Wednesday, March 29, 2017
Wednesday, July 6, 2016
Music: Primary Lesson _ Students enjoy a new song and learn tune and pitch
In what ways do students warm up before learning a new song?
What do teachers recommend about pacing and engagement?
Notice the importance of hand signals in helping students understand tune and pitch.
Scientific modeling in the elementary grades
https://www.teachingchannel.org/videos/scientific-modeling-elementary-grades-nsf
Questions to consider:
1. Why is it important for young people to gain experience from scientific modeling?
2. What role do questioning play in these classrooms? What kind of questions do you hear?
3. The lessons in these videos are from the end of units? What do you notice about the learning that students have done during these units?
Differentiating with learning menus
https://www.teachingchannel.org/videos/differentiating-instruction-strategy
Questions to consider:
1. Why is student choice an important part of differentiation?
2. How does the structure of an assessment (graphic organiser, website, brochure) help students summarize content?
3. How does the teacher in this clip assess students after each phase of the project?
4. If you use differentiated instruction and students choose their own task from the menu and all students are graded on a 1-10 rubric, where do you account for degree of difficulty? How is it fair that the student who chooses easiest tasks throughout the menu earns 10 as compared to students who choose difficult tasks and earn 10?
Questions to consider:
1. Why is student choice an important part of differentiation?
2. How does the structure of an assessment (graphic organiser, website, brochure) help students summarize content?
3. How does the teacher in this clip assess students after each phase of the project?
4. If you use differentiated instruction and students choose their own task from the menu and all students are graded on a 1-10 rubric, where do you account for degree of difficulty? How is it fair that the student who chooses easiest tasks throughout the menu earns 10 as compared to students who choose difficult tasks and earn 10?
Thursday, April 28, 2016
Effective Class Room Management
"Discipline and classroom management are by far the top battle that you must win in the classroom."
Your battle starts now ! What are your weapons ?
ANTAGONISM
WITH AUTHORITY
What can be done to help students
improve their interaction with authority figures?
How can the teacher deal with a child who becomes argumentative
upon confrontation?
BOASTFUL,
ATTENTION-SEEKING STUDENT
What can be done for a student who is constantly disrupting the
class in order to gain the teacher's attention?
CALLING OUT
IN CLASS - RESPONSE #l
What do you do with a student who
calls out answers or comments during class?
What can you do about children constantly calling out in class,
even when they are supposed to be working quietly at their seats?
How can you deal effectively with a
"class clown"?
FAILURE TO ASK FOR HELP
FAILURE TO ASK FOR HELP
What can you do about a student who
fails to ask for help with matters he/she does not fully understand in the
curriculum or in the classroom in general?
HYPERACTIVITY - SHIFT IN ATTENTION
HYPERACTIVITY - SHIFT IN ATTENTION
What can be done for students who
frequently shift their attention and/or interests in class?
LACK OF MOTIVATION
LACK OF MOTIVATION
- What do you do with students who lack motivation, have a very negative attitude toward school, and come to class unprepared?
- What methods can be used to motivate students and increase their interest in learning?
LACK OF RESPECT/ NEGATIVE RESPONSE TO REQUESTS AND RULES
- What do you do with students who show a lack of respect for adults, peers, their belongings, and the property of others?
- What can you do when you are confronted with students who are negative about rational requests and/or rules?
More Classroom Management Strategies:
Monday, December 28, 2015
Habits of an Excellent Educator
You are what you do every day. Simply put, the habits of an excellent educator are that they have positive habits, and students are usually the central focus. When I become intentional about my own habits, I level up my performance. The Power of Habit says that habits power excellence. Taking this to heart, I’ve used apps like 30/30 to build routines until they are automatic.
As you prepare your classroom, plan your routines. Consider:
Winning teachers seem to do these things like magic. Their magic is in their routine. Here are some helpful habits to consider.
Establishing Winning Workflows
A workflow is as it sounds: how the work flows in your classroom. There are as many ways to set up these routines as there are stars in the sky. A few things that work for me:
Classroom Procedures
THE Classroom Management Book by Wong and Wong outlines the necessity of classroom procedures. Procedures aren't rules. They're habits shared by the whole classroom. How do students ask to excuse themselves? How do they retrieve make-up work? How do they enter or leave the room?
Substitute Teacher Manual
Create a substitute teacher handbook to document:
Have some emergency lesson plans ready for when (not if) you get sick.
Student Work
Today's classrooms inhabit a physical space (bricks) and online space (clicks). Students should know where to put completed work in both. They should receive graded papers while the work is still fresh.
Makerspace Items
If you're into #geniushour or makerspaces, it helps to have items organized and labeled. Students who use items should pack them up and put them away. Without this procedure, you'll become a janitor, not a professional educator. (I even have procedures for the 3D printer.)
Lesson Planning
Sketch out your year. Then plan down to the month, week, and day. You can't hit what you don't aim to hit. Start planning next week's lessons on Wednesday or Thursday. It's hard, but planning ahead helps us get more rest on the weekend.
Task Management
High performers need a task management system. Most task management systems include:
While some people use David Allen's GTD, I have a slightly different method. Anything that helps you manage your tasks is a good thing.
Parent Communications
In my experience, teachers who don't communicate with parents become frustrated. Non-communicative teachers get upset with parents who always beg for more information. Students rarely tell their parents what the teacher wants them to know. Communication with parents is our job, yet we depend upon kids who may or may not have a strong relationship with their parents to do it for us.
Whole-class communication: Proactivity prevents negativity. Know your parents and how they like to receive teacher communication. I send out bi-weekly emails to each class or when I give a major assignment. Parents don't like surprises.
Build rapport: Parents also like to celebrate when their child succeeds! Take time to email each parent when you see a child do something awesome. Paving the path with positivity will help when you have a problem.
Becoming a Routine Assessment Machine
Grading
Have an appointment for processing paperwork and entering gradebook data. Timely assessment and communication with parents can prevent poor performance.
Formative Assessment
Students should know several quick ways that you assess, so if you say, "Go into Kahoot" or "Prepare an exit ticket," they can respond quickly.Formative assessment should be part of your routine many times during the week.
Student Feedback on Assignments
Professor Dean Shareski has his students evaluate their assignments. This practice is genius. I have used student focus groups at the end of a grading period. Asking for student feedback on each major assignment helps me improve so much!
Self-Assessment
"The unexamined life is not worth living," said Socrates. The unexamined classroom does not improve. Journal. Reflect. Make notes for next year. Make notes for the upcoming week. I keep a teaching idea journal by my desk to jot notes during the week. I use these as I plan the next week and review them at the end of the year.
Personal Habits of Excellence
PLN Building
Readers are leaders. Build a PLN to win. Your personal learning network(PLN) may include:
Your school may have a formal PLC. Whatever you add to your PLN, you should have one. In the U.S. South, we say, "When you're green, you're growing. When you're ripe, you rot." So to grow, you have to learn. To learn, you need to bring excellent resources and people into your life. You become like those you hang around the most -- so hang around with winners, or you may be hung out to dry.
Sharing Best Practices
Educators who care always share. If you're reflecting and learning, take time to share what you've learned.
Physical Health Routine
Even five minutes of physical exercise can boost your mood. Sitting is being called the new cigarette. Exercise improves how we handle stress and can help us sleep. And you must rest to be your best.
Ordering Your Private World
The level of order in your private world impacts your life at school. For so many of us, when we stress at school, everything at home becomes a mess. Things that help me on the home front:
Some educators seem perfectly happy with a mess at home. I'm not one of them. Know yourself. Take steps to reach the level of excellence that you need for peace of mind at home.
Routines Free You Instead of Limiting You
Your habits make you exceptional. Your habits can also make you struggle. The iron law of the universe that you reap what you sow is never truer than when it relates to habits. In my career, I've learned that the better my habits, the better teacher I'm free to become. Dependable habits can free your mind from clutter and let you perform at higher levels.
As you plan this school year, ponder and plan key habits to help you improve. One word of caution: habits can be hard to change. Pick a few or practice habit stacking as you assemble routines of success. Change your habits, change your classroom, change your life.
Behaviour Expectations and How to Teach Them
Students who make academic mistakes are given time to review, relearn, and reassess until they master the content. But with students who fail to meet behavior expectations, more often than not we respond by assuming willful disobedience, removing students from the classroom, and assigning disciplinary consequences. When our typical responses for behavior are applied to academic issues, it's easy to see the disparity.Because educators are well trained to deal with academic failures and missteps, we know that this isn't the way to handle the issues with an academic assignment. Somehow, though, it's become an acceptable way to address student behavior.
The "He Was Told So He Should Know" Problem.
From your reading piece/extracts, paraphrase your learning in no less than 50 words. Add in from your own practices of how you teach behaviour expectations in your classroom. How successful have these practices been?
As an expectation, please comment on 2 other posts from your colleagues on this topic.
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