Five Priorities of Classroom Management

While we have fewer classroom management issues than in many districts, the beginning of the year is always a great time to reacquaint ourselves with helpful hints to make our classrooms operate smoothly.  An Edutopia blog post, “The 5 Priorities of Classroom Management,” by Ben Johnson, had some great suggestions. You can either read the blog post yourself or read the summary  below.

From “The 5 Priorities of Classroom Management,” by Ben Johnson

·         Develop effective working relationships with students: A good relationship with a student allows you to push your students harder and further to learn because your students trust you.

·         Train your students on how learning takes place in your classroom: Clearly map out the why you are asking your students to try a strategy, such as Cornell Notes, and why you believe they will learn more productively.

·         Protect and leverage your time: Spend time planning how you will minimize time lost during transitions, such as taking attendance, returning papers, getting supplies, announcements, etc.

·         Anticipate your students’ behaviors in well-written lesson plans:  The best discipline management plan is a good lesson plan. Channel your students’ behaviors and attention into productive learning paths by building your lesson backwards—what is my learning target, what is my assessment, how will I get students there?

·         Establish behavioral standards: Focus on respect, communication, and coming prepared to learn, and include specificsin your directions.  Example: “You have 15 minutes, and you will be working with your partner on designing a structure out of newspaper that will reach the ceiling. You may use inside voices to quietly discuss your plans with your partner. If you have questions, please put the red cup on your desk, and I will come and help you as soon as possible. Meanwhile, keep working on other parts of the project until I get there.”

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End of Year -- A thank you and final wish

This is our final Teaching Tip of the year, and we first would like to thank you for your dedication to students and learning, your passion for your subject, and your willingness to change and grow in our challenging and highly rewarding profession.  We especially want to thank those of you who responded to us with a much-appreciated comment, suggestion, or note.  Special shout-outs to Ken Loomis, Dale Lehman, Kelly Allison, Tracy Krause, Malinda Shirley, Kathryn Strojan, Hillary Ledford, Stella Patrick, Candi Lommen, Marissa Morelock, Tarie Sloan, Nancy Adamson, Dale Heinbigner, and and anyone we missed.

As English teachers (always and forever, regardless of current job title), Lara and I must end with a literary quote:

“And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.”                                                                                                                                                                                              

—F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

May your life begin again on June 17, and may you know how very much respect, admiration, and gratitude we bear toward the best secondary teachers in the state!

Lara and Brooke

Course and Teacher Evaluations--Getting End-of-Year Feedback from Students

With the end of the year just around the corner, you may already be mentally planning for next school year.  Consider gathering anonymous student feedback to help you become an even more effective teacher.

Here are some sample Course/Teacher Evaluation forms you could use as a starting point.  Remember that you can use hard copies of these evaluation forms, or one that you create. You could also create your own Google Form version to gather feedback from your students. 

If you are creating your own evaluation, consider including some of the following:

·         Did students have a clear understanding of the learning target each day?
·         Did the learning targets fit together in a cohesive whole for the semester?
·         Did students know what it looked like/sounded like to be successful meeting the learning target?
·         Did students feel that they got sufficient feedback from you as they were learning? Did they know where they were strong and what their gaps were prior to their final assessment or project?
·         Did students feel a sense of ownership in their learning?
·         Was the course challenging enough? Too challenging? Just right?
·         Did students feel that the assignments helped them to achieve the learning targets?
·         What might have helped them to more easily master the learning targets?
·         Was the time during the class period well-spent?

If you would like help creating an end-of-course evaluation or a teacher evaluation, please contact your building coach or administrator.

Growth Mindset

Happy Wednesday!

Looking for new ways to cultivate a classroom culture that embraces a growth mindset? This week’s coach tip includes several resources for you to add to your toolbox related to growth mindset in the classroom. Maybe you will try something new in the last few days of school, or use the resources to plan for next year!

Growth Mindset: a belief that suggests that one’s intelligence can be grown or developed with persistence, effort, and a focus on learning.

According to Mary Cay Ricci in her book, Mindsets in the Classroom, “An educator with a growth mindset believes that with effort and hard work from the learner, ALL students can demonstrate significant growth and therefore all students deserve opportunities for challenge. Add to this belief an effective teacher armed with instructional tools that differentiate, respond to learner’s needs, and nurture critical thinking processes, and you have a recipe for optimum student learning.”

   

Looking for a little summer reading? This book, Mindsets in the Classroom, is full of helpful ideas in an easy to read format. There is also a compatible resource book making new ideas easy to implement.

Additionally, this video “Praising the Process”, demonstrates how process praise helps students to develop growth mindsets. The video is specifically focused in the area of writing, and is well worth the 6 minutes to watch! In the video, Ms. Stewart shares tips for how teachers can begin to use process praise in their classrooms.

Finally, if you haven’t already checked out the Class Dojo videos related to growth mindset, you’re missing out! They are a perfect way to help elementary students to see themselves as learners, cultivate a growth mindset, and start classroom discussions.

Class Dojo Growth Mindset Videos

Super-Easy Strategy to Help You Save Time for a Lesson Closure

Why should teachers build in time for lesson closures?

Lesson closure can enhance “a learner’s ability to organize, evaluate, and store information presented in class” (Reese). We focus on learning targets, but to maximize learning, we should also make sure that students have adequate time to process their progress toward the learning target and to set goals at the end of the lesson.   

The problem is this:  How does a teacher keep track of the time and not end up accidentally teaching all the way to the bell? 

Watch this SUPER-EASY strategy used in the classroom of THS Math teacher Malinda Shirley.  All she did was to recruit a student to call a five-minute warning at the end of the period each day, so that she always has time for a closure. Brilliant!

To learn more about closures: “Road Tested / Lesson Closure: Stick the Landing” by Tyler Reese.
 (http://www.ascd.org/publications/newsletters/education-update/jun14/vol56/num06/Road-Tested-~-Lesson-Closure@-Stick-the-Landing.aspx)
 

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Student Self-Assessment & Goal Setting

According to Susan Brookhart, the coordinator of assessment and evaluation for the school of education at Duquesne University in Pennsylvania, student self-assessment is driven by three basic questions that students must be taught to ask themselves

• Where am I going?
• Where am I now
• Where to next?

To learn more about equipping students with the tools to accurately answer those questions check out this article: “Students 'Self-Assess' Their Way to Learning”

Three W's Closure Strategy

This is a simple strategy that provides students a chance to reflect on their learning and teachers an opportunity to gain important information to inform future instruction (6.3).

Students write or discuss:

What?	So What?	Now What?
What did we learn today?	What is the relevancy, importance, or usefulness?	How does it fit into what we are learning?   Does it affect our thinking?  Can we predict where we are going?