The Classroom Management Technique That Completely Changed My Classroom Culture

     No one wants to feel like their time is being wasted. As someone who has sat through 18 years of schooling and five more of professional development,  I know that I want to walk into any learning opportunity and know what I'm going to take away from it and why that learning matters. My students (and yours!) are no different. If they are going to be sitting in your class instead of playing Minecraft, there had better be a darn good reason for it.

     To begin meeting that need, we take a day in the first few weeks of school to collaboratively construct a class purpose. Doing so gives students the vision to see why what they are doing is important.

5 Engaging Ways to Teach Theme

Theme is one of my favorite concepts to teach, because it is so relevant to the world around us. Each of us lives a story, and each day has lessons to teach. Students often easily connect with this concept, because it is inherent to each fairy tale and fable that we tell to even our youngest children. 

Here are my five favorite ways to teach theme:

Engaging Students With Rereading, Part 2--Lesson Plan Included!

Yesterday, I explained how I begin getting students excited for the idea that we will reread many texts throughout the year. Today, I'll be talking about the clincher of that lesson, when students can actually see the impact of this practice immediately. I call this a "Power Read," and it's always a powerful tool.

Step 1: Give students an article of your choosing (I like this one that I have slightly modified), and instruct students that all they are to do is read it. Don't write on it, don't highlight it, just read and think about the big ideas of the article.

Engaging Students With Rereading

As a book lover, I know the joys of rereading a text and noticing something hidden or unveiling a new interpretation. For many of my students, however, there is no way they want to read a text in the first place, never mind rereading it. Yet rereading has so many benefits, especially for struggling readers; by showing your students how comprehension increases with each subsequent read, you turn reading from an insurmountable obstacle to something that any student can do, given time. Proficient readers benefit, too, as they often read quickly but forget to stop to notice deeper meanings and subtle messages. I cannot speak highly enough of the benefits of rereading! 💕

      Of course, knowing that rereading has benefits and convincing your students of the same can seem daunting. That's why I teach this lesson every year, to students ranging from 5th to 8th grade. It has always been successful and opened up an engaging dialogue about the way we return to favorite books, movies, or texts because of the subtle gifts those revisits can bestow. Here's my lesson for introducing the importance of rereading:

Making Growth Mindset A Reality In Your Classroom

Likely you've heard about growth mindset, but may not know what it actually is, or just don't know how to instill it in your students. Last year I encountered the concept of growth mindset, and let me tell you…it is life changing.

     Growth mindset is the idea that people should want to improve for the sake of improving. Just because you are getting hundreds doesn't mean that you are a great student, and just because you are getting C's doesn't mean that you aren't. A truly impressive person is one who keeps trying in the face of adversity.

                Last year, when I spent the first two weeks of school focusing on growth mindset, there was a noticeable difference in the way my class ran from previous years. Students were more likely to push themselves to do better and go further, as well as to encourage their peers to do the same. So how to implement a growth mindset focus in your own classroom?

Discuss growth mindset and give examples

I like to start with this activity as a hook. I don't give any directions, beyond telling my groups that they must sort their students from best to worst student, and be able to give a justification for their sort.

After students have completed their sort, tell them your answers. Explain to your students that your classroom is not about achievement, but about effort. If someone got an A with no effort, then you are less impressed than you would be by someone who worked hard for a C (and then make sure you walk the walk, too! Reward growth and effort, not achievement).

There are many famous examples of growth mindset in great people throughout history. You can get some from this great Ted Talk by Carol Dweck.

Practice Identifying Examples and Non-Examples of Growth Mindset

I use the following this activity (also available as task cards here!) to give my kids an opportunity to think about what growth mindset looks like, how to cultivate it, and what those with growth mindsets might think. This is a fun higher-order thinking activity that students can participate in during the first week of school (and a great chance to practice academic discussion skills!) Give each group a different situation and allow them to use their academic discussion skills to decide how to improve the outcomes and behaviors in each situation. I like to allow my kids to make posters to go with their ideas and present to the class. Then the posters can become part of our classroom decoration!

Reinforce the power of growth mindset all year long!

I use a modified version of Paul Solarz's "Thank You Points" from his excellent book Learn Like a Pirate: Empowering Students to Become Collaborative Leaders. Because I only have a 60-minute block, I do not have 20 minutes to give to having a daily, student-run meeting to determine our day's thank you points. What I do instead is divide my board into 5 sections:

Positive Actions	Thank You Points
Showed growth mindset
Stayed on-task
Showed politeness, respect,  and compassion for peers
Showed politeness, respect,  and compassion for adults
Showed politeness, respect,  and compassion for the environment

Once students reach 75 points (with at least 10 in each category), I give a small "thank you gift" to everyone in the class, to thank them for their time, their effort, and for making my days rewarding and enjoyable (Thank you gifts could be anything from lunch in the classroom to special pencils for everyone). This is one way to consistently remind the class of the importance of growth mindset.

Another way is to call out those students who are working hard and improving. Showcase their work on your student work board, move up their clips on your behavior chart, or do whatever it is that you do to make exceptional students feel special in your classroom.

Happy learning!

Cheers,

Eliminate poor listeners and freeloaders in your groups

 So you've got your students sounding like young intellectuals, elaborating and contradicting and clarifying left and right. They look great, with positive nonverbal communication skills that indicate that they are actively listening. But are they actually listening, and what do you do when someone is consistently off-task, rude, or relying on his/her group members to do the work?

       Let's start with problem number one. Your students appear to be listening to each other, but you're not certain that they actually are. 

I have a two-part solution for this. For partner and small-group discussions, I allow students to call on any member of their group to summarize back what was just said. Not only does this ensure that all students are listening, it also means that each idea is articulated twice and often requires that lower-achieving students actively work to understand and paraphrase the ideas of higher achieving students.

      I do something similar with whole-class discussions. Occasionally and randomly, my students know that I may yell, "Listening quiz!" Whoever can repeat or summarize what was just said (or what was said three volunteers ago, or six, or…) receives a small prize. It's a wonderful technique that I start during our beginning of the year ice breakers ("Who can tell me what Xavier stated was his favorite sport?") and gradually move on to more complex opportunities for restatement ("Who can explain why Ellie believes the protagonist to be merely timid, rather than a snob? What evidence did she use to support her ideas?"). You would be amazed, by the end of the year, how many of students can repeat what was stated five answers ago.

     On to problem number two: freeloaders, rudeness, and off-task behavior. 

    The bane of every group project, freeloaders consistently try our dedication to using collaboration as a tool in the classroom. My solution for freeloaders is simple: Don't allow it. In my classroom, students are made aware from day one that they may be dismissed from any group assignment, should their group and the teacher unanimously agree that they are not putting forth the effort required. You can download my free proposal for dismissal here. A student who is dismissed is still required to complete the assignment, but must do the entire thing alone, resulting in more work than they would have had if they had just done the group assignment. This is a pretty big deterrent for habitual freeloaders. The same rules apply for students who are rude or off-task during small group discussions. If dismissed from a discussion, a student must write a response to the same question the rest of the class is discussing.

      The other benefit of this technique is the process that the rest of the group must go through. 

Throughout their lives, my students will have to deal with coworkers or employees who do not complete tasks on time or to the level of quality required. Before dismissing a student from the group, these students must attempt to problem solve in a variety of ways, and oftentimes, they discover that by giving a freeloading student a specific role or merely asking for help in a new way, they can gain the involvement of a formerly uncooperative peer. It is a powerful lesson regarding their ability to be inspirational leaders.

Cheers,

Get Your Students Using Accountable Talk From Day 1

  Because I know that my students will learn more deeply if they have to negotiate meaning and listen thoughtfully to the ideas of others, academic discussion plays an enormous role in the everyday procedures of my classroom. And because tweens are so eager to talk, this is an easy way to keep the class on task and engaged.

        Yeah, right.

      Academic discussion is the center around which my classroom turns. But if I want the endless hours we spend in small-group, partner, and whole-class discussions to be valuable and worthwhile, academic discussion is a skill that must be taught with the same rigor as any other English skill. That includes both speaking and listening skills. Without rigorous instruction and daily practice in how to speak about academic topics, students will waste plenty of time discussing how great Alicia looks in her new Gap skirt. But the time invested is worth it--every testing year for the last four years, my students have had some of the highest literacy growth scores in the school. 

2016-2017 students engaging in a student-led Socratic discussion on texts about the implication of increasing technology.

        Here are three easy ways to begin teaching your students how to engage in academic discussion:

1. Teach sentence stems explicitly. 

Every year, I begin the year with these academic discussion cards hot glued to each desk (I haven't found a way to make them stick to the desks all year, but by the time they come off, my students are proficient enough with academic discussion that they no longer need them). 

   I use these cards as a jumping-off point for continuing discussions; they provide a safe way for shy students to enter the conversation and immediately show students some examples of high-level vocabulary that they can and will use throughout the year. I do not teach all the stems at once. Typically, I teach one or two at once, and then provide a task to allow for practice (one example can be found here). We may practice two sentence stems for a week, before adding a new one to our repertoire.

2. Give students numerous low-pressure opportunities to practice. 

Creating a concept map about a partner is a great critical thinking activity where students can practice asking others to elaborate on their ideas or to clarify a statement. Holding a whole-class discussion to come up with logical consequences for various types of misbehavior is an ideal time to practice asking for examples or contradicting respectfully. Every ice breaker and community builder that you do is an opportunity for students to use their newfound discussion skills. Make sure to remind, encourage, and model these skills before each activity.

3. Study the nonverbal aspects of communication. 

Oftentimes, middle school students believe that as long as they are not yelling, "Shut up," they are being respectful. How often has a student rolled their eyes at you, only to go, "What? I'm not saying anything!"

       But just as important as the words we use are the ways in which we make others feel valued with our bodies. A student who feels listened to and valued is more likely to remain a part of the conversation and venture forth risky ideas than one who feels as though his or her audience is bored.

  After introducing students to the term "nonverbal communication," we read this text from the Aurora Employee Assistance Program, and students work in groups (using the sentence stems "Can you justify your ideas with evidence?" and "Can you elaborate on that?") to create skits showing both positive and negative nonverbal communication. This has benefits all year, as every time I start to see my students slump, I remind the class that, "I need to see your best nonverbal communication!" Works like a charm, every time J

       Every year, I hear teachers say that they would like to have more collaboration and group work in their classroom, but they fear the time that will be lost in off-task chatter and students who freeload off the ideas and work of others (I'll be describing a solution for this in my next post). Though there will be days when it feels as though students are wasting more time than learning, the greater your dedication to modeling and giving practice time for discussion, the more your students will rise to the challenge of articulating their ideas and helping their peers to understand complex concepts. I promise it's worth it!

Cheers,

Starting the school year on a positive note

      Every year for the last six years, I have spent the week leading up to school having nightmares about my upcoming class. They all have major behavior problems. None of them can read. They hate school with the fiery passion of a thousand suns. In essence, they are the worst class in the world. I have this same nightmare literally every year.

   The worst part? Every year, for the first month of school, I believe my nightmare has come true.

     To be clear, my kids are not actually the worst in the world. It just feels like it when they arrive each August unable to work collaboratively in groups, unable to resolve conflicts peacefully, and unable to critically think with the depth that I know that lies dormant within them. I am constantly comparing them to the kids to who just left at the end of May, the kids who used their writing about important issues to inspire a US Representative to come visit our school, and who could run the classroom by themselves (as they proved to me on "Silent Day"...aka, I was silent all day and they ran the class). Every year, come August, I spend a month despairing that my students will ever again be as competent, compassionate, independent, and self-motivated as last year's group was.

Silent Day, 2017-2017

    This year, I resolved to go in knowing and remembering that, while my students may not be perfect yet, I have never failed to create a classroom where learning, respectful discussion, and collaboration are valued. The first day (or month) may not have the depth that so uplifts my soul, but I darn well let students know from the first moment what my class will look like. Here are my five steps to starting the school year on a positive note:

1. Make sure that students have something to do from the moment they walk in the room. 

Make it simple, so that students can experience success from their first day in your room. Make it something that shows that you value students' interests, ideas, and experiences. I have often used this sheet to begin getting to know my students, or, for a more in-depth look, this one

2. Be a person. 

Your students have no idea who you are, and you are a person who is going to have a large amount of influence over them for the next ten months of their life. However you choose to do it (I generally make a Prezi), show your students that you are a real person with interests, vulnerabilities, strengths, and weaknesses. I am not shy about letting my students know that I struggle with a disability, or that I have a brother who died, or that I used to study monkey psychology before I began teaching. These are often the things that strike students the deepest--too often, students believe that success is out of their reach because of their difficulties. If you can succeed despite yours, then students will know that you expect them to succeed despite (and sometimes because of) theirs.

3. Immediately start teaching the procedures that matter most to you. 

As students walk in the room, a greeting and simple directions for what to do (find any seat, and begin quietly working on your getting-to-know-you page) are posted on my board. This sets the tone that, in my room, students can expect clear directions. Any student who fails at this task is gently and firmly directed to read the directions. We also practice my silent signal, in the context of having students share their summer activities, or hopes and fears for the school year, with table mates.

4. Make your yearly priorities first-day priorities. 

As a teacher, I passionately believe that my purpose is to teach students to be active, involved citizens who have the reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills they need to change the world. In the process, I also seek to guide students towards a love of reading and writing. Therefore, I begin building an understanding that collaboration will play an enormous role in our year together, by teaching students to reference their academic discussion cards (more on these in this post) during a partner conversation and by having a book frenzy, an idea that you can read more about in Donalyn Miller's fabulous book The Book Whisperer. From day one, students should know that your classroom is a place where reading and collaboration are valued.

Some bins from my library, ready for our book frenzy!

5. Don't stress. 

It's hard to avoid the feeling that you didn't get nearly enough done on the first day (or every day thereafter). What with handing out schedules, going over bathroom procedures, first-day tours, and the infinite number of other mandated rituals that you will be required to go through, it is likely that you may not get through everything you planned. That is perfectly okay, because no one else did either. An amazing, awe-inspiring year starts with a first day, but it doesn't end there, so don't despair if yours doesn't go perfectly.

Happy back to school!

Cheers,