Teach Students to Monitor Themselves

Here is a quick excerpt from Discipline Survival Guide for the Secondary Teacher that is appropriate for this time of the school year. By now, we are past the initial stages of getting to know our students and setting the expectations of our class for them. At this point in the school year, it is time to help our students move toward self-discipline!

One of the most powerful techniques for teachers who want to direct their students to become self-disciplined is to teach students to monitor themselves. When students monitor their own behavior, the responsibility for improvement and success rightfully shifts from teacher to student.

            When your students learn to monitor themselves, you no longer have to assume the role of overbearing adult in charge of a room full of students who have perfected the art of learned helplessness. Instead you become a learning partner with your students. Below you will find a list of strategies or activities that you can adapt to help your students stay on track by monitoring their own progress.

·       Offer rubrics in advance of an assignment

·       Give students checklists of tasks to be accomplished

·       Ask students to reflect on their learning or on their work habits

·       Set and work toward a goal

·       Make  frequent progress checks

·       Allow students to see their grades at least weekly

·       Encourage students to chart their grades

·       Have students break assignments into smaller parts and setting their own due dates for each small part

·       Give students a syllabus so that they can plan their work

·       Have students complete admit tickets with their plans for the day’s work

·       Ask students to assess their own strengths and weaknesses

·       Ask students to keep a list of what they have learned and what they still need to know in a unit of study.

Julia Thompson to Partner with Share My Lesson as a Presenter

www.juliagthompson.com

 

Natalie Dean, Share My Lesson

natalie.dean@sharemylesson.com

202-756-0291

 

Julia Thompson to Partner with Share My Lesson as a Presenter

at the First-Ever Ideas and Innovations Virtual Conference for Teachers and Parents

 

Julia Thompson has been named a presenter during the Teaching & Learning: Ideas and Innovations virtual conference, taking place on the afternoons and evenings of March 11-13. The three-day series of workshops is being sponsored by Share My Lesson, the nation's fastest-growing online site for free teaching resources.

 

Thompson's presentation, Creating Self-Disciplined Students, will run from 9-10 pm on the evening of Thursday, March 13. Join in the conversation!

Ideas and Innovations is an online symposium of professional learning featuring over two dozen free workshops by Share My Lesson’s content partners, educational leaders, and expert teachers. Attendees can expect engaging webinars on topics ranging from arts education and civics to the Common Core. With two-dozen webinars to choose from, there's something for every educator and parent.

“‘A self-disciplined learner is one who is willing to do the right thing at the right time.’ Join me as I present ideas designed to help you encourage your students to become the self-disciplined learners they are capable of becoming.” ~Julia Thompson, author of First-Year Teacher’s Survival Guide

“Share My Lesson is committed to reclaiming the promise of public education by supporting educators and parents, giving them the resources and professional learning they need to be successful,” said Scott Noon, general manager of Share My Lesson. “The free conference is a way to support effective practice, help teachers to be aware of our content partners, and provide teachers with opportunities to network and collaborate.”

 

Participation in the conference is exclusive to registered Share My Lesson users. Registration for the site and conference workshops is entirely free, however. For those seeking professional learning credits, registration for each workshop should be done individually to track attendance. For more information, visit www.sharemylesson.com/conference.

 

 

ABOUT SHARE MY LESSON

Share My Lesson was developed by the American Federation of Teachers, a union of over 1.5 million professionals, and TSL Education, creators of TES Connect, the largest network of teachers in the world. Share My Lesson is an award-winning online professional development community where educators can come together to share their greatest teaching resources and collaborate on best practices at no cost. Share My Lesson features a significant resource bank aligned to the Common Core State Standards, including advice and guidance to aid in their successful implementation. Share My Lesson is the 2014 Codie Award winner for Best Crowd Sourced Solution. For more, visit www.sharemylesson.com.

Twenty Ways to Help Students Learn to Be Accountable

                 

 

 

                   If you are like most educators at this time of the year, you are probably more than ready for your students to assume more responsibility for their own success. To be more self-disciplined. To learn to hold themselves accountable for their work and behavior. Unfortunately, our students do not learn accountability quickly or with a few easy strategies or even very predictably. Instead helping students learn to be accountable is an ongoing process that involves consistent effort on our parts. Hang in there. The end result is well worth the effort. Here are twenty things to consider as you move your students forward.

 

           1.        Involve parents or guardians as often as it takes for you to create an effective team of caring adults who want to help a child succeed.

                  2.        Teach your students how to do their work. Students should be taught the study skills they need to reach the standards you have for them.

                  3.        Call on every student every day. Allow no student to be invisible in your classroom.

                  4.        Return graded papers promptly so that students know what they should do to improve.

                  5.        Make sure your comments on assignments are geared to helping students correct their errors and improve their performance.

                  6.        Foster responsibility through the daily routines and procedures you establish for your students. Involve them in routine classroom-management tasks.

                  7.        Teach your students to pace themselves by paying attention to the time it takes for them to complete various types of assignments. Teach them how to estimate the amount of time it will take to complete assignments and how to time themselves.

                  8.        Keep your interactions with individual students brief enough so that your attention can stay focused on the rest of the class as well. Don’t allow your time to be monopolized by one attention-seeking student at the expense of the others in the class.

                  9.        Make sure your students know that you pay attention to them. Students who know their teacher is paying attention to their behavior are not going to misbehave as readily as those students who believe they can get away with bad behavior.

                10.      Hold your students to the same behavior standards for substitute teachers that you expect when you are in the room. Discuss this with them in advance of the time when you will be absent; you will find that your students behave much better than if you adopt a “kids will be kids” attitude.

                11.      Refuse to allow your students to sleep or to do homework for other classes in your class. They should be doing your work in your class.

                12.      Make it a point that you expect 100% accuracy in student work. Some students will aim to just get by with a minimum of work unless you encourage them to do otherwise.

                13.      Have students edit or double-check each other’s work before turning it in. Peer editing works best if you provide students with a checklist of standards to follow while proofreading.

                14.      Instead of having all of your students shout out answers in an oral activity, ask them to write their responses first and then answer when you call on them. This will force everyone to think before responding.

                15.      Plan the procedures you want your students to follow in case they don’t have their materials or textbooks in class. Don’t allow students to get away with not working because they don’t have their materials.

                16.      When you are moving around the room to monitor activity, ask your students to underline the answers they think are correct and circle the ones that puzzle them so that you can work together to make sure they understand how to do all of their work well.

                17.      If you find that some of your students are reluctant to accomplish their work on schedule, contact their parents or guardians. If students know that their progress is being monitored at home as well as in class, they usually perform better.

                18.      If you see that students have trouble grasping an assignment, reteach the material. Don’t allow students to rest on their ignorance.

                19.      When students miss the answer to a question, ask them to write the correct answer on their papers. Students should be held accountable for correcting their papers.

                20.      Make neatness an important component of the work in your classroom. You don’t have to be a perfectionist, but you should expect your students to turn in neat work.

How to Show Your Students that You Care About Them

How important is it to connect with your students in a positive way? Crucial. A productive teacher-student relationship can make a class run smoothly. Without it, nothing will. Students of all ages need to feel that their teachers like them and approve of what they do. Fortunately for teachers everywhere, there are many, many ways to show that you care about your students while still maintaining a professional attitude.

Here are a few quick suggestions for those teachers who want to project a postive, productive attitude while working with students. Please feel free to add your comments! We all learn from each other.

• While you don’t want to be a pushover, try to find common ground as often as you can. The simple act of agreeing with your students as often as you can sets a pleasant and cooperative tone.

• Set responsible behavior limits for everyone, and be fair when you enforce these limits.

• Use a kind voice when you speak with your students.

• Listen to all of your students. Encourage them to share ideas and opinions.

• If one of your students is in the newspaper for something positive, clip out the article and display it.

• Stress the things that you and your students have in common: goals, dreams, and beliefs.

• When a student speaks to you, stop and listen.

• Respond to emails from your students promptly and courteously.

• When you display student work, don’t just display the best. Display everyone’s work.

• Have students create study buddy groups so that they can be connected to other students and to you. Students who feel as if they are part of a class tend to want to remain in school longer than those students who feel isolated.

• Maintain a birthday calendar for your students. Celebrate birthdays with birthday messages on the board.

• Attend school events. If your students play a sport or perform in a concert, go and watch them to show your appreciation for their hard work.

• Use good manners when you deal with your students and insist that they do the same.

• When students confide in you, follow up. For example, if students have told you that they were worried about a test in another class, take the time to ask about how they did.

• Make it very clear to your students that you want to help them achieve their dreams.

• Ask about a student’s family. If you know someone is ill, show your concern.

• Show your sense of humor. Laugh when funny things happen in class—especially when they happen to you.

• Speak to every student each day. Leave no one out of class discussions.

• Write notes to your students. Use plenty of stickers, and write positive comments on their papers.

• Make a positive phone call home when a student’s effort is paying off.

• Pay attention to your students’ health. If students need to go to the clinic, send them. When students have to miss several days because of illness, call to see how they are doing, or send a get-well card. Be prompt in sending work to the student’s home

• Use this sentence to convey your concern: “What can I do to help you?”

• Talk with students when you notice a change in their behavior. For example, if a normally serious student is neglecting his or her work, find out why.

• Take the time to tell your students what you like about them.

• Take photographs of your students. Use these photos on a wall of pride.