Need Help with Differentiation? Try So All Can Learn

Like many teachers, I always felt frustrated when I learned about a really good idea but had no real idea about how to implement it in my classroom so that it would work. One of those exciting but frustrating ideas is differentiation.

The benefits of a differentiated classoom are obvious to anyone who has ever faced a room full of students, but the nuts and bolts of how to make it work without losing control of the class environment or even your sanity trying to keep up with all of the moving parts can be intimidating.

While there are lots of helpful resources available to teachers online, John McCarthy's book, So All Can Learn, and his web site, http://johnmccarthyeds.net are both resources well worth exploring. Practical, well-written, and filled with useful information, it is well worth your time to include these resources in your research about differentiation. You can also find him on Twitter: @JMcCarthyEds. 

Redirecting Off-Task Students: Ten Tried and True Suggestions

Redirecting students skillfully is not an easy task. There is often a delicate balance between trying to gently redirect a student whose attention has wandered and disturbing the entire class. Many of us wonder just when to redirect—at the start of a problem when it is confined to just one person or when a group of students seem to be off task? As a rule of thumb, most experienced educators will agree that it is best to act fairly early and with the least intrusive methods.

 When you notice students off task, try these tried and true suggestions for gently redirecting without raising your voice or embarrassing students.

1. Matter-of-factly remind all students of the behavior you would like to see from them. The key idea here is that you have already made the expectations clear for every student. All you need to do most of the time is just to calmly remind students of what the expectations are.
2. Praise students who are on task. Be explicit and direct so that any student who is off task knows what is expected and, even more importantly, how to accomplish the expected behavior.
3. Put reminders on students’ desks. You could use one color of sticky note with a smiley face on it for students who are behaving well and another color with a frownie face for those students who are not on task. Another reminder that some teachers have found useful is to walk around placing stickers on the papers of students who are on task. If you announced that you only had five stickers and were going to give them to the first five on-task students that you see, then you can expect that your students will generally rush to earn them.
4. Count 1, 2, 3 and then wait for everyone to pay attention to your directions.  Calm wait time is crucial to getting every student to pay attention to your directions and then to attend to them. Instead of a flurry of directions, count slowly and wait expectantly.
5. Often students need redirection when their attention spans have reached their outer limits. Set a timer and give everyone a two minute wiggle break. When the timer buzzes, students can go back to work refreshed.
6. Ask students if they would like help from a classmate or if they would like to help a classmate. This will often give students confidence as well as a shift in the lesson delivery that just might be effective at keeping them focused.
7. Use your “teacher look” to remind students to keep working. Often just an inquisitive glance is all that it takes to remind a student to focus on learning instead of misbehavior.
8. Ask students to restate the directions. If you notice a student off task, first move near that student. Then quietly ask for a restatement of the directions. If you then see that there is a larger issue, you could remind the whole class of the directions. If the problem is confined to one student, then it is easy just to clarify the directions and move on.  
9. Ask students who are struggling with an assignment if they could use a little help. Often all it takes is a brief moment or two and students are able to go right back to work.
10. Proximity is effective. Move to stand near the students who are off task. While you are near, smilingly glance at misbehaving students. This will almost always serve to keep them settle to work and stay engaged in the lesson.

 

 

 

 

Sometimes You Just Have to Let Go

It’s a hard lesson, but it’s important to realize that you are not going to win every battle you get into with your students. A while ago, I was asked to help a teacher who was in an absolutely awful situation—four weeks of school left, and she had just taken over as a long-term sub after several other subs had come and gone.  If you have ever been in this miserable position, I bet you just shuddered at the memory.

               The kids were pretty much running the show. There were not many procedures in place and no clear expectations. Students were doing the parts of the assignment that they felt like doing. They were off task. They were argumentative. They were acting like kids do when there is not someone to guide them. It was unpleasant to be in that class—for the kids and certainly for their teacher—who, even more heart-breaking--was brand new to teaching.

               As I talked with the teacher to help her create some sort structure for her class, I realized that she was not taking in anything I had to say. She was so focused on an unpleasant incident involving a disrespectful student that she simply could not listen. All she could focus on was that a student had been rude to her and had refused to apologize when an apology was demanded.

               Instead of talking about what she could do to make her classroom more productive, our conversation kept circling back to the rude student. Even worse, the incident had happened two weeks earlier. For two long weeks, this teacher had been mentally replaying the incident. She wanted to resolve the situation in such a way that she won. No matter what I said, I could not convince her that she was not going to win this battle. Not ever.

               You have probably done something similar. You’ve taken the unpleasant parts of your school day home with you or lain awake worrying over something that went wrong in class. Working with students of any age can sometimes be discouraging and stressful. You just can’t take any of the bad things that happen at school personally. Sometimes the only way to really win is to just let go. Focus on what you can change. Let go of the rest.

Six Sure-Fire Strategies that Will Help You Make It until the End of the School Year

School is almost over for the year. If you are like most of us, your students’ plans for the school day are vastly different from yours. While you are thinking of lofty goals such as success on standardized tests and productive learning until the very last day, your students are focused on absolutely avoiding all work, playing around in class, and annoying every adult within sight. Those children you found so lovable in January are now unmotivated, bored, restless, whiny…and you are out of patience.

Since snarling threats just does not seem to be an effective deterrent for most students, it’s time to make a solid plan to make it through to the end of the year without losing your enthusiasm and sanity.  Try these strategies to see if you can’t redirect those end-of-the-year impulses into more positive school experiences for your students and yourself.

Strategy One: Reduce distractions. The old image of restless students staring dreamily out of the window has much truth in it. Students of all ages are always able to entertain themselves by paying attention to distractions rather than focusing on the teacher. Some obvious sources of distractions might be windows, desks too close together, doorways, pencil sharpeners, trash cans, bees or other spring bugs in the classroom, graffiti, or—the most enticing one of all—other students.

Strategy Two: Monitor constantly. Monitoring your students is of primary importance for the smooth running of your class for a variety of reasons, not just for efficient time use. Walking around the classroom instead of sitting at your desk will allow you to help students while their problems are still manageable.

Strategy Three: Become supremely organized. If your students have to wait while you find your textbook or a handout, that is a poor use of their time. Make it a point to be so organized that you will be able to keep yourself and your students on task. Now is not the time to expect students to wait quietly while you rummage around trying to find more handouts.

Strategy Four: Have a backup plan for your backup plan. If a lesson isn’t going well, if a guest speaker cancels, or if the equipment you need to use isn’t working, you will need an alternative way to teach the material you planned to cover. And, since warm weather has a way of knocking out even the best back up plan, be sure to have another one handy.  Keep in mind that since students are so easily bored this time of year, you will need to offer several small activities instead of one or two longer ones.

Strategy Five: Take a door-to-door approach. Engage students in learning from the time they enter your classroom until the time they leave. Many teachers make the mistake of thinking that students need a few minutes of free time at the start of class and at the end of class to relax. Although students do need time at both ends of class to make effective transitions, they do not need free time to do this. Free time and the end of the school year is a miserable combination destined for trouble.

Strategy Six: Assign enough work. If students finish a task, there should be another waiting for them. For example, students who sit around after a test waiting for others to finish before going on to the next activity are obviously wasting time. Always make sure that your students know what they are supposed to do after they finish their current assignment. Keep them engaged.

DID YOU CREATE YOUR OWN BAD DAY?

The good news is that sometimes we are the problem. Not our students. Us. If we stop to think about the things that go wrong in our classes, lots of times a problem could have been avoided or at least minimized. If we are the ones causing the problems, then we can be the ones to solve the problems. It is much easier for us to control our own behaviors rather than the behaviors of our most unruly students.

To help you with this, here is a little list that you can copy and print out to help you reflect on what you may be doing to cause discipline issues in your classroom and, more importantly, what you can do to solve those issues.

 

Mistake 1

You are unclear in the limits you set for your students, resulting in a constant testing of the boundaries and of your patience.

Mistake 2

You are too vague in giving directions to your students.

Mistake 3

You are inconsistent in enforcing consequences. This will lead students to a steady testing of the limits of good and bad behaviors.

Mistake 4

You go to school each day without the belief you must have in order to help your students succeed: that students can learn and achieve the things you want for them.

Mistake 5

You overreact to a discipline problem by becoming angry and upset.

Mistake 6

You refuse to listen to your students when they are trying to express their feelings about a problem.

Mistake 7

You present yourself in too tentative a fashion—too easily side-tracked, too tentative, too permissive.

Mistake 8

You give too many negative directions. This sets an unpleasant tone for your students.

Mistake 9

You try to solve discipline problems without trying to determine the underlying causes.

 

Mistake 10

You neglect to command attention. Teachers who talk even though students aren’t listening are not productive.

Mistake 11

You have lessons that are poorly paced. Students either have too much work to do and give up or they don’t have enough work. You also make this mistake when you have lectures that are so long that you can’t keep your students’ attention throughout.

Mistake 12

You make mistakes in assigning punishment by doing so without proof or by blaming the wrong student.

 

 

Too Busy for the Most Important People in the Room?

At the start of a new school year, we all have too much work to do. It can be tempting to focus on paperwork that we are required to complete instead of our students. When teachers do this, it sends a powerfully negative message to all of our students.If you have an inkling that you may be one of those too-busy and distracted teachers, try this self-assessment from the professional development guide to the First-Year Teacher's Survival Guide to see how effectively you put your students first.

 

TEACHER SELF-ASSESSMENT: STUDENTS SHOULD COME FIRST!

Use this self-assessment to help determine just how distracted you may be in class. Use these questions to reflect on how well you stay focused on your students while you are in class.

1. Do you grade papers in class instead of working with students?
2. Do you leave your cell phone on while you are supervising students?
3. Do you check e-mail during class?
4. Do you conduct personal business or deal with your family responsibilities during class?
5. Are you distracted by routine paperwork tasks such as book counts, attendance forms, or parent contact documentation?
6. Do you spend class time on extracurricular activities such as clubs orsports that you sponsor?
7. Do you confer with other teachers while you are supervising students?

To combat the tendency that many busy teachers have to be distracted during class and to make sure that you put your students first, consider these remedies:

• Learn to ask for help and to delegate whenever possible. Your students can often offer valuable assistance to make routine tasks quicker and easier.
• Arrive at school a few minutes early and stay a few minutes late.
• Plan ahead so that you can use your planning time at school as efficiently as possible.
• Establish routines that will allow you to maximize the time that you have available for the tasks that make your classroom run efficiently.

Quiz Yourself! How Close Are You to Being a Perfect Teacher?

Listen to a Quick Interview!

Have you checked out the interview I did with Rae Pica, Bonnie Harris, and David Boomfeld on the educators's channel at BAM radio yet? It does not take long and may give you some ideas about how to handle things when students push your buttons.
http://www.bamradionetwork.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=35&Itemid=65

Quiz Yourself!

Maintaining a reflective practice is something that comes easy to most teachers. We are always looking for ways to teach better and to interact with our students in meaningful and productive ways. One way to think about how you can improve or, if you are a novice teacher-to-be (congrats on getting the job!), is to think about what students really want from a teacher.

In working on the third edition of the book I've written for new teachers, I came across this self-assessment that I wrote a year or so ago. In it, you'll find the character traits that students want from their teachers. Quiz yourself...if you are already checking out teacher blogs, you'll probably do just fine!

Don't forget--the more you can check below, the closer to the ideal teacher your students will thin you are!

The perfect teacher:

1. _____Enjoys being around all students and does not have favorites

2. _____Assigns lots of different types of activities

3. _____Has a great sense of humor

4. _____Understands student problems and tries to help

5. _____Acts like an adult and not a child

6. _____Doesn’t just hand out assignments, but teaches the material

7. _____Always keeps promises

8. _____Is strict, but not too strict

9. _____Admits when he or she is wrong

10. _____Makes sure everyone understands how to do an assignment correctly

11. _____Is well-organized

12. _____Spends time after class to help students

13. _____Returns papers promptly

14. _____Is friendly and fair to everyone

15. _____Knows the subject matter

16. _____Does not allow lots of misbehavior

17. _____Stays open-minded

18. _____Is enthusiastic about the subject

19. _____Is willing to listen to both sides of an issue

20. _____Is polite to everyone all of the time