three specific measurable goals for the rest of your placement. Thing two, talk to your Co-op and ask them about a specific grow area. And thing three, really reflect and decide on what kind of teacher you want to be for the rest of your placement. And this is a really fun when you can create a beautiful little vision board if you'd like, or create a beautiful text document that has some adjectives that describe you as a teacher that you want to be as you show up. Alright, so that's for my student teachers, for my students who are in coursework, three things I want you to do. Same, same.

11:13 Pick one, pick two or three measurable goals for the rest of your semester, whether that is penciling in time for for study breaks, preparing for finals, creating a study group, whatever that might be. Have a two or three measurable goals for the rest of your semester thing to connect with your academic advisor. Start to share with them your plan for next semester, next year, any paperwork you need to fill out, whether that is checking in about clearances or maybe you have to fill out paperwork for your education department or start planning to take those practice exams.

11:53 See where you are in your timeline and make sure that matches up with your academic advisors timeline as well. Also, you might need to do paperwork or courses that maybe you transferred in or courses that happened. Wait, that was a great time to connect with that. I'm making sure you have all your ducks in a row for the fall semester, your fall self. Well, thank you if you've done this planning ahead of time. And then the third thing I want you to do, if you're still in a course work, is think about how are you going to show up for yourself and your future students these last few weeks of classes? Because I know it can be like a grind going to class, doing the work, showing up, engaging. But now reframe it.

12:36 OK, I'm showing up to class so I can learn to be the best elementary teacher I can be. I'm just showing up to class so I can learn these strategies that I can take into my middle school science class. So I want you to think about maybe create a vision board or a beautiful document that shows, hey, here are the ways I'm going to show up for myself and my future students and these last few weeks of classes. And I'm really going to engage and lock in and be ready to go for my students. All right, we talked about some mindset shifting to carry us through the rest of the semester. So let's go ahead and talk about our last part of today in our podcast episode, which is going to be a very practical 5 minutes for my student teacher friends.

13:23 And then we'll talk about practical 5 minutes for our friends still taking courses. All right, so there's a category in preparation that you know is sometimes overlooked. And it's the stuff that really matters when you're applying for jobs, finishing up your program, and getting ready to walk into your first classroom. Let me lay it out for you. You're creating lessons, you're creating materials, you're creating resources, you're creating handouts and slides and assessments, formative and summative. You're tracking student engagement. You're tracking student grades and you know by the time, by the time all this is going on in your student teaching, maybe you have some information in folders.

14:03 But let's try to tame the chaos with our folders. So this is what I'd like you to do. Here's your action item. Create a simple folder system today, like now get organized. Think about how you want to organize your content. All the stuff you created, you want to organize it by class, subject, grade, module, chapter, unit, whatever. Every week, as you're creating material, put it in that new folder and then organize content as you can. That way you have a nice simple system with all the stuff you've done for a student teaching your assessments, your slides, your handouts, your materials, your resources all in one spot. So you're not doing that later on. So from now on, I'd like you to create that folder and every week make a little copy, put it in there before you send it out to your call for your supervisor, because you're going to start to create your teaching toolkit, and this is where it starts.

15:01 And then as you have time, sort the other things you've done for the past 10 or 11 weeks into that folder. Also, what I'd like you to do is start creating student or start collecting student samples. Take the names off because you want to protect our students privacy. Start to gather example of work that students have done that are fantastic examples. That way you can reflect upon them and use them in an interview during hiring process. But please make sure you take off any identifying information. And since we're talking about student work, it was just a great piece for our student teaching portfolio.

15:41 Let's talk about portfolios. If you have not started a digital portfolio, now is a great time to do so. Create a website on Canva, Wix or Weebly and start to develop your portfolio that has your welcome page. Your about your teaching philosophy. Really think about answering the question, why do you want to teach? What does education mean to you? What does your classroom look like, feel like? How do students feel in your space? So we are starting to create a simple folder system for all of our resources to house student work, our materials, our slides, our lesson plans all in one spot.

16:26 And we're starting to think about our teaching philosophy and our digital portfolio. I'm going to share in the show notes a quick resource for writing your teaching philosophy. That's going to help you out because it can sound really big, but it's really something simple that you can do. So start to build out your resources, your future self. Well, thank you. So that's my 5 minute plan for my student teachers, my 5 minute plan for my students who are currently in coursework. Kind of similar. You're going to start to build out the same thing, but yours is going to be aligned to coursework. So create a folder, Spring 2026.

17:09 Go ahead and put a folder for each of your classes in there. Whatever your class titles are, go ahead and put them into that folder and then start to copy and put all the information into that folder. If you want to get really fancy, you can have a folder called content assignments, papers all within those other ones all within those other folders if you wanted to. But this is just to help you to get organized for for the summer so you have everything ready to go. And bonus if you put it into OneDrive or Google Drive, it's available across platforms, not just hanging out on your desktop. And you won't lose it. So go ahead, create a folder called Spring 2026, create a folder for all your courses, and then go ahead and put your content, your discussions, your papers, your projects all into these folders as they relate to the classes. And then the second action item I want you to do is I want you to reflect on your classes.

18:09 What 2 projects are you really proud of that you can showcase in a digital portfolio? And guess what? Go ahead and start creating 1. You can create a digital portfolio at any time and you can have examples of your work embedded within there, which is fantastic. So you can example, have example lesson plans or example presentations you've done. Maybe you have examples of class field trips that you went on or you visited something, you went to a leadership summit, put those things into your digital portfolio. It looks really professional and is something you started to curate now instead of your senior year. All right, so before we close out, I want to thank you so much for joining me today during our Building March momentum. We had content for our student teachers. We had content for our students still in curriculum and in classes.

19:06 Either way you go, it's a time for reflection. Look where you've been. Look where you're going with goal setting, identify who you want to show up As for the next part of the semester. How are you going to keep keep those great practices going and implement some new changes or or maybe take some things out of your life you know that you might not need anymore that are not serving you well. So I want to thank you so much for joining me today. I hope that you take these 5 minute challenges and just jump in and start getting them done. I wish you the best of luck the rest of the semester and remember you have the edgy magic within you. Bye for now.

19:54 And there you have it, edgy magicians. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and share it with your friends. For more Edu Magic, check out's fessage.com and follow Doctor Sam on Twitter and Instagram at's Fessage Until next time you have the Edu Magic within you.