Transcript Enhancing the School Success of Boys of Color Grades PreK-3

Enhancing the School Success of
Boys of Color Grades PreK-3
Train-the-Trainer Summer Institute
Lansing Public Schools
July 20, 2011
Dorinda J. Carter Andrews, Ed.D.
Agenda
• Module 5 Activities
– Discuss Chapters 10 and 11 from Minds of
Boys
• BREAK
• Module 5 Activities (continued)
– Teach Like a Champion – Chapter 2 (Planning
that Ensures Academic Achievement)
– Reflection and Practice
– Teach Like a Champion – Chapter 4 (Engaging
Students in Your Lessons) text
Module 5
Using Instructional Approaches that
Motivate and Engage Boys of Color
Causes of Undermotivation
for Boys
The boy’s brain itself
The school system
Family dynamics
Environmental social stressors (e.g.,
poverty, peer pressure, violence,
etc.)
Lack of positive “male motivators”
Gifted Underachieving Boys
• Many students go unnoticed as high-ability nonachievers. The nonachievement and
undermotivation usually stems from:
– Low academic self-esteem
– Negative attitudes towards teachers
– Low motivation and self-regulation skills
– Negative attitude toward school
– Negative attitude toward course offerings
– Low goal-setting/self-evaluation skills
What Teachers Can Do
Ten Effective Strategies for Motivating Boys (of
Color):
1.Formally check in with boys of color daily
2.Target BOC for in-class activities by using
specific strategies to engage them in topics of
interest
3.Sit them near the front of the class
4.Modify teaching methods to include less verbal
instruction and more hands-on activities while
letting nonverbal-, non-writing-type students do
more work on the computer than you might
otherwise allow
What Teachers Can Do
5. Let boys move around physically while
they are reading, writing, learning, and
even using the computer
6. Give boys soft objects to squeeze in
their hands constantly so that they can
keep their brains stimulated physically
and thus avoid the rest state.
7. Design school and/or class schedule to
fit the student brain.
What Teachers Can Do
8. Make physical education a priority
for student motivation – especially
for underperforming males
9. Provide smaller schools and
classroom sizes when possible; it
helps motivate boys.
10.Provide all undermotivated boys
with a mentor
Brainstorming/Strategies
In your building teams, use 15 minutes
to identify strategies at the
classroom level and building level for
identifying and addressing the
needs of
undermotivated/underperforming
boys of color
Planning that Ensures
Academic Achievement
Teach Like a Champion Techniques
 #6 – Begin with the End
 #7 – 4 M’s
 #8 – Post It
 #9 – Shortest Path
 #10 – Double Plan
 #11 – Draw the Map
Planning that Ensures
Academic Achievement
• Golden Nuggets/Insights
– Consider as a learning objective: “As adults
my children will . . . (Begin with the End)
– Double Plan technique: knowing what you will
say as well as what the child will learn and do
is critical
– Begin with the end in mind
– Connections to Stephen Covey’s ideas
– Teachers need to really know what the
standards mean for today’s lesson
– Post-It requires the visual reminders. This is
very important
Reflection and Practice
• Activity 5.1
– In building teams, choose one of the
questions (1-4) on pp. 69-70 in Teach
Like a Champion, and work as a group
to answer it.
– Task Time: 25 minutes
– Report Out to follow
Engaging Students in Your Lessons
Teach Like a Champion techniques
 #22 – Cold Call
#23 – Call and Response
#24 – Pepper
#25 – Wait Time
#26 – Everybody Writes
#27 - Vegas
Engaging Students in Your
Lessons
• Golden Nuggets/Insights
– With Cold Call, there must be a classroom
culture where kids feel safe; similar to
Socratic method
– Stay positive! Scaffold!
– Cold Call/Pepper: allows for involving more
students in the conversation/engaging
more students
– Call & Response: movement and music can
be used with this strategy
Reflection and Practice
• In small groups, answer questions 1
and 5 on p. 144 in Teach Like a
Champion.
• Task Time: 15 minutes
• Report Out to follow
What Stuck?
• An ‘Aha’ moment
• A pleasant surprise
• Something that you had to struggle with to
understand
• Something that you don’t agree with
• Something that you agree with strongly
• Something you thought was particularly interesting
• Something you didn’t expect
• An insight or solution
• Something you want to know more about/A
question that you have