Some of you are already back in the classroom. Many of you still have a few weeks before those first hellos. Me? I am just about ready to welcome my students to a new school year.

The first fifteen minutes of the school year matter. They are our very first opportunity to build relationships. They allow us to show students that they are entering a space where they can be themselves, take risks, and succeed.

Teacher’s Discovery invited my esteemed colleagues Abelardo Almazán-Vázquez, Bertha Delgadillo and me to talk about how we spend those first fifteen minutes on the first day of school. Of course, there are as many ways to leverage these first fifteen minutes as there are teachers. The context we teach in as well as the students we teach are major drivers of how we choose to open the year.

I shared some of the ways I focus on building trust and setting students up for success. Bertha shared her famous hexagonal thinking, and Abelardo explored questions we should and should not ask our students.

You can find our recorded webinar here, along with the overview and materials I shared and Bertha’s presentation.

As we head into a new school year, I would love to hear from you: What do you want your students to feel during those first fifteen minutes?