Becoming an Excellent Nanny

If you have a love for children, a creative personality and a lot of love to give, you may be perfectly suited for life as a nanny! There are many different types of nannies or au pairs. However, most excellent nannies have a handful qualities in common. Here we will address the most important qualities that every nanny should embody along with a few considerations a future nanny should take.

1. Excellent nannies have an incredible capacity for compassion

Not all nannies work full-time. But even just a few hours a week with the same child or children can be both challenging and rewarding! If you are willing and prepared to open up your heart to a new family several hours a week and patiently care for children even through the difficult times, you might just make an excellent nanny. You will find yourself kissing scraped knees and sometimes even breaking up fights between siblings. This will require a lot of compassion and patience!

2. Excellent nannies are hard-working and creative

Being a nanny is not for the faint of heart and it is in no way a passive job. You will need to be prepared to work constantly. You will need to find creative distractions and games and you will need to be willing to tutor young children through their homework. Nannies don’t just care for children, they also teach them essential life skills they need to care for themselves. You will likely spend a lot of your time as a nanny changing meeting the hygienic needs of children (dirty diapers anyone?) while also attending to household needs like laundry and cooking etc… the work is truly endless!

3. Excellent nannies are CPR certified

Becoming CPR certified is a skill a nanny hopes to never call on. But you and the parents you work for will have much greater peace of mind if you add CPR certification to your nanny-arsenal! Classes are simple and often times can be completed within just a day. CPR recommendations change somewhat regularly as our knowledge and understanding of the human anatomy deepens, so it is important to keep your certification current – don’t let it lapse! Nannies who are CPR certified can expect higher salaries, greater peace of mind and their choice of families to work for!

4. Excellent nannies are disciplined

You don’t have to be tough on children to be disciplined. Children are funny little creatures that crave routine! As boring as it may seem to you, children may get into interesting little ruts that involve the same lunches or snacks every day, the same bedtime story, the same lullaby… But beyond their own individual quirks, they need a consistent schedule. If bath time is at 7:30 every evening, you need to strive to keep it that way no matter what. Make sure they are in bed at the same time nightly and waking up the same time each morning. This will require a lot of discipline on the rough days!

In conclusion, being excellent takes a lot of heart, patience, and intelligence. Becoming a nanny can be a rewarding, diverse and fun career for the right person.

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When Do You Become an Adult?

Millennial women are more likely than men to say they have already reached a milestone they said represented financial adulthood.

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Sample size: A practical introduction

Overview

The sample size is the proportion of the general population that are taking part in the study. However, it is crucial that the sample chosen is representative of the wider population, so that any conclusions drawn from the study can be reasonably extrapolated to individuals who did not directly take part.

Sample size

There are a number of different methods for calculating sample size, with many alternate factors that influence these. Nevertheless, the common features include:

• The significance (alpha) level
• The power of the study
• The predicted effect size

Significance level

A significance (alpha) level of P < 0.05 is universally accepted in most research fields. This means that there is a less than 5% chance that the obtained result of the study is due to chance alone.

Power

The power of a study is defined as its likelihood of obtaining the true outcome. It is calculated as:

Power = 1 – β error (type 2 error)

A type 2 error is failing to detect a significant difference when there actually is one. This usually occurs when the sample size is too small.

In other words, power is the ability to avoid a false negative result, i.e. correctly rejecting the null hypothesis when it is actually false. The higher the power level the better, however, a power level of 80% is generally acceptable in most clinical research studies. Other areas of research will have different standards of power levels.

Predicted effect size

The statistics involved in calculating a specific sample size can become quite complex. Part of this calculation involves inputting a ‘predicted effect size’. The smaller the predicted effect size you wish to obtain, the larger the sample must be. It is vital that the predicted effect size used in the calculation is properly justified. As this figure is user-generated, it can be manipulated by researchers to achieve a sample size figure that they desire. To combat this, predicted effect sizes should be based on a multitude of sources, including previous high quality evidence and clinical experience.

Additional considerations

It is also important to consider the expected drop-out or death rates in the relevant research field. Therefore, the calculation will produce a buffer of extra participants to account for any inevitable loss of numbers. Again, the exact drop-out and/or death rates should be based on previous studies.

Sample size calculations must always be performed before the start of the study to eliminate any bias or deviation from study protocols. Another factor to consider is also practicality. In the real world sample sizes are, more often than not, influenced by administration limitations, costs as well as available resources.

Why should I bother calculating my sample size?

One of the main reasons that studies should be powered, and sample sizes should be calculated is ethics. It is unethical to subject patients to a particular experimental intervention if the study was not adequately powered to be able to detect any significant difference in the first place. Not only does this expose the participants to potential unnecessary harm, it is a significant detriment to both costs and resources.

Summary and links to power calculators

Sample size calculations are necessary for any well designed clinical study. The implementation of these calculations should be based on acceptable alpha levels, power and a justified effect size. Calculating this figure by hand can be quite arduous for the average researcher. As a result, there are a number of online calculators that can be useful. Below are some links:

http://powerandsamplesize.com

http://www.raosoft.com/samplesize.html

http://www.danielsoper.com/statcalc/category.aspx?id=19

https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/mp/sample-size-calculator/

http://www.nss.gov.au/nss/home.nsf/pages/Sample+size+calculator

References

1. Bhalerao S, Kadam P. Sample size calculation. International Journal of Ayurveda Research. 2010;1(1):55. Available from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2876926/
2. Nickson, C. Power and Sample Size Calculation [Internet]. LITFL. Life In The Fast Lane Medical Blog. 2017. Accessed 24/09/2017. Available from https://lifeinthefastlane.com/ccc/power-and-sample-size-calculation/

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7 Tips for Decorating English Classrooms for Teens

There are three kinds of teacher-decorators: those who were born for Pinterest, those who can’t, and all the ones in between (such as the broke, the tired, and the I-have-no-time-to-decorate).

However, making a classroom appeal to middle and high school students doesn’t have to involve serious crafting or expensive, time-intensive projects.

Check out these tips from me and Bonnie from Presto Plans as you prepare your classroom for the fall (or at any time of year that you want to give it a boost!)

1. Have a color scheme (if you can)
Sara: My principal gave each teacher the paint for one accent wall, so that shade of turquoise inspired the rest of my blue decor: milk crates, bulletin board borders, etc. It helped unify the room to make it look pulled-together instead of random. 

Bonnie:  If you are looking for inspiration for colors that look great together, check out this Pinterest board.  There are lots of combinations that will help you choose colors when you are shopping for classroom materials.



2. Stick to a few favorite fonts
Sara: Just like businesses create a brand, you are creating a subconscious teacher and classroom “look” or persona that you will be known for, or at least the mood you will create. (Friendly? Professional? Fun? Minimalist?) Try to pick a few fonts that most of your labels, signs, and other wall-hangings will use. For example, I used the Google font Crushed to make and laminate labels for my white board (see below), along with mint-colored painter's tape.

3. Make your classroom library a focal point
Bonnie:  Your class library should draw students in and works well as the focal point for any English classroom.  Here are a few things you can do to make your library stand out:

Give bookshelves a makeover by rolling them a new coat of paint and/or taking the shelves out and attaching wall paper or scrapbook paper to the back. 

Put a few shelves on the walls near your library area where you can feature particular novels recommended by students.  

Add comfortable, flexible seating near a library to make it more welcoming.  These items can be more expensive, so shop around online or scour garage sales until you find seating that may work.

Use old books as decorations!  When a book is unusable, find a way to repurpose it.  One easy way to do this is to cut out the pages and write a reading-inspired quote in black permanent marker on top of the page.  Frame the page and put it on your bookshelf!

Sara: If your classroom library is small, nonexistent, or needs some attention, check out this blog post for more ideas about how to strengthen it.

4. Display student work
Bonnie: Use student work as decor by making a framed gallery wall.  All you have to do is pick up some inexpensive 8x10 frames (check your dollar store) and arrange them on your wall.  When you get a piece of exceptional student work, add it into the frame!  If you don’t want the hassle of buying and hanging frames, order a pack of mixed color picture mats and use them to frame student work on a bulletin board.

Sara: Another way to get student work on display (while also practicing literary analysis!) is to have them complete this Quote Illustration and Analysis assignment; students use Canva (or any tool you wish) to make an inspirational or literary quote come to life. The results are usually stunning!

5. Use author-inspired decor
Bonnie: Find ways to incorporate the authors you will be studying into your classroom decor.  You can do this by featuring fun facts or by sharing quotes by the author. For example, I use an interactive Shakespeare Hashtag of the Week bulletin display that exposes students to one quote from a Shakespeare play each week.  If you don’t want to make your own, you might even consider assigning an author to each student and having them develop a bulletin display with a biography, fun facts, and quotes that you can swap out weekly.

6. Make your posters work together
Sara: On at least one bulletin board or section of wall space, add some symmetry or consistency by hanging posters in a similar style (color, font, or other), or by displaying images that have a common theme. For example, check out these posters of stylized quotes to get some English class wisdom on your walls.

Bonnie: If you are looking for some ideas of common themes you could use for posters, try some of these ideas that could work in any English classroom: funny grammar quotes or fails, literary terms or genres, author quotes, famous lines from literature, idiomatic expressions, or jokes using puns! To read more about my favorite bulletin board ideas for middle and high ELA, check out this blog post.

7. Make displays easy to update
Sara: Two of my favorite bulletin board spaces were ones that took VERY little effort in updating, so I didn't have the self-imposed pressure to redo the whole thing multiple times per year.

I also made low-prep Quote of the Week flipbooks of reading and writing quotes, which students often asked to flip FOR me. 

Source: 7 Tips for Decorating English Classrooms for Teens