I appreciated the large number of tips offered in the text for what to do and what not to do to create such an environment. I expect I will add the brown-bag lunch, the student interest questionnaire, the personal space dividers, and the three-before-me procedures to my repertoire. There was, however, one aspect of dealing with disruptions to learning (p.138-9) that I found a bit confusing. On the one hand, a teacher's "third effort" is to implement a consequence as outlined in the classroom management plan. This would imply a direct intervention is required. I cannot imagine doing this without interrupting a lesson, a clear no-no according to the final paragraph on page 139. Do you carry on direct instruction with more of the same subtle indirect/direct measures until a convenient moment? I had a rather boisterous group in Novice Teaching and I could have really used some guidance on how best to manage persistent low-level distracting behavior that clearly detracted from the learning of the offending student and his or her close neighbours.
As for the teacher-caused misbehavior, I noted making premature judgements as something I am prone to do. In addition, I have passed back student work before assigning students a task and have had my own share of 'stuttered starts.' Ah, there is so much to learn.
Leah-I really liked how you mentioned that with a plan a teacher is able to act instead of react. I think this is crucial to classroom management. This way it seems that the students will know what to expect when they do something against classroom procedures. It also ensures that all students are treated fairly if the teacher goes by the same procedures each time.
ReplyDeleteI interpreted the 3rd response as a meet outside of instructional time. For instance, if a student has already been "ignored" for a minor interruption, then at the second/repeated interruption could be a note that says something simple, or a visual cue to point at, making sure the student knows "be quiet" or mentioning them in an example. The third response is something that I plan to incorporate into my classroom: that behavioral expectations sheet we had I want to use as a "contract" and I want to meet with the student who frequently interrupts/does not meet expectations agreed upon, and work out a plan to help the student meet the expectation. We work together and agree and give our signatures to our plan so we can implement it together.
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