Beat Senioritis With These 5 Tips For Teachers

Image by Jim, the Photographer

Each year as the end of the high school academic year approaches, more and more senior students fall victim to the dreaded effects of “senioritis”. Although it’s just another word for laziness, or wanting to avoid work perceived as unnecessary, senioritis can have a real effect on students and on teachers. What’s more, it’s also the result of real emotions – excitement to move on, boredom with lower-level work and having almost finished years of K-12 education. Here are five ways in which teachers can help students beat those last days of high school.

Save the best for last

If you’re teaching at a high school that allows students to pick and choose which classes they’ll take, then it’s a good idea for teachers to save the most interesting, and perhaps easiest, classes for the second semester of the senior year. The overall results will make school seem way less of a chore for high school students.

Remind seniors that they’re not home-free!

Make sure that students remember that even if they’ve been accepted to their dream schools, they’ll still have to submit high school transcripts after they graduate. And when students fail every class during the final stretch of senior year, some schools will rescind an acceptance offer.

Make sure seniors stay organized

Very often, students will begin to stray from the organizational habits when senioritis sets in. Whether it’s computer time or managing folders with assignments and projects, make sure students stick to the routines that have helped them get through the year successfully

Get active

Seniors might be acting lazy, but they are probably at their physical peak with few outlets for all that energy. By making lessons more physically active, either inside or outside the classroom, teachers might find that their students are better able to focus on what is being learned.

Encourage students to talk to their teachers

Encourage seniors to stay in touch with both you and their other teachers. If students enter into discussions with teachers about how they are getting on with their grades and assignments, then the teachers will be able to offer ideas to students as well.

Image by Jim, the Photographer

By Colm Barker