Celebrate Start of School

Twas the night before school starting, all through the house teachers, students and parents are preparing for the big day.  Backpacks are being filled with school supplies, lunches are being made and clothes are being laid out. One hundred and eighty seven days of teaching and learning. There will be fun days and hard days but always remember to celebrate not only the big success but the little success each day.  Hope this will make you smile as you get ready for the big day.
 What do you do to get ready?

Last week, I shared with you actions a teacher takes to help with classroom management. As this week begins, we are all preparing for the first day of school.  With all the information that is printed about classroom management, all agree that you must set your expectations the first day of school. Teachers are creating posters to establish those expectations or rules. As you walk through your building, each teachers posters are a little different.  When I taught, my expectations or rules were the "Four R's" - Respect, Responsibility, Reasonable and Rights. I pledged to my students that I would follow these expectations, as well. I wanted to prepare them for how to make correct choices when they were adults as well as how to make correct choices as a student. I related their classroom behavior with the behavior of an employee in a business meeting or professional development.

 So, what is the connection of the "Four R's" to normal expectations in a classroom.
     
                   Respect:  Knowing when to speak and how to speak in class shows respect to each class member as well as to the teacher.  Being on time is a sign of respect. As the teacher, I would listen when they spoke to me and respect their opinions.
                    Responsibility: Each student had the responsibility to participate 100% in class, doing their very best.  Student is to be responsible to bring supplies each day to class.  As the teacher, I would give 100% as their teacher, to make sure they had what they needed to be successful.
                    Reasonable: As a class, behavior needs to be acceptable - noise level as it should be in class. As a teacher, I should understand that the students are young teens who like to socialize.
                     Rights: Each student has the right to learn and we must respect that in whatever we do in class and students' correct behavior allows the teacher to have the Right to Teach.

These were helpful to me as a teacher.  What are your expectations/rules?  Share with others.

Classroom Management

 

 With all the planning for the new school year for use of technology, new curriculum, and new district incentives, classroom management should be one of the items up there on top.  Researching for books about classroom management showed 511 item through B & N. Pinterest even has help information about classroom management.  I recently found these tips on Pinterest for classroom management.

• Adjust your tone. Let your tone speak for what you need. Studies show that 30-40% of our communication comes from tone.  Yelling does not produce more work.
• Make your students own their behavior. Ask "What are you doing?" "Why are you doing that?" "What should you be doing?"  
• Give your student choices. "I am going to give you two choices. You may choose to stop ____ behavior, and work right now, or you can continue_____ and you will receive____as a consequence."  This puts the power of choice into the student's head, making them think they have some type of control.
• Say what you mean, and mean what you say.  Stick to your rules from day one to the last day of class.  If you say they are going to receive a consequence for their choice, stay with that consequence. 
• Practice what you preach. Practice your expectations with your class.  

http://www.educationtothecore.com/2013/11/five-ways-to-strengthen-your-classroom.html?m=1

What ideas do you have for classroom management?  Don't forget to share with your co-teachers.  Teaching should not have to be a "lone" occupation.

Next week: Ideas for classroom expectations that are simple, to the point and teaches life-long skills.

What if Bloom had never been born?

How do you get your students to think?  I am not talking about giving you back information that you have "fed" them, but to get them to think "What do I do with the information?"  Questioning technique is the "buzz" topic for the year. As you are planning for the year, grow your question base for your units.  Check out these sites:

Socratic Questioning

http://www.criticalthinking.org/pages/the-role-of-socratic-questioning-in-thinking-teaching-learning/522

Higher Level Questioning

http://www.teachhub.com/teaching-tips-high-level-questioning

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZ4LFxGi0mI

What have you found that helps you build your questioning skills?