For folks who have done advisory for years, this will seem like second nature. For those who have not, we will try to give you as much assistance as you need. Advisory is a great opportunity to get to know students without having to “test them” next class. You can really have fun and it occasionally reminds you why you became an educator. Concerns or questions please e-mail me at bbrodie@sover.net . Also if you lose this packet, most of this information is also located on bbrodie.com under the advisory section.
Set Up: To keep track of the academic aspect of an advisee, either ask students to create and share a google folder with you, or maintain a non-electronic manila folder for each advisee. In your first week of advisory there is time for students to articulate their academic and personal goals for the year. Have them write them down and put those in their files. There is a goal setting worksheet included or feel free to make up your own set of questions. Either way, advisory is that time you can talk about self development, goals, and ideals. Go for it.
Planning: Within the first couple of advisories my advisory has always planned out weekly or monthly topics, otherwise I am ship without a compass. You may prefer not to plan as much and go with more current discussion topics. There is a list of topics for discussion which was the result of the Spring Focus Forum on Advisory. I always ask my students to plan two of the five days each week....yes they did plan a "sleep day" once, but we turned it into a wonderful activity about mindfulness.
Attendance : This is an obligatory part of their day, so if someone does not come, you need to let the office know. Make coming to advisory as important as coming to class.
The Format : Each Advisory should start with attendance (same as with any class), and then any announcements school, class, or advisory. If there is a scheduled program, you will have information about the time and place. Otherwise, the time is up to how you and your advisory choose to use it. As a class, you may have decided to work with another advisory to do something as a class, but that is up to you. Although participating in fun activities does positively impact student connectedness, advisory is not just about playing speedball or foursquare every day. Build fun activities into your weekly schedule, but if you're playing games more than once a week, you're probably playing games too often.