Last year I starting making movies with my class. My students created movies about idioms, social skills, rocks, and the water cycle. I posted those on the class wiki. They loved to watch those movies over and over again. They viewed those movies so much they had the lines memorized. Not just their lines, everyone's lines! Now, if I ask one of my students from last year what an idiom is, they remember, because they remember those movies. So, when I overheard an upper grade teacher grumbling in the staff lounge about the 7th graders still not knowing certain grammar skills, I started to wonder. If you want to have certain skills, facts, and vocabulary stored in students' minds, are student made movies one of the most effective ways to do that? Thus, my experiment.
An assessment taken after our geometry unit revealed the concepts and vocabulary that my students had not yet mastered. Some students still couldn't describe a parallelogram or a rhombus or the difference between a rhombus and a square. I could tell that some were still confused about right angles or pairs of parallel lines. I used the assessment data to determine which concept each student would be responsible for teaching others about in a skit that would be a part of our class geometry movie. I put students into pairs and wrote their assigned topic on an index card.
I introduced the idea of a geometry movie through the movies found on the Student Made Math Movies wiki. I gave the pairs this assignment and this scoring guide and they went to work. My students had already had experience writing scripts, so they were ready to write these without instruction. But if your student have not written scripts, you will want to teach them the genre by reading examples of scripts and using other scripts as models for their writing.
Students will be finishing up the movies this week. After the holiday break, my goal is to have the movie done and posted for them to view over and over again. After an extended period of time, I will give them the geometry assessment again. That will help me determine if my hypothesis has some truth, that student made movies DO help students keep facts, concepts and vocabulary in their long-term memory.
Saturday, December 17, 2011
Sunday, October 23, 2011
Using Technology with Caution
I hate to admit it, but it may be true. Adding technology may not be producing the results I was hoping for. Although my students last year were engaged and involved in their learning most of the time, their scores on the standardized tests did not show growth. In some cases, the scores went down. Even though they learned how to collaborate, communicate and create, other academic skills needed for the tests were not developed.
This year, as I integrate technology into my curriculum, I am asking myself these questions.
How rigorous is the activity? I am going to use Karen Hess' Cognitive Rigor Matrix to evaluate the learning activities that I am designing, striving for a range of Depth of Knowledge levels. The higher the Depth of Knowledge level, the more deeply students must understand the content to complete the task.
Are the learning outcomes serving a standard? I will begin with the standards. I will ask myself, how will the use of technology help students master those standards? Common Core Standards has been adopted in my state. Using those as well as the Cognitive Rigor Matrix will ensure that the activities will achieve results.
Are my expectations for the process and product high enough? I will use scoring guides with most of my technology activities to help communicate the expectations clearly. When students know what the expectations are, they will strive to reach them.
How will I evaluate the impact of the technology on the learning? I will use data to help me see the impact the use of the technology is having on student learning.
This year, as I integrate technology into my curriculum, I am asking myself these questions.
How rigorous is the activity? I am going to use Karen Hess' Cognitive Rigor Matrix to evaluate the learning activities that I am designing, striving for a range of Depth of Knowledge levels. The higher the Depth of Knowledge level, the more deeply students must understand the content to complete the task.
Are the learning outcomes serving a standard? I will begin with the standards. I will ask myself, how will the use of technology help students master those standards? Common Core Standards has been adopted in my state. Using those as well as the Cognitive Rigor Matrix will ensure that the activities will achieve results.
Are my expectations for the process and product high enough? I will use scoring guides with most of my technology activities to help communicate the expectations clearly. When students know what the expectations are, they will strive to reach them.
How will I evaluate the impact of the technology on the learning? I will use data to help me see the impact the use of the technology is having on student learning.
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Preparing Students for Quality Online Discussions
I believe that it is my responsibility to spend time preparing students before they participate in an online discussion. Just like literature discussion groups in the classroom, I can't assume that just because I put them together in a group to talk about a book, my students will know how to have a meaningful discussion that helps build their understanding.
My goal for my students is that they communicate their ideas through their posts, by elaborating their writing, supporting their thinking with evidence, building on other students' ideas, acknowledging other students' opinions by agreeing or disagreeing, and displaying courteous online behavior. I want them to understand the difference between online social chatting and discussing online for learning purposes. I want them to write to get their messages across and seek to understand what others are saying. And I want them to see how listening to and responding to others ideas impacts their own thinking.
Ranking Discussion Responses
I begin with a lesson called "What Makes a Good Online Discussion Response?' I have my students analyze actual threaded discussions with the goal of selecting the posts that they think are the best. For my 4th grade students, I choose 3 questions along with the threaded responses to the question. I divide my class into groups of 3. Their task is to choose 3 responses to each question that they believe are the best and rank them, with #1 being the best. Then, they are to take all of the #1 responses and decide which one was the best of all. I give them this team task sheet, which outlines the steps to take, including choosing someone to be the writer, the reader, and the task manager. We first do one together and they complete the other two in their teams.
After they finish that task, they turn in their top responses to me. I conclude this lesson by asking my students do a self-reflection on an index card. 1. What did your group do well? 2. How could your group improve? 3. What did you do well? 3. What could you improve? I also ask for volunteers to share if they would like to acknowledge anyone in their group who they felt was a good team mate and why.
Determining the Criteria
The second day I post the selected #1 responses on the SMARTboard. I asked my students to explain why they thought the winning responses deserved #1. What made them so good? As they share, I list their ideas around the responses. Then, together we create a list entitled "Quality Responses". They copy those into their technology books (little essay books where they keep technology related directions and passwords). Here is the list that they came up with this year:
The Online Discussion Challenge!
Next, I present The Online Discussion Challenge! I tell students that they have 3 challenges that they need to pass before they can actually discuss online with other classrooms. First, I walk them through how to sign up and use Edmodo. They write down directions in their Technology books. Then, I explain their first Online Discussion Challenge. Their job is to write quality responses to 2 or more of the 4 questions that I had posted about a book that we are reading.
After students log into Edmodo, they begin the first challenge. After they completed 2 or more posts, they bring their technology book to me and read a book while I check their responses. If they pass the challenge, I put a little sticker next to You Passed the Challenge! If they do not pass the challenge, that is if their responses are lacking all the needed criteria to make the posts Quality, I call them over and give feedback about what they can do to revise or edit the posts, making them quality responses.
The second challenge is to respond to 2 other people's responses. I model how to agree or disagree with another person, explaining why you feel that way. We look at some posts and think about questions that they we might ask the author of the post, seeking clarification or elaboration of ideas. My students move onto challenge 2 and again bring their technology books to me as I check their responses before they move on to the final challenge.
The final challenge is to show emotion in a post using word or symbols. We compare real time discussion with online discussion and how in real time you show your emotions through body language as well as words. We look at the ways our message could come across with the wrong emotion if we use capitals, meaning we are shouting, or if we use certain language.
Once my students pass all 3 challenges, they are ready to discuss online. In this case, we have been reading the Global Read Aloud and we have a Skype partner classroom that has been getting ready to discuss on Edmodo, too. Although we've been practicing by discussing the book with our classmates, the real thing happens this Thursday when both classrooms get on Edmodo the same time. I can't wait!
My goal for my students is that they communicate their ideas through their posts, by elaborating their writing, supporting their thinking with evidence, building on other students' ideas, acknowledging other students' opinions by agreeing or disagreeing, and displaying courteous online behavior. I want them to understand the difference between online social chatting and discussing online for learning purposes. I want them to write to get their messages across and seek to understand what others are saying. And I want them to see how listening to and responding to others ideas impacts their own thinking.
Ranking Discussion Responses
I begin with a lesson called "What Makes a Good Online Discussion Response?' I have my students analyze actual threaded discussions with the goal of selecting the posts that they think are the best. For my 4th grade students, I choose 3 questions along with the threaded responses to the question. I divide my class into groups of 3. Their task is to choose 3 responses to each question that they believe are the best and rank them, with #1 being the best. Then, they are to take all of the #1 responses and decide which one was the best of all. I give them this team task sheet, which outlines the steps to take, including choosing someone to be the writer, the reader, and the task manager. We first do one together and they complete the other two in their teams.
After they finish that task, they turn in their top responses to me. I conclude this lesson by asking my students do a self-reflection on an index card. 1. What did your group do well? 2. How could your group improve? 3. What did you do well? 3. What could you improve? I also ask for volunteers to share if they would like to acknowledge anyone in their group who they felt was a good team mate and why.
Determining the Criteria
The second day I post the selected #1 responses on the SMARTboard. I asked my students to explain why they thought the winning responses deserved #1. What made them so good? As they share, I list their ideas around the responses. Then, together we create a list entitled "Quality Responses". They copy those into their technology books (little essay books where they keep technology related directions and passwords). Here is the list that they came up with this year:
The Online Discussion Challenge!
Next, I present The Online Discussion Challenge! I tell students that they have 3 challenges that they need to pass before they can actually discuss online with other classrooms. First, I walk them through how to sign up and use Edmodo. They write down directions in their Technology books. Then, I explain their first Online Discussion Challenge. Their job is to write quality responses to 2 or more of the 4 questions that I had posted about a book that we are reading.
After students log into Edmodo, they begin the first challenge. After they completed 2 or more posts, they bring their technology book to me and read a book while I check their responses. If they pass the challenge, I put a little sticker next to You Passed the Challenge! If they do not pass the challenge, that is if their responses are lacking all the needed criteria to make the posts Quality, I call them over and give feedback about what they can do to revise or edit the posts, making them quality responses.
The second challenge is to respond to 2 other people's responses. I model how to agree or disagree with another person, explaining why you feel that way. We look at some posts and think about questions that they we might ask the author of the post, seeking clarification or elaboration of ideas. My students move onto challenge 2 and again bring their technology books to me as I check their responses before they move on to the final challenge.
The final challenge is to show emotion in a post using word or symbols. We compare real time discussion with online discussion and how in real time you show your emotions through body language as well as words. We look at the ways our message could come across with the wrong emotion if we use capitals, meaning we are shouting, or if we use certain language.
Once my students pass all 3 challenges, they are ready to discuss online. In this case, we have been reading the Global Read Aloud and we have a Skype partner classroom that has been getting ready to discuss on Edmodo, too. Although we've been practicing by discussing the book with our classmates, the real thing happens this Thursday when both classrooms get on Edmodo the same time. I can't wait!
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Instead of Class Rewards: 10 Steps to Take
Are you nervous about getting rid of your class rewards? Scared that without the external motivators, students won't behave? So was I. Here are 10 things to try in place of a class reward system. It has worked for me!
1. Begin the year in awe of your students. Let them know daily how amazing they are. Notice and and comment on the specific things that they say and do that impresses you. My students knew that I loved them and that I thought they were awesome by the third day of school.
2. Find out everything you can about your students early on. I asked parents to write me a letter about their child, I did student interest inventories, and I had letters from the students before school began. Be sure to connect with each student every day with a short personal comment. "How's Jasmine?" "Any new legos?" "How is your headache today?" "Love the nails!"
3. Celebrate with a "special" activity within the first week. For example, our day routinely begins with AM work and an AM checklist. I told them frequently how impressed I was with how quickly they learned the morning routine and showed independence. I noticed how they helped each other and how they worked together to get things done. I told them that I usually waited a few weeks before I did a special technology project, but because of their incredible independent behavior, I felt that it was time for the project now. Show them the connection between their behavior and use of time and your behavior and choices of activities. Help them see that managing their time well and making smart choices reaps fun benefits. Continue to have celebrations, no matter how small. We had an extra five minutes of recess last week because we got everything done that I had planned for math that day with five minutes to spare!
4. Have students discuss what kind of place they want to come to every day. Read Bad Case of Stripes and talk about the message in the story. Then discuss these kinds of questions: "What kind of place do you want this room to be? How do you want to feel here? Do you want to feel like you can be yourself? How can we help everyone feel comfortable being who they are?"
5. Have students write a class constitution. Show the video, Creating a Class Constitution, on Discovery Streaming. Then have the students do the same activity. It is wonderful and I will do it every year. I know there are people who are going to disagree with me but when you write the constitution, be careful about changing all of your "don't" statements to "do" statements. I had more than one person comment about my students' rules "Don't Bully" and "Don't Tip in Your Chairs", saying "You are supposed to write all your rules in positive language". But if I had changed it to positive statements like "Be Nice" and "Keep all four legs of the chair on the ground", I would be changing their words and probably their meaning to some extent. Let them own it. They said don't bully because they mean don't bully!
6. Discuss Logical Consequences. After everyone signs the class constitution, talk about the consequences of breaking the rules. Tell them that you respect their rules and your job is to enforce them. Ask "Do you think that just because we all just agreed, no one will ever break these rules?" I tell them about the 3 consequences, Take a Break, You Break It, You Fix It, and Lose Privileges. I also talk about mistakes vs. habit. We all break rules from time to time. However, doing the same thing over and over again is becoming a habit and I will work with the individual to come up with solutions that will help.
7. Tell students that you don't reward good behavior. I simply said that I don't reward good behavior, I expect it. I don't give out prizes or stickers for good behavior. However, I tell them, we will still do fun things like pajamas and a movie or beach day. Those kinds of days will be celebrations of all of their hard work.
7. Help students manage their time through Fun Friday. I got this idea from The Cornerstone by Angela Watson. Every Friday I plan a "fun" activity that I was planning to do anyway. This first week we decorated our reading journals. The second week my students used the laptops to play Cool Math games. This week we will be creating a video to put onto our blog. Here is the catch. All AM work and other independent work must be done before participating in Fun Friday. I give my students plenty of time to get their AM work and other work done. I make sure I tell them how long they will have to do it and I announce when there is so much time left. Refrain from nagging students to get their work done. After 2 weeks of Fun Friday, you will see most of your students managing their time better and staying on task.
8. Use brain based teaching strategies. Make sure kids have choices and voices, build movement, hands-on, novelty and play into the day, provide challenges and opportunities to inquire and solve problems, let them talk and collaborate, balance between consistent grounding rituals and routines and open-ended activities, and build on their interests and background knowledge.
9. Learn about the connections between human needs and motivation. When unexpected behaviors crop up, follow-through with your consequences but also ask yourself what is motivating the student to behave this way? Is there a need that is not being met? What can you do or change that will help him/her get his/her needs met? (Choice Theory, Circle of Courage, Motivation Breakthrough)
10. Involve students in shared decision making and planning as soon as you can. Listen carefully to your students. Jump off of their ideas and use them as community building activities. A simple way to do this is with class jobs. I don't start the year with jobs. I tell students that we will begin in after a week or so and I need them to be thinking about what jobs our class needs. I use their ideas along with some of my tried and true jobs when I introduce jobs. If you know what your goals are for your students it is easier to use their ideas without feeling like it is a waste of time. For example, this year my goal is for my students to have ownership of our class blog. That means they will design it and decide how it is used. So when one of my students drew me a picture of our class as the 4th Grade Superheroes, I took advantage of his idea. I introduced the concept of blogs by showing my students examples of blogs and then we looked at our empty blog with its generic heading. I told them that they needed to personalize it so it was their blog. After sharing Thomas' drawing, the class agreed to call it 4P Superheroes. After lots of brainstorming, I helped them combine their ideas and we ended with a plan for a blog header and introduction video starring them, the 4P Superheroes.
1. Begin the year in awe of your students. Let them know daily how amazing they are. Notice and and comment on the specific things that they say and do that impresses you. My students knew that I loved them and that I thought they were awesome by the third day of school.
2. Find out everything you can about your students early on. I asked parents to write me a letter about their child, I did student interest inventories, and I had letters from the students before school began. Be sure to connect with each student every day with a short personal comment. "How's Jasmine?" "Any new legos?" "How is your headache today?" "Love the nails!"
3. Celebrate with a "special" activity within the first week. For example, our day routinely begins with AM work and an AM checklist. I told them frequently how impressed I was with how quickly they learned the morning routine and showed independence. I noticed how they helped each other and how they worked together to get things done. I told them that I usually waited a few weeks before I did a special technology project, but because of their incredible independent behavior, I felt that it was time for the project now. Show them the connection between their behavior and use of time and your behavior and choices of activities. Help them see that managing their time well and making smart choices reaps fun benefits. Continue to have celebrations, no matter how small. We had an extra five minutes of recess last week because we got everything done that I had planned for math that day with five minutes to spare!
4. Have students discuss what kind of place they want to come to every day. Read Bad Case of Stripes and talk about the message in the story. Then discuss these kinds of questions: "What kind of place do you want this room to be? How do you want to feel here? Do you want to feel like you can be yourself? How can we help everyone feel comfortable being who they are?"
5. Have students write a class constitution. Show the video, Creating a Class Constitution, on Discovery Streaming. Then have the students do the same activity. It is wonderful and I will do it every year. I know there are people who are going to disagree with me but when you write the constitution, be careful about changing all of your "don't" statements to "do" statements. I had more than one person comment about my students' rules "Don't Bully" and "Don't Tip in Your Chairs", saying "You are supposed to write all your rules in positive language". But if I had changed it to positive statements like "Be Nice" and "Keep all four legs of the chair on the ground", I would be changing their words and probably their meaning to some extent. Let them own it. They said don't bully because they mean don't bully!
6. Discuss Logical Consequences. After everyone signs the class constitution, talk about the consequences of breaking the rules. Tell them that you respect their rules and your job is to enforce them. Ask "Do you think that just because we all just agreed, no one will ever break these rules?" I tell them about the 3 consequences, Take a Break, You Break It, You Fix It, and Lose Privileges. I also talk about mistakes vs. habit. We all break rules from time to time. However, doing the same thing over and over again is becoming a habit and I will work with the individual to come up with solutions that will help.
7. Tell students that you don't reward good behavior. I simply said that I don't reward good behavior, I expect it. I don't give out prizes or stickers for good behavior. However, I tell them, we will still do fun things like pajamas and a movie or beach day. Those kinds of days will be celebrations of all of their hard work.
7. Help students manage their time through Fun Friday. I got this idea from The Cornerstone by Angela Watson. Every Friday I plan a "fun" activity that I was planning to do anyway. This first week we decorated our reading journals. The second week my students used the laptops to play Cool Math games. This week we will be creating a video to put onto our blog. Here is the catch. All AM work and other independent work must be done before participating in Fun Friday. I give my students plenty of time to get their AM work and other work done. I make sure I tell them how long they will have to do it and I announce when there is so much time left. Refrain from nagging students to get their work done. After 2 weeks of Fun Friday, you will see most of your students managing their time better and staying on task.
8. Use brain based teaching strategies. Make sure kids have choices and voices, build movement, hands-on, novelty and play into the day, provide challenges and opportunities to inquire and solve problems, let them talk and collaborate, balance between consistent grounding rituals and routines and open-ended activities, and build on their interests and background knowledge.
9. Learn about the connections between human needs and motivation. When unexpected behaviors crop up, follow-through with your consequences but also ask yourself what is motivating the student to behave this way? Is there a need that is not being met? What can you do or change that will help him/her get his/her needs met? (Choice Theory, Circle of Courage, Motivation Breakthrough)
10. Involve students in shared decision making and planning as soon as you can. Listen carefully to your students. Jump off of their ideas and use them as community building activities. A simple way to do this is with class jobs. I don't start the year with jobs. I tell students that we will begin in after a week or so and I need them to be thinking about what jobs our class needs. I use their ideas along with some of my tried and true jobs when I introduce jobs. If you know what your goals are for your students it is easier to use their ideas without feeling like it is a waste of time. For example, this year my goal is for my students to have ownership of our class blog. That means they will design it and decide how it is used. So when one of my students drew me a picture of our class as the 4th Grade Superheroes, I took advantage of his idea. I introduced the concept of blogs by showing my students examples of blogs and then we looked at our empty blog with its generic heading. I told them that they needed to personalize it so it was their blog. After sharing Thomas' drawing, the class agreed to call it 4P Superheroes. After lots of brainstorming, I helped them combine their ideas and we ended with a plan for a blog header and introduction video starring them, the 4P Superheroes.
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Reaching Boys Who Struggle: Giving Effective Directions
Although this sequence may appear time-consuming, investment in learning and using these steps can pay major dividends, both for us and our students. Kathleen Palmer Cleveland
From Teaching Boys Who Struggle in School: Strategies that Turn Underachievers into Successful Learners P.90-100
| Effective Directions in Sequence | Examples |
|---|---|
| Step 1: Change state. | "If you can hear my voice, clap once." "If you can hear my voice, clap twice." Soften your voice and say, "If you can hear my voice, look this way." |
| Step 2: Explain relevance. | "Thank you for coming to attention so quickly. We have some important work to do today! I am confident that you will do well." "In the last lesson we did ___________ s a way of getting better at _________________. Today we will continue that process by doing ______________. This is going to help you become more skilled at _______________. So to review, the goal for this lesson is _________________. Let's get started!" |
| Step 3: Be crystal clear. | "There are three steps to complete in order. Step 1: First, we will__________ Step 2: Second, we will_____________ Step 3: Third, we will________________" |
| Step 4: Engage in multiple modalities. | "As you read the directions along with me, I will highlight the important words on the SMARTboard." |
| Step 5: Check for understanding. | "Turn to your neighbor and make sure you understand each step." |
| Step 6: Announce duration. | "I have set aside about _________(minutes, hours, days)for you to complete this work. You will have plenty of time to finish." |
| Step 7: Pair verbal commands with auditory start/stop signals. | "When I give the signal, you will __________. "(state first step of task). |
| Step 8: Provide backup. | Leave the written directions visible on board. |
| Step 9: Give fair warning. | "You have two minutes to finish your work." |
| Step 10: Acknowledge effort. | "Thank you for completing your task and coming to attention." |
From Teaching Boys Who Struggle in School: Strategies that Turn Underachievers into Successful Learners P.90-100
10 Strategies for Reaching Boys Who Struggle
- Build Trusting Relationships
- Follow These Guidelines for Classroom Policies
- Understand Boys' Basic Requests for Communicating
- Give Effective Directions
- Give Informational Feedback
- Use Affirming Statements
- Teach Pragmatic Communication Skills
- Increase Physical Comfort
- Apply the Principles of Active Learning
- Build Literacy Through Engaging Activities
Monday, August 15, 2011
Reaching Boys Who Struggle: Understand Boys' Basic Requests for Communicating
| 1. Give me a way out. | Sometimes I screw up, but that doesn't mean I'll always act that way. I need a way to move on without being too embarrassed about how stupidly I just behaved. Tell me how I can be better. I want to know. |
| 2. Help me know my strengths. | Help me understand what skills I have or am improving in, both academically and socially. I don't always know what they are or how to make the most of them. |
| 3. Help me relax into learning. | Laugh sometimes, even at yourself. If I know you make mistakes, it makes it easier to accept when I do. |
| 4. Help me "save face." | Don't humiliate or make fun of me in front of others. It does not make me want to work harder. I will hate you for it and be forced to get back at you. |
| 5. Inspire me. | Share your passion about what you are teaching with me. Help me to feel excited about what I'm learning. Your enthusiasm rubs off. |
| 6. Keep it private. | If I make a mistake, be a matter-of-fact in telling me why, and do it as privately as possible. |
| 7. Let me know I matter. | Greet me as though you care and are glad I'm there. |
| 8. Make it real. | Help me understand why things are important in the real world. It helps me want to learn more. |
| 9. Notice when I try. | Let me know somehow when I do things well. I like to hear that. It's OK if you tell my parents. |
| 10. Speak to me with respect. | Treat me with respect and show me what that looks like. Sometimes I don't know, and if I mess up, a kind response speaks loudest to me. |
From Teaching Boys Who Struggle in School: Strategies that Turn Underachievers into Successful Learners P.90-100
10 Strategies for Reaching Boys Who Struggle
- Build Trusting Relationships
- Follow These Guidelines for Classroom Policies
- Understand Boys' Basic Requests for Communicating
- Give Effective Directions
- Give Informational Feedback
- Use Affirming Statements
- Teach Pragmatic Communication Skills
- Increase Physical Comfort
- Apply the Principles of Active Learning
- Build Literacy Through Engaging Activities
Sunday, August 14, 2011
Reaching Boys Who Struggle: Guidelines for Classroom Policies
"Abiding by the policies when one has helped develop them becomes a choice rather than a restriction against which to rebel, and this, in turn, reduces defensiveness...For an underachieving boy, being consulted about the policies not only feels respectful, but it also levels the playing field, so to speak, removing the power structure from the process and making all students views equally valuable and relevant." Kathleen Palmer Cleveland
Guidelines for Classroom Policies
- Involve boys in creating the policies.
- Limit the number of policies to five or fewer, for younger students one to three. Less than five policies are easier to remember and easier to enforce.
- State policies positively. The brain does not read the word "not" in a declarative statement. So a rule "Don't push." emphasizes the word push. Pushing may actually get worse. Better to state what it is that students should do.
- Make sure policies are fully understood before enforcing them. Avoid creating policies that are too vague (Be nice. Be respectful) If an underachieving boy is prone to defensiveness and insecurity, the enforcement of a policy he doesn't yet understand may further diminish his sense of self-confidence and belonging.
- Be consistent. Be consistent. Be consistent. Consistency helps create the feeling of safety in the classroom.Boys need clear, firm boundaries. If they push on those boundaries, the boundaries have to be even stronger. Some boys push on a boundary because they want to check to see if it is still there, it is actually a way for them to feel safe. Consistency also builds trust. Boys who push the boundaries may see inconsistent reinforcement as a weakness in the teacher. To be consistent, once a policy is set, it needs to stay that way and applied the same to everyone. A sense of security develops when there is no guessing about what will happen when the boundary is pushed.
- Enforce policies in a matter-of-fact way. Keep emotions out of it. Appear calm at all times even if you don't feel calm.
- Forgive and forget. No grudges allowed.
- Acknowledge effort. Notice when boys are trying to make better choices and improve.
From Teaching Boys Who Struggle in School: Strategies that Turn Underachievers into Successful Learners P.90-100
10 Strategies for Reaching Boys Who Struggle
- Build Trusting Relationships
- Follow These Guidelines for Classroom Policies
- Understand Boys' Basic Requests for Communicating
- Give Effective Directions
- Give Informational Feedback
- Use Affirming Statements
- Teach Pragmatic Communication Skills
- Increase Physical Comfort
- Apply the Principles of Active Learning
- Build Literacy Through Engaging Activities
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