I love posters and infographics. There’ something about explaining a complex concept visually that makes it more fun, interesting and easier to understand. I would identify important concepts that students need to understand in chemistry and want to make a poster for it, but would need to use Canva to create it. Using Canva to turn an idea to a visual product takes time. A LOT of time.
Now I use Gen AI. I’ve been playing with prompts and have generated the following posters. I really like how I can tell Gen AI how I want the concept broken down (I do need to give very specific and explicit instructions on breaking down a concept in the prompt. It’s not as simple as “Make me poster on this concept.”) and it will create something for me in a matter of seconds. No more mucking around with Canva trying to find the right template to work from and finding the appropriate graphics.
So here is a small collection for Year 11 Chemistry Modules 1 and 2. Feel free to download. Print them in A3 or larger for your classroom and give them to your students as infographics for their study notes.
Let me know what you think. All feedback is welcome. On some posters, I had to tell the AI to make corrections. Some posters I’ve abandoned because the AI just kept making errors.
Late last year, NSWEduChat was released to all NSW public school students in Years 5–12. Since then, I have been intentionally exploring the use of generative AI. It can serve as a learning support tool in the classroom. This is preferred over it being used as a shortcut or replacement for thinking.
Here are some of the ways I’ve used NSW EduChat with my students. I will outline what’s worked well. Finally, I’ll share where I’d like to take this next.
Laying the Foundations Before Using NSWEduChat
Before students even typed a prompt into NSWEduChat, we spent time building a shared understanding of what generative AI is. We also discussed how it should be used responsibly. This foundation was essential.
We explicitly covered:
An introduction to generative AI – what it is, what it can and can’t do
An introduction to prompting – how the quality of input affects the quality of output
Teaching students when to prompt – helping them understand that AI is a tool to support learning, not replace it
This upfront work helped frame NSWEduChat as a thinking partner rather than an “answer machine”. All of these lessons are in the NSWEduChat staff resource library are in differentiated for Stage 3, 4, 5 and 6 students.
Supporting student writing
One of the most effective uses of generative AI in my classroom has been to support student writing.
Students were writing an informative text on adaptations of Australian animals, and NSWEduChat was used in a differentiated way:
Helping students get started when they were unsure how to begin
Expanding on ideas by asking for examples or explanations
Providing feedback on drafts to help students improve clarity, structure, and scientific accuracy
Importantly, students were still responsible for evaluating the responses, selecting what was useful, and rewriting in their own words. The AI supported the process, not the product. An example of their activity sheet is below.
Supporting understanding and communication of complex concepts
NSW EduChat has also been valuable in helping students consolidate learning after hands-on activities. One example was to explaining the difference between experimental probability and theoretical probability. A samples of the activity sheets is below.
Supporting revision and retrieval practice
Another effective use was for revision. Students used NSWEduChat to:
Test their knowledge on a topic
Generate practice questions
Identify gaps in their understanding
This allowed students to take more ownership of their revision while still engaging in meaningful retrieval practice.
We found NSWEduChat started with simple questions first and asked students to explain their understanding. If students answered questions correctly, it will then move onto more challenging questions. The questions impressively aligned correctly with NSW syllabus outcomes.
What I Liked Most About Using NSWEduChat
What stood out most was how NSW EduChat supported independent extension.
Students with a strong foundation understanding were able to:
Extend their thinking
Ask deeper questions
Clarify misconceptions independently
This, in turn, freed me up to spend more time providing one-on-one support to students who needed it most. The classroom dynamic shifted in a really positive way.
What I’d like to do next
My next focus is to create a range of prompt scaffolds for different learning situations. The goal is to help students better understand:
When it is beneficial to use NSWEduChat
How to prompt effectively depending on the task
Something like the below.
Using generative AI tools like NSWEduChat in the classroom has reinforced for me that their real value lies in how thoughtfully they are used. When embedded with clear expectations, explicit teaching, and strong learning intentions, these tools can enhance understanding, support independence, and free teachers to focus on what matters most — meaningful interactions with students.
This is very much an evolving space, and I know there are many creative, effective approaches being prototyped in classrooms. I’d love to learn from others.
How are you using generative AI with your students?
What’s worked well, and what are you still grappling with?
Please share your experiences, ideas, or questions in the comments below.
An AI ‘takeover’ in schools is often portrayed as being inevitable and the teaching profession has little control over it. That teacher skepticism to AI tools is a barrier to “progress”. This false narrative displaces teachers as the experts of teaching and learning. Is student uptake of AI more unprecedented than expected? Yes. Can more be done in the space of professional support for teachers? Yes, a lot more. This is why Michael Sciffer and I led a session at the Quality Teaching in Practice Conference (QTiP25) at Newcastle University. We aimed to show teachers how they can empower their students to become ethical and critical learners in the age of AI; to challenge situations when AI diminishes rich learning opportunities. When we designed our session, we found the space was dominated by for-profit technology companies promoting their AI products (often under the guise of professional learning and teaching resources). What was missing was supporting teachers to teach students how to have conversations on the ethical and critical use of AI, and challenge each other’s assumptions, from academic situations to everyday life scenarios. That’s what our QTiP25 session focused on and this blog post summarises our session and resources. Our session was strongly influenced, and builds on, the fantastic professional learning on generative AI from NSW Department of Education.
Thinking scaffold to decide IF and HOW AI should be used
We adapted the GENAI assessment scale into a thinking scaffold that school-aged students and teachers can use to discuss how AI and enhance and diminish their learning. The scaffold has six levels of AI integration and asks students/teachers to think about the positives (pluses), negatives (minuses) and interesting considerations for each level of AI integration. Students/ teachers then use scaffold to decide and justify on a level of AI integration that would best enhance their learning. the The scaffold can be used to co-create agreed expectations of the uses of AI in a range of learning tasks, projects and units of work. The scaffold is designed to be used in small group situations, but can used individually.
Classroom conversations to co-create expectations of AI use
After each small group completes the AI thinking scaffold, the group nominates one representative to join a Socratic seminar. To support students (and teachers) to have robust conversations to co-create agreed expectations of AI use from diverse opinions, we selected specific Socratic sentence starters. The sentence starters are selected to encourage students (and teachers) to present different views, challenge each other’s assumptions, to ask each other to justify their reasoning and to support each other.
We also designed additional scenarios for students and teachers to think about where the use of AI extends beyond a learning activity and the classroom. They are designed to be used with the Socractic sentence starters to challenge the impacts of AI use in the context of integrity, equity, honesty and essentially, what it means to be human.
Our session at the QTiP25 conference emphasised the importance of equipping teachers and students with the skills to engage critically and ethically with AI. By enabling robust discussions to co-create expectations around AI use, teachers, as the experts of teaching and learning, can lead their students to collectively decide how AI is used (or not used at all) to enhance and protect rich learning opportunities.
Are you a pre-service teacher about to do your practicum? Or are you a graduate teacher about to enter the profession? Wondering how to effectively use technology as a teacher and with your students, in a way that enhances your wellbeing?
I recently presented at a pre-service teachers conference at University of Technology, Sydney on using technology effectively in the classroom. Here are the highlights of the session. These tips are targeted at pre-service teachers about to go on their practicums and graduate teachers about to enter the classroom.
Google or Microsoft? (or Canvas or everything?)
Many schools will use mainly Google or Microsoft. For Google, this may mean all classes use Google Classroom and the apps that come with Google Workspace for Education such as Google Docs and Google Slides. For Microsoft, this may mean all classes use Microsoft Teams and OneNote Class Notebook. Other schools will use Canvas. Some schools will use a mixture of everything. Before you start teaching at your new school, ask which platforms the students you will be teaching will mostly use so you can become familiar with them. Ask to be added to other teachers’ Google Classrooms and Microsoft Teams (same year level if possible and same subject) so you can see what they’re doing with their classes. My school uses Google Classroom with students and I always add beginning teachers to my Google Classrooms when they ask. That way, they can reuse my posts on their Google Classrooms as a way to support them to develop their craft. For more details on how I use Google Classroom, see this post.
Get WiFi access BEFORE your practicum
This tip is mainly for pre-service teachers doing practicums in a NSW public school. When you first contact your supervising teacher or in your pre-practicum, ask them how to get a NSW Department of Education account for pre-service teachers so you can log into the WiFi. You are not suppose to ask others to log on for you and you don’t want to be using your mobile phone hotspot for your whole practicum. GET THIS ORGANISED BEFORE YOU START YOUR PRAC!
Digital wellbeing
Many teachers (including me) have work apps like Outlook, Google Classroom, Microsoft Teams and Sentral on our personal phones and tablets where everything is synced across. This can be very convenient (For example, I usually have my laptop connected to the interactive panel to display the lesson starter activity and I mark the roll on my phone.).However, this also means your work can slowly creep into your personal life and you find yourself responding to every ‘ping’ from your work apps on your personal devices. Everyone has a different way of working and you have to find out what works for you while respecting your colleagues’ personal time and the school systems policies. Here are some considerations:
Learn how to schedule send emails (and Teams chat messages) so if you want to write a message in the evening after work hours because it is fresh in your mind, you can have the message land in your colleagues’ emails or Teams chat during work hours. This means you can work the way you want and respect others’ personal time. If you are a pre-service teacher, ask your supervising teacher how they work outside of school hours so everyone has a shared understanding of contact outside school hours.
Set expectations for your students. This is particularly relevant for high school. Teenagers often do school work in the evenings, at night (sometimes in the early hours of the morning) and on weekends. I tell my students they can post on Google Classroom at any time, but I will look at their posts and respond on Monday to Friday between 8am and 5pm. I have separate expectations in the school holiday period, depending on the circumstances. If you are a pre-service teacher, ask your supervising teacher what their expectations are for the classes you are taking.
If you choose to have work apps on your personal phone, know the privacy implications for the relevant school system. Move these work apps to the last screen of your phone so they’re not immediately visible and available for you to tap when you unlock your phone. Explore features like Focus mode, Personal mode and Do Not Disturb mode to see if and how they work for you.
Tips from teachers for teachers
And finally here are the tips from teachers, deputy principals and principals (who I highly respect and are known for their educational technology expertise and innovations) specifically for pre-service teachers and beginning teachers. 🙂 A big thank you to every one of them for sharing their advice.
Every student I’ve worked with wants to do well at school. But what does this look like for each student and how do they get there? This is where goal setting can be very powerful.
Goal setting is a well-known strategy to improve student motivation, resilience and academic achievement. Doing a Google Search will bring up many articles supporting this. Some of my favourite ones are from Edutopia and What Works Best from the NSW Department of Education.
But what does goal setting look like in a classroom and how can it be implemented sustainably and consistently? In this post, I will share what has worked (and what hasn’t worked) for me in leading the implementation of goal setting for over 200 students and involving 20 teachers. I have packaged the latest collection of promising practices into a OneNote notebook, which teachers and download and customise.
So, these are the strategies, practices and resources that have worked for me (all are in the OneNote notebook).
Supporting students to help students set SMART goals
S = specific M = measurable A = achievable R = realistic T = time-bound
SMART provided a framework for students to set personalised goals that are personal, aspirational and realistic. SMART also reduces the number of well-intentioned goals where progress and success are difficult to measure, such as “try harder in maths”, “get better grades” and “concentrate more in class”. Some videos I’ve found useful in explaining SMART goals to students are Setting Goals from BrainPOP and How to write a SMART goal from Khan Academy and
But it isn’t enough to know what SMART goals are. I found students needed a comprehensive scaffold, particularly in:
Breaking down goals into smaller mini goals
I included this in the ‘specific’ section of SMART. When students have identified a goal, they are guided to identify three smaller steps to achieve the goal. This was important for students to track and assess their progress. The smaller goals not only help students to work towards their goals but also allow them to see success and stay motivated when they have achieved a smaller goal.
Identifying barriers and ways to overcome them
This part was optional for my students but for those who did it, it allowed them to see if their original goal was realistic for them and/or identify ways to remove known obstacles that may stop them from achieving their goal.
Sharing progress and accomplishments with family
My prior attempts with goal setting have largely involved it being a very personal experience for the student. Students completed a goal setting resource and at the end of the semester, they reflected on whether they had achieved their goal.
There was nothing wrong with the above approach, but to make the goal setting process more meaningful, I now have students write a personal reflection comment that goes onto their end-of-semester academic report. Students know the intended audience of the comment is themselves and their parents/carers. The personal reflection comment acts as a culminating product that nicely wraps up a yearly goal setting process.
And now to tie all the promising practices into one delivery mechanism – OneNote Class Notebook.
Why OneNote is the best tech tool for goal setting
I have used hardcopy booklets, Google Doc, Google Slides and Google Forms to deliver goal setting programs. It is OneNote Class Notebook that has been the most effective in delivering a responsive goal setting program, particularly for a large group of students that is being delivered by a large number of teachers. How does OneNote Class Notebook do this?
Supporting consistent implementation by offering a baseline resource package that can be used as is but has the flexibility to be customisable. This means teachers who are very new to goal setting have a resource they can take straight to their class and the teachers who are more experienced with goal setting can modify the resource to suit their needs and their students’ needs.
Providing ease of monitoring – OneNote Class Notebook allows the teachers who are leading the program to see the progress of every student in every class. This means we didn’t have to wait for scheduled meetings and self-reporting processes to identify which students/classes/teachers may need additional support. We can see how everyone is going anytime and be proactive in providing support.
Allowing ongoing, responsive adjustments – This is where OneNote Class Notebook has outshined the other tools. With hardcopy resources and Google Workspace apps, once the resource has been printed/distributed, it is overly complex to adjust it. With OneNote Class Notebook, resources can be distributed one page at a time so future resources can be prepared, adjusted based on feedback if needed and distributed when a student or class is ready. OneNote Class Notebook is like a digital binder so every page that is distributed still feels like and appears to be a cohesive package. It’s not a bunch of separate Google Doc files, a bunch of different Google Classroom assignment posts or a bundle of hardcopy papers.
The teachers leading the goal setting program created instructional videos on the technical aspects of OneNote Class Notebook such as how students get to their OneNote notebook and the structure of their OneNote notebook. This meant teachers who are not confident with OneNote could use the instructional video to guide their students. We also provided in-class team teaching for teachers who requested it.
The goal setting OneNote package
Download the Goal Setting OneNote notebook for your students. See here for more information on how to use OneNote Class Notebook to further customise the notebook and distribute it to your students. If you do use the resource, I would love to hear your feedback.
After teaching for almost 15 years, here are three STEM activities I have done many times that need zero (almost) preparation and use materials readily available in nearly every classroom. These activities can work from middle primary to middle secondary but can be adapted to suit younger and older learners. These activities work really well without worksheets so no photocopying is required. They also work indoors or outdoors. You can literally walk into a class with just yourself and run these activities. And best of all, students love them!
All of them can be used to explore concepts in science mathematics and technology such as:
Science – fair testing, investigation design, data processing and representation
Mathematics – data and representation of data
Technology – design process and coding
You can incorporate literacy activities such as writing procedures and recounts.
So whether you need a quick activity for your own class or you are covering someone else’s class in short notice and need something hands-on and engaging, check out these activities and add them to your toolkit of anywhere anytime lesson activities.
Note these activities need timers. I usually ask students to use the stopwatch/timer app on their mobile phones. However, if you are teaching younger students who wouldn’t have mobile phones or you are working in a school where students are not allowed to have phones in class, you can ask students to use the stopwatch/timer app on their laptops or go online and use Google Timer. You can also display Google Timer on the interactive classroom screen for the class to use.
Paper helicopters
Materials and equipment needed – paper, scissors, paper clips, timer
Paper helicopters are also known as rotocopters. An internet search for paper helicopters or rotocopters will generate lots of results. I particularly like this page, which has instructions, explanations and templates. If you can’t print the templates, you can ask students to draw their own templates. The video below also shows how to draw the templates.
Paper helicopters are great for teaching fair testing, average calculations and presenting data in tables and graphs. For some classes, I also like to link them to adaptations in seeds, particularly sycamore seeds like the video below.
Paper planes
Materials and equipment needed – paper, timer
Almost every student knows how to fold a paper plane, but instead of folding a plane that flies the furthest, have a competition to see who can fold a paper plane that has the longest flight time. This is a good option as it doesn’t need metre rulers or tape measures; just a phone timer (see the above note if your students do not have phones). I like to have students explore the Fold ‘N’ Fly website, which has a large range of paper plane designs with written and video instructions.
You can also show the class a short clip from the movie, Paper Planes, to introduce the activity.
Exercise and heart rate
Materials and equipment – timer
This is one of my favourite activities. It gets students moving and can be linked to many concepts, particularly in science. The idea is simple. Have students measure their resting heart rate, and do some kind of exercise from 5 to 10 minutes (I usually let the students choose star jumps, jogging on the spot, running around the oval, sit-ups, push-ups or another exercise they are comfortable with) and then measure their heart rate again. Data can be collated from the whole class. Discussions can be linked to so many concepts from respiration to athletic performance. See this website for more detailed instructions and videos.
If you have a bit more time and access to digital materials, you can have students create their own heart rate monitor and evaluate its effectiveness.
Being organised is essential in teaching. Every teacher has a teacher planner where you do your lesson plans, track student progress, monitor the progress of your goals, record professional learning notes, record meeting notes and much more.
I have never found a commercial teacher planner to suit my needs and over the last 5 years, I have created and refined my own teacher planner in OneNote. Here’s the structure of my OneNote digital planner.
Sections structure
I have a very straight forward section structure. For me this is the right amount of sections to stay organised and not be overwhelmed by too many sections. I have a section for:
These sections have the same pages. Each section has a page for each school week. Each page has a table format for lesson plans for each day and period, a column for a daily to-do list and a column for tracking the progress long-term projects. For the daily to-do list, I use the To-Do tags in OneNote to check off a task when I finish it. Whatever I don’t get done, I cut and paste it to the next day or week.
I like having my lesson plans, to-do list and long-term projects presented on one page so I am not flicking back and forth between different pages, which I found I did not like with hardcopy planners.
School notes section
These sections hold notes for the two different schools I work at this year. For my main school, I have pages to track homework and classwork completion. I have created a custom tag to check off student work.
Meetings section
This section has been set up so the same meetings notes template is created each time a new page is added.
Why I prefer OneNote for my teacher planner
I have tried various hardcopy planners and digital apps for lesson planning, but have found OneNote to be the best. My main reasons are being able to:
Sync my planner across my Surface Pro, iPhone and iPad. This means I always have access to my planner in most situations.
Use digital ink with the Surface Pen and Apple Pencil, which is extremely useful for annotations.
Email pages in my OneNote to colleagues or students if I need to. This is particularly useful for meeting notes.
What kind of teacher planner do you use? I’d love to learn from teachers how they use a planner to stay organised.
This year I teach Year 7 maths, year 7 science and Year 12 chemistry in a large high school. Working in a large high school means that no one has their own classrooms. Homerooms are non-existent. My school has a fortnightly timetable cycle with each 50-minute lessons. I am in at least 10 different classrooms in a fortnight. This means every 50 minutes, I am setting up and packing up in a different classroom, utilising different audiovisual equipment and working with a different seating layout. Learning time can be easily wasted if I don’t have a system and a consistent routine for me and my students as we move from room to room. So here are three ways I use Google Classroom to make it easier for me and my students to stay organised and maximise learning time.
Every lesson and every detail are on Google Classroom I post every lesson with every worksheet, slide deck, website, video and anything else I use for a lesson is on Google Classroom. This includes the lesson’s learning intention and success criteria for my Year 7 classes, and the syllabus content points for my Year 12 chemistry class. This means I can walk into any classroom, connect my laptop to the display screen and my entire lesson and everything I need is ready to go. I don’t need to waste time looking for files in File Explorer or my Google Drive. Everything is already in the lesson post on Google Classroom. This maximises learning time as it allows a more seamless lesson flow. It also minimises classroom management issues and cuts down on transition points.
At my school, every student has their own device, so I encourage my students to have the same resources opened on their device as I am going through them on the classroom display screen. This is very helpful for students who may have difficulty seeing the screen clearly for a variety of reasons. Students can also work at their own pace if we are making notes from slides that I’m using so the students who work faster can move on and the students who need more time can take more time.
Having every lesson posted on Google Classroom, lesson by lesson, also makes registrations so much easier.
A lesson post on Google Classroom for my Year 7 classA lesson post on Google Classroom for my Year 12 class
Lesson starter activity is on Google Classroom
I start every lesson with Quick Quiz, which is a bell ringer activity that the class completes in silence as soon as they enter the classroom. The Quick Quiz is a series of questions based on previous content the class has learnt. I use the Quick Quiz for retrieval practice and as a classroom management strategy. The students know as soon as they walk into the classroom, they do the Quick Quiz. This gives me time to mark the roll, check uniform and set up for the lesson. Each lesson’s Quick Quiz is on Google Slides which is placed on the top of their Google Classroom Classwork. I use to handwrite the Quick Quiz on the whiteboard, but found having the Quick Quiz prepared before the lesson results in a smoother start to the lesson.
Quick Quiz Google Slides is in a post that is sorted to be on top of Google Classroom in the Classwork tab, which makes it really easy for me and my students to access at the start of each lesson.An example Quick Quiz question for my Year 12 chemistry classAn example Quick Quiz question for my Year 12 chemistry class
Lessons are posted on Google Classroom the day before
I post every lesson on Google Classroom in the afternoon the day before the lesson. This allows students to have a preview of the lesson before they walk into the lesson. I encourage my students to log onto Google Classroom in the evening or in the morning before school, so they know the type of learning to expect for the day ahead. I find that when students know what to expect ahead of time, they are more settled and there are fewer classroom management issues. Some of my Year 12 students like to read the slides the night before if they have time so they can better understand the content when I explain it in class.
These three strategies are not unique to Google Classroom and can be adapted to other digital tools like Microsoft Teams. The key is using technology to facilitate routines that allow you to maximise learning time and feel less frantic when you set up a lesson.
Last year I trialled digital learning logs with my Year 7 maths and science class, which you can read about here. Overall, I found it beneficial as my students were given regularly dedicated time to reflect on their learning, with a focus on what work they are proud of, the challenges they faced, how they overcame these challenges and what they can do differently next time. While students appreciated the time to stop and think about their learning, time was also a barrier to this initiative. Sometimes it felt like there was no time to do this and if we used lesson time to reflect, then we will fall behind. This challenge became very obvious in the last term of the year when students had a large number of assessments and end-of-year activities that we missed some of our dedicated time for learning logs.
So I’ve created the third iteration of the learning log, which only has six weekly reflection activities and a goal setting/tracking page that is equivalent to two weekly reflection activities. So there is a total of eight weekly activities, which provides a buffer for other things that come up during the term like assessments, excursions, incursions and other disruptions. I’ve changed some of the reflection activities to embed more extended writing which may be more suitable for older students. I’ve also incorporated an ACE score in some of the activities, which is a student self-assessment on their attitude, commitment and effort. This was inspired by Trangie Central School.
You can download your own copy of the learning log template to adapt and use with your students.
Like many teachers, I get LOTS of emails each day. In the past few years, I’ve noticed that my email practices were negatively impacting my productivity. Email notifications would break my workflow. If I was marking student work and I saw email notifications, I felt the need to read and sometimes reply to these emails immediately when it was not necessary. Even if I didn’t read the email, seeing and hearing the notification is a distraction. I was also tempted to check emails more often than I should. Time is a precious resource for teachers and I can’t have emails taking up more time than they should. Here is a summary of what has worked for me that may be useful for other teachers.
Turning off desktop notifications
I use the Outlook desktop app and notifications are turned on by default. I found the notification sound and the little pop up at the bottom corner of the screen was distracting me, particularly when I needed sustained focus. So I turned off desktop notifications. This way I can still have my emails opened, but I won’t know I have new emails until I am ready to look at my emails. Here are instructions to turn message alert pop-ups on or off.
Having a To-Do folder
The To-Do is a sub-folder within my inbox folder with emails that required me to do something, I use to have them floating in my main inbox folder, which sometimes caused me unnecessary stress as they constantly reminded me of everything I needed to do. Instead, I now immediately move these emails into the To-Do folder. I allocate time in my calendar to follow up on these emails.
Setting up rules to filter email notifications
I choose to receive Google Classroom emails notifications so I can keep track of questions and comments from my students. However, I don’t need these emails to constantly show up in my main inbox. I’ve set up a rule so that all Google Classroom notifications go straight into a special folder. Like the To-Do folder, I allocate time during the day to look at them. Here are instructions to set up rules in Outlook.
Unsubscribing from unwanted emails
Over my career, I have accumulated a number of subscriptions that I no longer need or find useful. I spent a couple of weeks subscribing from these each time an email arrived. My inbox is so much better now. See here for instructions on different ways to unsubscribe from unwanted emails.
Moving the email app to the last screen of my phone
I know many people choose not to have their work emails on their personal phones. I don’t mind it. I find it convenient but I turned off push email notifications on my phone years ago. I have also moved the email app to the last screen page of my phone so I’m not tempted to tap on it unless I actually need to look at my emails.
Not sending or responding to emails outside of core work hours
I deliberately do not send or respond to emails outside of core work hours. For me, emails are sent and responded to between 8 am and 5 pm on school days. If I wanted to draft emails outside this time, I set them on delay send so they are sent at 8 am the next work. Here are instructions on how to do this in Outlook. I personally believe it is important for leaders to set an example and not intrude on others’ personal time.