Round-the-Clock-Buddies

Here is a strategy that I have used many times during the school year, particularly during the first two weeks of school.

 

Give each student a sheet with a 12-hour clock printed on it. Along the side of each number on the clock, place a line extending horizontally where a student’s name can be written. The assignment is to fill in at least one other student’s name per line.

 Now here is how this works. Explain to the students:

 

“First, I take my sheet and go to another student. I ask if he or she would like to be my 1:00 buddy. If the answer is yes, then I write their name on my sheet – and they write my name on their sheet. We make sure that we spell each other’s names correctly!”

 

Tell the students how to continue the process. If, for example, someone’s 1:00 buddy line is already filled, they can ask about another time, e.g. “Well, if we cannot be buddies at 1:00, what about 3:00?”

 

Depending on the size of the class, for each of the 12 slots, students should write in one name for a class of 12. They will have two names for a class of 24, and 3 names for larger groups.

 

Future Activities: This “Round the Clock Buddy” exercise can also become the basis for many future activities. It is a great method to organize a “think-pair-share” or brainstorming activity. I then say to my students:

 

“Please make an appointment with your 2:00 buddy and I would like for you to discuss…

 

(whatever it is you as the teacher want the class to discuss at that point).”

 

The children really seem to enjoy this exercise – and it gives you something to vary the normal routine.

 

Understanding Your Students

F – The Failing Student often sits in the back of the classroom and seems to pay no attention. They may even fall asleep. They almost never meet your eyes. They may have problems at home, a learning disorder, or be ill. Always look deeper for an explanation for why a student seems to be failing.

D – The ‘Do enough to get by’ Student just barely passes the class. Most of the time, they do not seem to engage with the work or the teacher but every once in a while, you may see flashes of brilliance. They may be quite smart but seem unwilling or unable to do the work. Again, there’s almost always an explanation – although not always a solution. Watch the body language – this student sits up and pays attention some of the time but more often, may seem easily distracted or disconnected. How often can you get this student to look you in the eyes? What might be the reason?

C – The ‘Caring’ Student seems to care about the class and the work but often does just average or below average classwork. This can be out of a desire to ‘fit in’ with the rest of the group. Or conversely, to protect him or herself from attack or bullying by not ‘standing out’ or drawing attention to themselves. They may not be motivated or there may be real reasons – home life, learning disorders, seeing issues, etc. – that prevent them from higher achievements.  Body language can be a real indicator. Does the student slump in the chair, twist to talk to friends, or seem to hide behind the desk? Look for ways to help this student feel more secure about accomplishing their work.

B – The ‘Brilliant’ Student can be rewarding to teach. They seem to pay attention most of the time and are usually conscientious about doing their class and homework assignments. They give competent answers to questions and their comprehension is almost always quite good. What stops them from being “A” students? Often this can be because social interactions weigh more importantly for them than classwork. Given the choice between watching a popular TV show and doing their homework, they would probably choose the TV show so that they can talk about it with their friends the next day at school.

A - The “Ace” or E-for-“Excellent” Student may not be the most popular but turns in outstanding work. Sometimes the work is quite unusual, imaginative, and even eccentric – a story, poem, song, report or explanation of an idea by this student can be a surprise. Socioeconomics can play a role, perhaps unfairly. So-called “A” students may come from well-educated parents who demand quality work. Or they may be highly motivated because of a personal interest – and some may even display signs of genius, which you can help to nurture. Parents who care about their children’s education provide them with a desk or work area at home, require specific times for students to do homework, and give helpful support when the children have questions. Even those families that live in real poverty can supply these elements which can make a real difference in students’ achievement. But the real “keys” to excellence can be found in enthusiasm and engagement. Even the “F” student may do “A” level work if an assignment excites them. Finding ways to get students to engage with the learning materials is one of the most challenging and stimulating aspects to teaching.

Vary Your Voice

A clue to communicative speech is to pick out the most important words and say them LOUDER! In any sentence, one word will be the most important and communicate a lot of meaning. For example, can you pick out the most important word in this sentence?

 

“To be or not to be, that is the question.”

 

Hamlet’s famous speech has been said every possible way over the centuries since Shakespeare first wrote those words. Many argue that the word “not” is the most important; others say the first “be” ranks higher;  still others pick the word  “question” because Hamlet is questioning his whole existence. The way you emphasize a word can change the meaning of a whole sentence.

 

Here is the usual way that this Shakespearean line is performed in the very natural rhythm of “iambic pentameter” (5 strong beats in a sentence):

“Little words” like ‘the’ and ‘that’ and ‘to’ and ‘or’ get less volume and are said more quickly than the more important ones.

 Typically, the most important word in any sentence is a noun, although the action verbs can also be very communicative, e.g., “I can see the dog is running away!” What is the sentence ‘about’? It’s about a dog. But what’s so important about the dog? He’s running away.

 Adjectives give additional information about the noun and may be even more important when you want someone to choose, “the blue one, not the white one.” When giving someone directions, emphasizing the prepositions gives clarity: “go down the hill until you reach the junction…” Simply choose one (up to three) important words in a sentence to say louder, slower and more clearly than the rest to help your listener really hear them.

Volume is one way to give emphasis to words: say important words louder, less important words more softly. Saying words more slowly than usual is another technique that can really catch your listeners’ attention. Taking a pause for emphasis after saying a word gives listeners time to absorb and think about what you are saying.

Presentation of New Material

At this step, most teachers are advised to reveal the learning objectives to the class:

“Today, we are going to study X. By the end of this class, you should know X +…”

 In lectures, powerpoint slideshows, website viewings, or by simply turning to ‘old-fashioned’ textbooks, a new  set  of materials for students to master is normally presented in  the opening stage. This might be a list of 10 new spelling words, a science or math or language concept, a classroom procedure, or any of the many topics that  an elementary school teacher is expected to teach. Give students an overview of what they will learn and if possible, relate it to a context of things they have already studied or know.

Tip: Simplify!

One key teaching technique for presenting new material is simplification. Simplifying material into ‘bite-sized chunks’ does not mean infantilizing it – you don’t have to make a lesson into ‘baby talk.’ You can go for greater depth by focusing on a single concept. While you may wish that your group could all master an entire book in a single class, one page at a time usually works better.

 

Try thinking like an advertiser – try to pack whole concepts into short, memorable phrases. “Brand” your new material and bring out its importance and reasons for students to be interested. If McDonald’s can sell millions of burgers by saying, “I’m lovin’ it” and Coca-Cola is “the real thing,” then simplifying to make things easy to remember can be a very persuasive and useful teaching tool.

 

The Dismissal Procedure

 In the crucial first days of a school term, an orderly exit procedure is top priority. Give yourself extra time to start your dismissal procedure at the beginning of the term because timing is crucial. Even with practice of the procedures for leaving the class earlier in the day, students may feel an urgency to ‘break out of the classroom’ and run for their bus or ride home. You may have to call them back and have them practice it again a few times, so give yourself a bit of extra time.

 If you have to hold your class from leaving on time, you may cause a nuisance to others. Buses are scheduled, parents arrive to pick up their children, and the administration will always be concerned that the end-of-the-day goes smoothly and safely. Hundreds of children rushing through the halls can be dangerous! Ensure that your students know how to proceed safely and calmly out of the classroom and back out to the ‘real world.’

 

Give them a reason to smile at the end of the day – a silly joke, a mention of some exciting upcoming event, a treat or celebration of some small success are just some of things you can do to lighten up the last moments. Wouldn’t you prefer to see smiles on their faces as they leave with an eagerness to return the next day? A clear closing procedure can help.

 

Offering words of encouragement or inspiration, and an expression of thanks for their hard

work in class are also nice ways to end the day – on the first day and every day.

 

Procedures and Routines

First of all, let me provide a simple definition of procedures and routines. A procedure is specifically how something is to be done. Whereas a routine is a mechanically performed action – in other words, students perform this task automatically without actually having to think about it.

You might ask yourself which procedures you will necessarily have to implement. When I first entered the teaching profession, I kind of figured, well… I will need a procedure for a child to ask a question, a procedure to sharpen a pencil, a procedure to get up out of one’s seat, a procedure to get their attention, a procedure for collecting papers, etcetera!

 

These are, in fact, all fairly important procedures that I want to become routines in my classroom. This was based just on  pure common sense. Now, of  course, I have  added additional procedures as I have gained experience and understand better what is

appropriate to a particular group or age level.

 First, you teach the procedure by talking about it and giving them a written or visual reference (this could be writing it on the whiteboard, pointing to a poster, projecting it using some kind of multimedia – slides, video, etc.).

 Next, you model it. By this, I mean you demonstrate exactly how you want the procedure to

be performed – playing the role of a student doing the task.

 Then you rehearse the procedure with the whole class. Allow the students to walk through it physically. Try different groupings – you can have the whole class perform it or pairs of students do the procedure together, or in small groups or as individuals. As appropriate to the specific procedure and the class, it is usually less stressful to the students to have the whole class practice together the first time through. Then you can break out in small groups, then in pairs, and finally have individuals demonstrating that they can perform it “solo.”

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The Student--Teacher Relationship

 What’s the number one thing that a student looks for in a teacher, do you think?

 Yes, students look to teachers for knowledge. Whether in a private after-school tutorial or the daily routine at a public school, students (and their parents) assume that the teacher knows more than they do. Typically, students and parents evaluate the teacher’s ability to impart that knowledge to students in interesting and memorable ways to determine whether he or she is a “good teacher” or a “bad teacher.”

 

So – probably the first thing we think of when we consider the student – teacher relationship is knowledge. The teacher should have a certain level of competency in the subject to be taught.

 

Second, the teacher’s teaching skills can make all the difference between whether a subject

is boring and uninteresting or fascinating and motivating to students.

 There is a third less-definable issue that students immediately react to on the first day of school: the teacher’s integrity. As a teacher, do you say what you mean? Perhaps more importantly, do you mean what you say?

Do you mean what you say?

 

The first day of school, you meet and greet your students. You go over your expectations. Fresh from their summer vacation, your new students seem eager and interested. They follow your instructions readily. You practice how you want them to enter the class, where and how to sit at their desks, how to handle their books and papers. They “get it” and you are feeling pretty good about this class!

 

The bell marking the end of class is about to ring. The class has practiced how to exit the room earlier. Then you make a giant mistake. Can you figure out what this teacher does

wrong?

 “The end of the day nears. You review the evening’s homework assignment and model how you want your students to gather backpacks, push in chairs, and line up quietly for dismissal. They nod their heads, all smiles. I love my new class!

 A minute or so before the bell rings, you give your students the signal to begin the end-of-day procedure. In their exuberance, several students rush the door to line up. A few happily approach you like puppy dogs, wanting to share a story or two. And a few more linger a moment at their desks, chatting with their tablemates.

 

You remind the runners to walk, tell the lingerers to get a move on, and banter a moment with the students who approached you. And as the bell rings you shoo them all out the door with a wave. What an awesome day. What a great class!

 

The door closes and you fall into your chair with a happy sigh, never realizing that you just made a colossal mistake, one that will cause your students to begin ignoring your directions, breaking your rules, and engaging in misbehavior.” What was the mistake?  This teacher failed to insist that the students follow the correct end-of-the-day procedure.

 “But because they weren’t technically “misbehaving,” she let it go. And this is where so many teachers who struggle with classroom management go wrong.⁷”

 

It may seem like such a small thing but it calls your integrity as a teacher and a person into question. If you have given a specific procedure for students to follow, you need to back it up, especially in the first days. If you ‘let things go’ on small things early on, then students will expect that you will be “soft” on more serious misbehaviors later on. This can lead to painful conflicts and resistance in the coming months.

You need to “mean what you say” from Day One.

 

 

First Day Lesson Plans

There are probably as many schools-of-thought on lesson planning as there are teachers of teaching. Your professors in teachers’ college will likely have insisted on a set style and approach to writing curricula. Educators in public schools will have to fill out a surprisingly large amount of paperwork required by federal, state, and/or local officials and agencies. Your school principal or educational consultant may also prescribe a set format. Whether you work in a public or a private institution, there will be formulas for ‘correct’ lesson planning.

Before sitting down to make out a lesson plan, it is always good to take a bit of time to visualize your students’ response to the materials to be presented. Imagine their faces and body reactions to the topic and lesson objective as you also imagine how you might present it. Allow yourself to consider several strategies before deciding on a single approach.

 

As a ‘rule of thumb,’ pick the presentation methods that you think will generate the most

interest from your students!

 Presentation: Teach – Model – Rehearse!

Whether it is something as useful and straightforward as how to tie your shoes or as complex as a geometry theorem or a Latin conjugation, the basics of knowledge transmission have been established over many centuries: present (possibly explain), model, rehearse.

 

To this day throughout Asia, the primary transmitter used by teachers is repetition without much or any explanation. People often make fun of “parroting” the teacher, simply repeating what the teacher says without really thinking about what it means. Yet as a memorization tool that gets ‘stuck in the mind,’ there is something to be said for simple repetition. It can be a useful tool in your bag of “teacher tricks.”

Fun Ways To Help Students Learn Vocabulary

There are lots of different ways in which to help children learn vocabulary. For starters, having kids look up words in a dictionary of course, is an important skill — but not all that exciting. One way would be to let students draw a picture, or make a collage to illustrate the word. 

Incorporate a game like charades to guess a word and explain its meaning. Another cool way would be to incorporate music or creative writing into your word study lessons. Students could create poetry, a rap or a song about the words and their meanings.

Having students create a vocabulary photo album is a great idea, as well as having students participate in a vocabulary relay. Setting up a scavenger hunt in the classroom is also lots of fun. Lastly, having your kiddos create linear arrays is super cool. 

Ultimately, this is just the tip of the iceberg as we are limited by our imagination to make learning new vocabulary fun and exciting. I’d love to hear about some of your awesome ideas!

Check for Understanding Without Giving Quizzes or Tests

I want to share some strategies that can be used to check for understanding without giving quizzes or tests. I’ve just listed here a few things that can be done. For those quick assessments that you will do throughout the day, a simple thumbs-up or thumbs-down is a quick way to assess student understanding. Another method is having students turn to a partner to talk and share answers. One thing that I always loved to do was have kids write their responses on dry-erase boards for quick feedback.

Another way to check for understanding is to have students respond to text in a writing journal. During my Reader’s / Writer’s Workshops, I’d always have my students writing in their student response journals. After which, one could follow up with students during individual conferences to discuss the content, or their thoughts about a topic.  Another super cool thing is giving students the opportunity to role-play, or give oral presentations to see what they have learned.

Lastly, checking students for understanding can be assessed through the use of “Thinking Maps” and/or Exit tickets which I personally have used extensively. Hope this information is helpful.

Training Our Brains

 In our imaginations, we all like to think of ourselves as having a sharp mind and clear memory. Unfortunately, the reality is that many of us experience a decline in our mind and memory as we age. Sometimes, we don't even realize it's happening until suddenly we just can't seem to comprehend as we used to or remember things we feel we should be able to remember. While some of this is typical of aging, many times we can improve our mind and memory with a simple process called brain training.

Brain training is a hot topic today in the world today. It's of particular interest because of its correlation with slowing down the process of memory loss associated with dementia and Alzheimer's disease. While it hasn't been scientifically proven to prevent these diseases, brain training can definitely have a positive effect on the mind.

 

There are many types of braining training products on the market from Nintendo DS games to software and books. The wonderful news is that there are many ways we can train our brains every day with just a little time and practice. By doing these simple things on a daily basis, you'll soon find that you'll seem a little smarter, think a little faster and remember a little more.

 

Limit the amount of television you watch every day. I realize television can offer some excellent entertainment, but it helps keep our brains in neutral, which does nothing to enhance your mind or your memory.

 Put a little comedy in your life. Studies have shown that people that had exposure to comedy in their life were much better at solving problems right after watching it than those with no exposure to comedy. However, keep it to a minimum while at work or other places where it may be distracting.

 

Involve yourself in hot topics of discussion. Rather than always communicating about the same topics, choose conversations that require you to think and rethink your position or even require a little research or reading. The more you're learning, the more your brain will grow.

 Eat a nutritiously balanced diet. Your brain has much of the same requirements as your body. Your body or muscles will not work properly if they lack the nutrients they need to produce energy and your brain has the same requirements. Eat a balanced diet consisting of a variety of foods. Beans are an excellent source of protein as well as brainpower.

 

Give your brain some challenges. The best way to keep your brain happy, healthy and growing is to provide it with stimulation. This can come from doing puzzles, reading books, getting in a good challenging debate or finding a new hobby.