Transcript Slide 1

Twelve Keys to Successful
Classroom Discipline
“Do what you can, with what you have,
where you are.” ~Anonymous
Julia G. Thompson
October 26, 2011
Julia G. Thompson
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Author of
First-Year Teacher’s Survival Guide
First-Year Teacher’s Checklist
Discipline Survival Guide for the Secondary
Teacher
First-Year Teacher’s Survival Guide
Professional Development Training Kit
www.juliagthompson.com
How to find out
more…
Use Julia G. Thompson as a
search word on your local
Amazon.com site
Our Objectives
To share strategies and ideas that could make
it easier to manage some of the discipline
issues in your classroom
To answer specific questions submitted to the
Web site
What Successful
Teachers Do
Not every strategy will appeal to you. Not
every strategy will work well for your
students.
Pick and choose what will work
for you and your students.
SELF-DISCIPLINE:
THE ULTIMATE
GOAL
Accept
responsibility
for your
classroom.
Students should do
more work than
their teachers do!
Put your
students
first.
Think prevention
instead of
“Oh, no!
Now what should
I do!”
Resolve your
problems.
Don’t just react
to them.
Choose to see
opportunities
instead
of disasters.
Key One
Nothing creates success like
success.
Harness the power of the self-fulfilling
prophecy to keep students learning instead
of misbehaving.
Few of us can understand the
courage it takes to return to a
place where we failed
yesterday and the day before
that and, in all
probability, where we will fail
again tomorrow.
Students need
encouragement
in addition to praise if
they are to work with
focus and purpose.
Focused
on the
Person
General
Summative
Praise
Focused
on the
work
Specific
Formative
Encouragement
Quick Tips
• Post a record of student achievements—make
success visible.
• Recognize and praise effort.
• Ask students to periodically review how far
they’ve come— “What do you know now that
you did not know earlier?”
• Make success possible. Start easy.
• Checklist of skills for students to self-monitor.
It’s Almost Magic…
If you think highly of your
students, they will tend to
behave better for you than for
the teachers who obviously
do not enjoy being with them.
Spread positive energy!
Motivate students
to be
self-directed and
responsible.
Key Two
Teachers should establish
and maintain a
transparent classroom.
There are no hidden agendas in a transparent
classroom.
Keep small problems
that way.
Quick Tips
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Maintain a class Web site.
Use rubrics.
Send home notes and emails. Call often!
Use a syllabus.
Post a big calendar.
Offer examples and models. Be visual!
Hold discussions.
Display photos of students being good.
Homework Completion
Key Three
Engaging, dynamic lessons
and assignments will
prevent almost any
discipline issue.
Students who are focused on learning just don’t
have time to misbehave.
Quick Tips
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Use real-life concerns and topics.
Have well-paced lessons.
Teach to an objective.
Encourage student to student interaction.
Vary as much as possible: time, modes,
topics.
• Provide wiggle breaks.
• Adjust for student readiness.
• Differentiate, differentiate, differentiate.
What are the components of a
dynamic lesson?
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Engaging opening
Pacing
Relevance
Rigor
Review
Reflection
Effective closing
Add Intrinsic Motivation
• Provide novelty
• Use plenty of models and
examples
• Allow students to use their
imagination and creativity
• Make frequent progress checks
Some Easy-to-Implement
Dynamic Learning
Strategies
Compacting Curriculum
Compacting the curriculum means
providing alternative activities for the
student who has already mastered
curriculum content. Students who do not
require instruction move on to tiered
problem-solving activities while others
receive instruction.
Checklists of Activities
Copy homework.
Put last night’s assignment in the red bin.
Pick up the literature books for your group.
Work together to answer the questions
about the episode of the Cyclops.
Have three of your tablemates peer edit your
introductory paragraph. Use your personal
checklist as a guide.
Anchoring Activities
These are activities that students
may do at any time when they
have completed their present
assignment or when the teacher is
busy with other students. They
should be part of a long term
project.
Choice Boards
Write a summary.
Draw a diagram
of the plot.
Make a book jacket
of the most exciting
scene in the book.
Record yourself as you
read several of the best
passages aloud.
Take a quick quiz on Sketch three of the
the main events of main characters
the plot.
interacting with
each other.
Make a videotape of
you and some
classmates acting out
parts of the book.
Make a poster of
the noteworthy
quotations from the
book.
Make a booklet of the
vocabulary words and
meanings that were
new to you in this
book.
A Few Management Strategies for
a Differentiated Classroom
• Appoint student experts
• Have clear, written directions for all
activities
• Intersperse quiet days
• Post procedures list for those who finish
early
• Have sponge/anchoring activities
available at all times to your class
Key Four
Students should
understand the purpose
for their learning.
Students who set and achieve goals are more
likely to stay on task than those students who
do not know why they work.
Quick Tips
• Praise effort as well as results so students see
the connection. This combats false social
messages encouraging instant riches.
• Have students set life goals.
• Make sure students know how to achieve
their goals.
• Have students track their own progress.
• Guest speakers can be powerful allies.
Don’t Forget: Students
need to be taught the
skills necessary to help
them reach their goals.
Daily School Success
Actions
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Put things in their places.
Label and date all papers.
File papers each day.
Carry pencil cases to store supplies.
Write down and plan all
assignments.
Key Five
Minimize misbehavior with
clear routine, procedures,
and policies.
These make it easy for students to operate
within clear boundaries and expectations.
The Most Important Events
Requiring Routines, Etc.
• Opening of class
• Ending of class
• Transitions between activities
• Students working together
• Students who need to ask
questions
Key Six
A positive relationship between
teacher and students is vital
to a successful discipline
climate.
Students need to know that their teacher respects
and cares for them. Everyone wins when
students feel as if they are part of a team.
How to Solve Almost Any Problem
• Step One:
• Step Two:
• Step Three:
• Step Four:
• Step Five:
Define the problem
Gather information.
Generate as many
solutions as you can
Select the best one(s)
Implement
A Community of
Learners Can
Rely on Each
Other
KEYS TO CREATING A COMMUNITY
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Teach social skills
Give students positive identities
Model and teach group work behaviors
Praise and encourage them for
cooperation and tolerance
• Make their success visual
To Be Forewarned about
Your Students Is To Be
Prepared…
They may lack the
prerequisite skills or
background knowledge to
master the work
successfully.
They already don’t see a
real connection between
the work they do now and
a successful future and no
one at home encourages
them.
Their goals are probably
unrealistic: being a pro
athlete is not a sensible
career choice for the
smallest kid in your class—
neither is being a reality TV
star.
They find it hard to succeed
when they are distracted by
someone near them or by an
event that happened at home
or in the neighborhood.
Your students will probably
live in a culture with
different values from the
values of the school.
Key Seven
Involve as many other
helpful adults as possible
to reduce discipline
problems.
Learn to work well with other teachers and
support personnel. A strong connection with a
student’s family is especially important.
How to Communicate Successfully
with Parents or Guardians
• Communicate early and often. Use a variety of
ways.
• Be positive.
• Act in a professional manner at all times.
• They expect you to show that you value their
child.
Key Eight
Students who are engaged
in learning from door to
door just do not have
time to misbehave.
Manage the time your students have with you so
that they become a class of high achievers
instead of bored, off task problems.
Common Sense Solutions
• Reduce distractions. Some obvious ones are
doors that are left open or classmates that
are off task.
• Staying on your feet and working with
students will allow you to help students
while their problems are still manageable.
• Organized teachers experience far fewer class
disruptions than their counterparts who
waste valuable class time looking for
materials and lost handouts.
• Use small blocks of time. You’d be surprised
what students can accomplish with little bits
of time. In just a few minutes students can
write exit tickets, plan a project, play a
review game, check out a Web site…
Give students enough work. If
they finish one task, there
should be another one waiting.
The work that you assign should
be appropriate, differentiated to
meet student needs, and
engaging…never busy work.
Key Nine
Give clear written and
verbal direction so that
your students can find it
easy to stay on task.
Students who know how to do their work well will
be less apt to be off class than those who do not
know what they need to accomplish in class.
Make following directions well a
part of the culture of your
classroom.
Talk about it every day. Work on it until
your students see that following
directions is not just something their
teacher thinks is important but a
necessary life skill.
Expect and command attention.
When you are ready to go over
written or oral directions, expect
your students to stop what they are
doing and pay attention to you from
the beginning of your explanation to
the end.
Seek clarification.
Ask students to rephrase directions
until you are sure everyone knows
what to do.
Be alert to impatient, anxious
students.
Don’t be fooled by students who inform
you that they know what to do. Insist
that they listen to directions!
Key Ten
Students who are having
fun in class will remain on
task and stop seeking
unproductive ways to
amuse themselves.
Design and deliver instruction with fun built in—at
least sometimes.
Activities that Students Like…
1. Appeal to their personal interests
2. Allow limited choices
3. Involve investigation, gathering information,
and are open-ended
4. Encourage the use of higher level thinking
skills
5. Encourage them to move around
6. Involve competitions with others as well as
with themselves
7. Involve real-life problems
8. Involve controversial or debatable topics
9. Allow them to help others
10. Have an immediate and practical purpose
11. Include frequent checkpoints so that they
can monitor their own progress
12. Are relevant, meaningful, and related to
their immediate needs
13. Use media and technology
14. Allow them to confer with each other
15. Are paced appropriately for their readiness
and ability levels
16. Include multiple learning styles
Students
should be
active rather
than passive
learners.
Key Eleven
Arouse student curiosity
about a lesson and you will
find that inherent
motivation will prevent
many discipline problems.
It’s worth the effort to help students want to learn
answers to questions they may have about a lesson.
It’s Only Common Sense
• Students who are interested in the lesson are
willing to at least try.
• Spend two minutes at the start of a lesson:
ask questions, show photos, play clips…
• Check out the booklet!: 25 ideas there for
you!
Key Twelve
Charismatic classroom
leaders make it easy for
students to be engaged
all period long.
Teachers who develop classroom leadership skills
experience fewer discipline problems than those
teachers who just show up and expect students
to learn.
Listen more than you
speak—to everyone,
especially your
students.
Become a
fanatically
goal-oriented
individual.
Remember: Teaching
is a deliberate act.
ARE YOU WITH IT?
(Hint: She is!)
WITHITNESS
At all times a teacher
knows what’s going on
in class.
Teachers with withitness are said to have eyes
in the back of their heads. But, since they
never turn their backs on the class, this is not
really necessary.
THE ADVANTAGES OF
WITHITNESS
• You will convince your students that
you are seriously in control of the
class.
• You will be able to prevent or
minimize misbehavior.
• You will be able to keep a lesson going
even though some off task behavior
may be happening.
HOW TO CULTIVATE YOUR
WITHITNESS
• Don’t ever turn your back on a class.
• Be alert to signs and signals among
your students
• Be prepared so that you can focus
on students instead of the lesson.
•Develop your personal
multitasking skills.
•Stay on your feet and monitor.
•Arrange your class so that you
can see and be seen.
•Don’t distract students when they
are working.
•Pace lessons so that they flow in a
businesslike manner.
•Quietly correct off task behavior and
then move on.
QUICK TIPS TO MANAGE A CLASS
• Don’t talk over your students. Command
attention. Wait until they can listen.
• Use a credible, soft voice so students have to
listen to what you’re saying.
• Make sure students know what they are
supposed to do and how to accomplish it
well.
• Focus on the things your students do well. Praise
them for that and the negatives will be
lessened.
• Make sure your expectations are high enough.
Your students will rise to meet the challenge.
• Build motivation in every lesson.
• Connect with your students in a positive and
appropriate way as soon as possible.
THINGS TAKE TIME!
One unit at a time
One lesson at a time
One strategy at a time
One student at a time
We’re Waiting!
1. How can I motivate passive students
and those who see no value in
education? How about those who
are in the final year of school and
have given up due to poor
expectations or those who are
studying a subject which they
perceive to have no value to them?
2. How can a substitute/supply teacher gain
respect in the classroom?
3. How can we deal with disrespectful students
who answer back?
4. How do you deal with unsupportive parents?
5. How can you get noisy/lively students
interested in the lesson? Games don’t work
because they get too silly.
6. They say routines are essential, but how do
you mix up your routines to make the days
fresh and exciting?
7. I've been teaching for a long time, and usually have
no real or ongoing problems with classroom
management. Recently, however, two girls were
transferred to my Year 10 class, and they have
created havoc! About ten people in my once
cooperative class have developed a mob mentality,
and are making life hell for the rest of us. Two of
them not only refused to be referred from the room,
they refused to be stood down from school by the
principal, returning the next morning with the
intention of going to classes as usual! They are aided
and abetted by the mother of one of them!
8. What can I do to help a child who gives up
when he is faced with any independent
work...putting his head on the desk and saying
he can't do it even when it is differentiated?
How do I deal with the student who has
‘learned helplessness’?
9. Their parents do everything for them. At
home, they have no responsibilities. So, when
I try to have them work independently, they
are unable to do so. How do I help them
become more independent and less
dependent on me?
10. The disruptive problem I have is that when I
am writing on the blackboard, students
sometimes start whistling or making noises
but I can't find out the guilty one. What can I
do in this situation? What do you do when an
incident happens and you don’t see who was
responsible?
Julia G. Thompson
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Author of
First-Year Teacher’s Survival Guide
First-Year Teacher’s Checklist
Discipline Survival Guide for the Secondary
Teacher
First-Year Teacher’s Survival Guide
Professional Development Training Kit
www.juliagthompson.com