But as teachers, especially in the digital age, we can provide support for the poorly organized student. I know some of my colleagues in the teacher’s lounge would argue with me on this point, especially because my poorly organized student is 15. When will she learn responsibility if we keep doing everything for her? they’ll ask.

Here’s my answer: We need to model good organization and coping methods for poor organization. We need to make sure that all students, even the disorganized ones, feel school is a place for them. We need to make sure our message is responsibility, sure, but also support.

Dr. Allen Mendler, in his book More What Do I Do When…Powerful Strategies to Promote Positive Behavior, suggests some ways that teachers can assist the disorganized student.

Offer duplicate materials. If you have a spare textbook, check it out to the disorganized student so she’ll have a textbook at home and in her locker. When she tries to do her assignement at night, she won’t be discouraged because her textbook is in her locker – again.

Post the week’s assignments online and link to handouts. This is a good suggestion, and not just for the disorganized student. Posting notices, assignments, timelines, and handouts online helps students who miss class for a dentist appointment or a track meet. It also helps parents get a handle on exactly what the night’s assignment entails and they can stop by the craft store to pick up glue and felt, instead of racing the clerks to the door at closing time.

Offer praise. When a poorly disorganized student hands in a paper that’s neat and on time, our first reaction might be to think Well, it’s about time she start acting like everyone else. Instead, Mendler recommends that teachers congratulate the student and try to get her to describe what she did to be successful. “The more students attribute success to their own talents and resources,” Mendler writes, “the more likely they are to realize that they already have what it takes to succeed.” Belief is so powerful. It might take a minute of your time to offer this bit of praise, but a student might carry that minute with her for a lifetime.

Reduce an assignment’s length. If you have disorganized student, try putting fewer problems on a page for her, Mendler writes. When she finishes with that page of problems, ask her to turn it in, praise her, and give her another small set. My colleagues in the teachers’ lounge might call this spoon-feeding. Others might call it chunking. As students enter middle or high school, teachers can model how to chunk up homework assignments as a regular part of the class. It’s good teaching for all students, not just the disorganized ones.

Provide class time for organization. Before students leave for their next class, give them a few minutes to make sure they have all their notes in the proper place and have the assignment written down in their planners. Taking a couple of minutes out to make sure everyone is organized shows students that you think organization is important and a skill. Modeling the questions they need to ask  themselves at the end of class helps, too. Ask: Do you know what materials you’ll need to be successful in this assignment? Have you put your notes away in your binder and not inside your book cover? Did you write down the page numbers you’ll need for this assignment? Have you asked all the questions you need answered so you can complete your work?

Of course this isn’t a complete list of supports that you can easily offer the disorganized student. And really, these supports aren’t limited to those who can’t find their notebooks or pencils. Like so many supports for struggling students, it’s just good teaching. ALL students, even your organized, A+ students, can benefit from these suggestions.

My disorganized student is a good kid. She’s a smart kid. But she really loves it when a teacher recognizes that she needs a helping hand and she’s grateful. So am I.

Reference:
Mendler, Allen N. More What Do I Do When…? Powerful Strategies to Promote Positive Behavior. Bloomington, Ind.: Solution Tree Press. 2005. Pages 70 – 71.

What do you do to support the poorly organized student? Do you think that they should be supported or do you think that supporting these students leads to irresponsibility and bad study habits? It’s O.K. to disagree with me – the best conversations come from a healthy debate! Please share your supports or your criticisms in the comments.

Do you have a question for the editor? Would you like to suggest a topic for a post? Are you interested in writing a guest post? Email editor Diane Trim.

Photo credits:
Mess: danabooo
randi locker: miguelb
Beat-up history book: crazytales562 / Chris Chan

But what did you learn? Did you catch that spark? Did you have an ah-ha moment? I’m out of the classroom and able to talk education experts. Here are my ah-ha moments:

1. How to tame out-of-control parent volunteers. I had a parent volunteer who tried to take over the school newspaper I was advising. She was a well intentioned person, but being the wife of an editor didn’t make her an editor. An election made her a school board member, though. You can imagine how difficult it was to manage her.
   Inside the School presenter Suzanne Tingley taught me that it’s best to have an idea of what you’d like the volunteer to do in the classroom and spell it out in writing. Include guidelines about privacy and safety. Ask the volunteer to sign the expectations sheet and commit to showing up at the same time every week. (How Can I Use My Classroom Volunteer Effectively?)
2. Don’t sugar coat bad news. Gavin disrupted class again today, so you held him after class to make a parent phone call. Tingley said in an online seminar that you might think you’re helping parents by sandwiching the bad news about his behavior between two not-so-bad things. You’re not. Mom has answered the phone at work and wants to end the painful phone call as soon as possible. Explain what Gavin did to merit the phone call and keep your words objective. Come to a solution with Mom and tell her how glad you are that the two of you can work together to help Gavin. End the call on a positive note, but also review the actions you’ll both take so both you and Mom are clear about what the problem was and how you’re going to solve it. (How to Give Feedback No One Wants to Hear, Dealing with Difficult Students, 2-part series)
3. Most students have used a cell phone to cheat. About one-in-three kids with a cell phone have used it to cheat, according to a Common Sense Media report. Two-thirds of students say they know other students who have used a cell phone to cheat. Many teens don’t understand that storing class notes on a cell phone and using the notes on a test is cheating. They think texting friends for an answer isn’t a serious offence and 20 percent say that’s not cheating at all. We’re never going to get rid of cell phones, so it’s clear that we need to educate students about cheating and its consequences.
4. Blended learning is coming. What’s blended learning? It’s blending the physical classroom with the virtual classroom. According to Inside the School presenter Curt Bonk, Ph.D., blended classes will have online resources, an online learning space, and an online ideas exchange among students and the teacher. Maybe your school is on the cutting edge of this and you’ve been using Moodle or Blackboard for years. If you haven’t, you will soon. (Prepare for Natural Disasters and Outbreaks with Blended Learning)
5. A little zaniness is O.K. The brain loves novelty; a little bit of zaniness will create a learning hook that your students won’t soon forget, Stanley Pogrow, Ed.D said in an Inside the School online seminar about Outrageous Teaching. As long as the outrageous part of the lesson meets an objective and involves the students in learning, it’s just fine. You don’t need to teach in a zany way every day, but a little bit benefits students. The bonus is that off-task behavior goes way down during an Outrageous Lesson. (Teaching Content Outrageously)
6. Good teaching is universal. Sandra Rief, author of How to Reach and Teach Children with ADD/ADHD, visited our studio last fall to present three online seminars about teaching students with ADHD. Chunking up material, differentiated instruction, and providing opportunities for student interaction aren’t teaching strategies that just work with ADHD students; all students benefit from these strategies. It’s just good teaching. (ADHD and LD Training Series with Sandra Rief)
7. Front load. Prepare as much as you can in advance of everything. Make sure everyone is clear what the expectations are. Presenter Tingley said in her Dealing with Student Discipline online seminar that the best discipline plans are front loaded. The parents, students, teachers, and administration all understand the behavioral expectations up front, so there’s no question about what will happen if a student breaks a school rule. Front loading takes time to do, but saves time in the end. (Dealing with Student Discipline)
8. Teachers are important, too. Nathan Eklund, author of How Was Your Day at School? visited last winter to present online seminars about teacher morale. It’s common to hear teachers say they want to do What’s best for kids. Eklund says that we also need to consider the school as a workplace for teachers. How happy is the faculty? Are they burnt out? Teacher attitudes affect student performance. Ignoring the welfare of half of the learning equation isn’t smart policy. (Ways to Improve Staff Culture to Benefit Teaching and Learning)
9. Recognize accomplishments. In the latest Trends and Tudes newsletter from polling and research company Harris Interactive has information from the latest MetLife Survey of the American Teacher and the Scholastic/Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation study.  What really caught my eye was an essay from a high school intern who had worked on the project. Amanda Welch of Rochester, NY, has noticed that the same 24 students receive academic awards in her school. Other students receive nothing. A student might be hardworking, really improving, or struggling to overcome learning disabilities, but Welch wrote that school doesn’t recognize their achievements.
   “When you try really hard and believe you are doing a good job, it is natural to want to be rewarded or recognized,” she wrote. “If schools begin recognizing underdogs who put forth their best effort, I think that there will be more students excelling because they will feel supported and satisfied. We want to walk across that stage at graduation (or even award ceremonies) with confidence, knowing that the people around us believe in us
10. Connections mean so much. Dr. Ivory Toldson of Howard University presented two online seminars for Inside the School based on his research about helping black males achieve. A recurring theme from his presentations, as well as Eklund’s, was that the personal connection is powerful. One teacher’s belief in a student can give that student belief in himself, Toldson said. Just one personal connection between a student and a teacher can help prevent behavior problems, too. Personal connections among teachers are also important, Eklund said. Those connections among colleagues keep teachers from feeling isolated in the classroom. (Breaking Barriers: Reducing Gang Violence, Improving Security and Creating a Culture of Learning in Schools)

Did you learn any teaching lessons this year? Maybe what you’ve learned is as simple as: keep track of the restroom pass. Whatever bits of wisdom you’ve garnered, share it in the comments!

However, many students need extra support to organize their work, especially special education and ADHD students. They might understand your class’s content, but have trouble organizing their materials, allotting their time, and understanding what to do.

Teachers can assist these students, as well as the whole class, with organization and time management by building it into the class routine.

1. Post the plan. Your lesson plan should be on the board for students to see. Students who might not have focused when you said what textbook page has the assignment can look at your plan on the board. Each time you switch activities, show the class where you are on the day’s plan. Provide both visual and auditory cues for homework expectations.
2. Provide time for organization. Just as you’d give a student think time after a question, give students a few moments to write down the day’s assignment in their homework planners. Before introducing the expectations, ask students to pull out their homework planners and record the assignment on both the day you assigned it as well as on the due date – with a box around it to draw a student’s attention.

   When it’s time for the lesson’s closure, review the lesson’s main concept as well as the expectations for the next class (quizzes, assignments due).

3. Provide a checklist. Post your daily routines in the classroom. If you have a requirement for an assignment’s heading, post it on the wall and refer to it for assignments. When assigning projects, include a checklist for students to use when completing each task.
4. Chunk it up. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. Students who have problems with organization and time management might see your two-week project like eating an elephant. Help them to parse the work out into smaller bits and assign checkpoints to each step along the way. It’s also a useful full-class activity for students to suggest how to break up the project and assign mini due dates.
5. Provide a rubric. When you assign any work, it’s good practice to let students know how they’ll be evaluated. If you have a standard rubric you use, post it in your classroom and refer to it when you give students an assignment. Talk about the criteria for each requirement and provide examples.

Those five tips will help your special education and ADHD students organize and manage their class work, but each tip is just good practice. Your regular education students will appreciate your efforts, too.

Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act falls under ADA’s umbrella and follows the same definitions and standards as the ADA. So, when the ADAA took effect on January 1, 2009, it changed Section 504 as well.

Congress’s intent, according to the law (http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=110_cong_bills&docid=f:s3406enr.txt.pdf ), was to restore the intent and protections of the ADA. The amendment states that Congress finds Supreme Court decisions, “narrowed the broad scope of protection intended to be afforded by the ADA.” Because of this narrowing, Congress found that lower courts were denying disabled status to people who have substantially limiting impairments.

Section 504 provides a disabled student protection against discrimination in the schools as well as in the workplace and public. It recognizes that schools need to provide all students, able-bodied and disabled, with a free, appropriate, public education (FAPE). For students who qualify as disabled, Section 504 requires schools to make reasonable accommodations.

One of the ways a person is determined to be disabled is from the limitations her major life activities like caring for herself, hearing, and speaking. New to the ADA’s list of major life activities are reading, concentrating, and thinking, which are all school-related functions.

The ADAA also added language about devices, medication, and behavior modification that the disabled can use to improve their condition. With the exception of eyeglasses and contact lenses, the amendment to the ADA says that determining the extent that impairment affects a person’s life needs to be done, “without regard to the ameliorative effects of mitigating measures.” In other words, for purposes of evaluation, look at the individual as if she were not taking medication, using a walker, or using behavior modification techniques.

Congress’ first finding was that the ADA should eliminate discrimination against disabled individuals and provide broad coverage for the disabled. The months ahead will likely bring changes for the person who administers the Section 504 plans in your school as well as for the teachers who have students with Section 504 plans in class.

Some nights Mom spot-checks Lexi’s assignment notebook against the homework the teacher posted online. It helps prevent missing assignments, Mom said.

The ’Net is a great educational tool, not just for classrooms, but for classroom communication as well. Teachers who host a classroom web page provide parents a resource for finding out about tests, projects, and assignments.

In the year since Texas high school teacher Susan Byrd has been posting homework online, she has received very few parent phone calls or e-mails about assignments.

Byrd recommends that teachers upload documents in user-friendly formats. “Not everyone has access to Publisher [and other programs], so you want to use generic programs,” Byrd said. “Also, you want to make sure that the file size isn’t huge because if a kid has dial-up at home, [downloading] is torture.”

While it’s convenient for students and parents to check the daily homework assignments online, some worry that posting assignments doesn’t encourage students to be responsible.

Suzanne Tingley, a former superintendent and author of Dealing with Difficult Parents, said it’s wise to post major assignments, mid-term exams, and research papers, but not daily work. She’s concerned that posting all assignments won’t encourage students to develop good study habits.

“When students go to college, no one will post assignments online for parents. The students are old enough in high school for that responsibility and posting homework online really teaches kids nothing,” Tingley said.

Posting assignments online also adds another layer of responsibility for the teacher, Tingley said.

Deb, a middle school social studies teacher in Wis., has been teaching for 19 years and posting student homework online for five years. Like Tingley, Deb worried about posting homework online because viewing assignments online doesn’t teach students to take good notes.

“I felt that it was taking away the students’ responsibility to write assignments in their assignment notebooks,” Deb said. “I have seen value in doing this and changed my mind. It not only helps students double check what they have recorded, but it also allows parents access to the information.”

Deb sees posting homework online as a reminder of work that needs to be done, but it’s not a substitute for assignment notebooks. She posts enough information online to remind students what they need to complete, but she doesn’t include every detail of instruction.

“Students know that with this resource there is little room for the excuse that they didn’t know what the assignment was or they forgot their assignment notebook at school,” Deb said.

Since she began posting homework online, Byrd has found that students turn in homework more consistently. Her classroom is 100 percent paperless, so students expect to visit the classroom site for daily work and grade updates.

“The kids see their current average right when they log on,” Byrd said. “It’s been enormously powerful.”

As a parent, Byrd relies on the system her daughter’s school uses to keep on top of assignments and tests. She checks the system twice a week and can see when big tests or projects are coming up.

“She’s more responsible because she knows I know what’s happening, too!” Byrd said.

• Three times as many ADHD teens fail a grade, have been suspended, or have been expelled from school as their peers.
• Teachers should have well established classroom procedures that become automatic for students, especially ADHD students.
• Teachers should use private, pre arranged nonverbal signals or signal words to gain an ADHD student’s attention.
• Parents should make time to help their ADHD children clean, sort, and dump contents of backpacks, notebooks, desks, and rooms.

Sandra Reif’s 496-page book The ADHD Book of Lists contains information about the disorder and practical suggestions for special education teachers, regular education teachers, and parents who need help with an ADHD child. It’s not a book to be read in chapters or cover-to-cover, but rather it’s designed to be a teacher or parent reference about ADHD.

Reif has compiled 97 lists that address ADHD diagnosis, behavior problems, support strategies, accommodations, organization, academic difficulties, collaborating with parents, and what to do during an IEP meeting. Each bulleted list has a brief introduction and the list itself. Some lists also refer readers to other sources and resources on the topic.

The information in the book is well organized, but the best part is that the book is formatted to encourage photocopying. The binding lies flat when the book is open, the pages are 8 x 11, and each page has a small copyright blurb. A teacher can find a list about medication side effects, photocopy it, and give it to a concerned parent. A special education teacher can reproduce the visual cue drawings in the appendix and hang up visual cues for get out your pencil and paper, stop that, listen, or write this in your planner. Better yet, the special education teacher can photocopy the IEP section for a new teacher who has never attended an IEP meeting or hand a copy of the dos and don’ts list to a veteran teacher who is convinced her ADHD student is just lazy and irresponsible.

Even though the book is designed to help teachers teach and support ADHD students, it’s also just a good teaching reference. Reif has included lists about improving reading comprehension, learning styles, and teaching math that outline good teaching practice for any student, not just the ADHD student. She includes tip sheets for parents, too, so teachers can photocopy the sheet and give the strategies to a parent whose child is struggling reading, writing, math, or organization.

I recommend this book as a great reference tool for special education teachers who have many ADHD students on their case load or a regular education teacher who has many ADHD students in his class. Both teachers could benefit from the quick lists and teaching tips in the book. Any teacher would love the photocopier-friendly layout and binding.