Tag Archives: Classroom Management
Dealing with Classroom Cursing
I ran into a former student at the gas station the other day. Paying for gas took me a good half an hour, but I really enjoyed talking to Brandon and seeing him as a well adjusted, married father who is working hard to support his family. What I didn’t want to hear was this: I bet you don’t miss us bad kids, hey, Ms. Trim? Continue reading
How to Handle the Tough Conversations
Teaching has given me a skill that I’ve found other people who haven’t been in the classroom don’t have: I can give bad news to good people. I can even give bad news to people I’m not fond of. Of course, I can deliver good news, too, but no one is very impressed with that skill.
Let me give you an example. I had a student newspaper editor who was slacking off his responsibilities. Alex was a basketball player, an actor in the one-act play, and AWOL in the school newspaper staffroom. When other editors tried to talk to him about his section and the edits, he would lose himself in a crowd, tell them that he’d be in the newspaper room later, or claim to have an urgent need to meet with his math teacher. Continue reading
Use Nonverbal Cues to Communicate with Students
My daughter, a high school freshman, came home from school the other day in a bad mood. She’d worked all weekend on her Social Studies presentation about Cuba, but the speech didn’t go well.
Like millions of Americans, my daughter suffers from a public speaking phobia. The number one phobia among Americans is public speaking. Number two is death. As comedian Jerry Seinfeld said, at a funeral, most people would rather be in the coffin than delivering the eulogy. Continue reading
Keep Your Chin Up: Positive Imagery for Teachers
My daughter is a competitive figure skater. One of the things her coach asks her to do before she competes is to visualize herself skating her program and landing her jumps. Even during practice, my daughter and her coach use these visualization exercises to convince the mind to rely on muscle memory and training.
These positive mental images replace the negative I can’t messages that athletes sometimes have with those of success. At competitions, meets, matches, or games, so much of an athlete’s performance comes down to her own belief in herself. Continue reading
How to Respond to Tardy Students
Hannah is a nice girl: quiet, studious, and shy. She doesn’t volunteer much in class and if you’re not careful, she’ll spend the entire period staring out the window or creating an elaborate doodle on her folder. She does well on tests, but isn’t likely to hand in homework on time. Organization is one of her challenges. So is time management.
Hannah shows up to her first period class tardy more often than on time. She always has some excuse: the nurse, the library, her mom. Nonetheless, it disrupts class. (Post includes a poll.) Continue reading
I Am Thankful for My Challenging Students
Dr. Allen Mendler recently visited Inside the School to record some online professional development seminars. During one of his seminars, Mendler said something that I couldn’t help but write down. Mendler said that he witnessed this kind of conversation between a teacher and a challenging student:
TEACHER: I just want to tell you that I’m really glad you’re in my class. I know that it’s not your favorite place to be, but I’m trying hard to make sure that I’m the right teacher for you. I’ve tried many strategies to teach you, but so far they haven’t been working very well. I’ll keep trying more so that you can learn. I want to thank you for being a part of my class. You are making me a better teacher.
Let’s be honest: you are making me a better teacher isn’t what I would say when talking to a challenging student.
But it should be, because it’s true. Continue reading
Six Ways to Make a Classroom Lecture Interesting
Back in the day, when I was a beginning teacher, I was convinced that my students would love my three-class-period Shakespeare lecture as much as I did. My students quickly let me know that three days of note taking, no matter what the subject or how interesting the details, was way too much for them.
Over the years, my students have taught me how much lecture they can tolerate and what holds their attention the best. Continue reading
Should Students Be Allowed to Use Digital Devices at School?
I taught high school for 10 years and I’m still a certified teacher. I know that battling academic dishonesty in the classroom is like battling a Hydra. Every time you think you’ve lopped off the cheating monster’s many heads, it sprouts two more.
Yesterday on Twitter’s Tuesday #educhat, educators discussed student use of digital devices in the classroom. For the most part, cell phones aren’t allowed in schools; however, some schools are beginning to not only allow them, but also to encourage students to use their mobile devices in the name of learning. I had a guest post about using cell phones as clickers last year. I haven’t tried it myself, but I know that the technology works in classrooms Continue reading
Addressing Academic Dishonesty in the Classroom and Through School Culture
For many teachers, the excitement and energy of a new school year are among their favorite aspects of working in education. However, soon this excitement is overshadowed by the business of managing time and balancing competing priorities. Teachers assign papers, projects, and tests, while students become preoccupied with extracurricular and social activities. Competing priorities often collide, and the pressure for keeping up with assignments, studying for tests, and getting “good grades” leads many students to take shortcuts that equate to academic dishonesty.
Research indicates that many of our students are using deceitful methods to complete their school work. A recent poll by commonsensemedia.org found that more than one third of teens admit to cheating with their cell phones and about half admit to using the internet to cheat (http://www.commonsensemedia.org/hi-tech-cheating). Perhaps even more disturbing, about 25% of the students polled do not think that using a cell to get answers for a test isn’t cheating! The results of the 2008 Josephson Institute survey support these statistics. 64% admit to cheating on a test during the previous year and 36% admit to using the internet to plagiarize, yet 93% are satisfied with their personal ethics or character (http://charactercounts.org/programs/reportcard/2008/index.html).
Continue reading
Ten Things that Successful New Teachers Do
The first year of teaching can be challenging, rewarding, stressful, joyful, difficult, and fun. The first year will always be memorable, with some ups and downs, but also with many valuable learning experiences for the teacher. While some teachers describe their first year as “a trial by fire,” or a “sink or swim” experience, there are strategies for making the first year more productive and less stressful. The following strategies will help you to get organized in your first classroom and to achieve success with your students. Continue reading
