After a few months of subbing all over the place i have learned two things that are absolutely HUGE to me.
1. Students are dismissed when I dismiss them. In my classroom students will work until the bell rings, when the bell rings, they will sit quietly until I dismiss them. Period. I don't want students controlling when they leave my classroom, this is a privileged that can be saved for college. Having me dismiss students isn't JUST about power, it also allows me to dispense any last minute reminders or announcements, and make changes to information that I've perhaps given out later.
2. No lining up at the door. In the event that I do ask students to clean up before the bell rings, they will not line up at the door, they will sit in their seats (unless it's the end of the day and I have to put chairs up, in which case they would stand behind their chair), and then they may leave when I dismiss them. When students start crowding up by the door it limits my ability to make any last minute announcements and encourages stampeding.
It's this sort of management stuff that I find I am learning what works, and what's my style every day I enter a new classroom.
Showing posts with label classroom management. Show all posts
Showing posts with label classroom management. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Can you hear my voice?
Last Friday I learned that I don't have quite as much stamina as I thought I did. Friday was my first day teaching two class periods. Soon I will add a third. Friday I started the day observing and helping out in World History with Rebecca.
She had a really interesting topic tying their history topic to today. They were studying Imperial China, and specifically discussing the Great Wall of China. The students were doing an assignment writing a mini paper comparing the Great Wall of China with the potential 'Great Wall of Mexico', specifically they are asked to discuss why both walls were built, and how they functioned, and what caused it to eventually fail (in the case of the Chinese wall) or why it may or may not work in the case of Mexico.
I think it's a really fascinating topic for kids to look at, especially 7th and 8th graders, however because of the split focus, and the style of the lesson, it was really disjointed and full of tangents. Basically, the teacher talked a bunch, and then assigned a reading and the kids had to fill out a worksheet while they read. It was terribly boring, but then again, she tried to do a role play, and it was well explained and prepared, and the students just wouldn't buy into it. I'm really excited about my unit, I have the great fortune to be teaching a period that I have great personal interest and knowledge in, I just hope I can instill some of that passion into the kids.
After the social studies class I teach a Math class full of the loudest most talkative 30 7th graders I've ever met. I spend way more of the period shouting then I'd like, but the feed back that I'm getting (and comparing my lessons to the ones Marna, my Co-op teacher taught) I'm actually don't pretty darn well. The material is a bit challenging, percents, ratio proportions are not easy concepts to get, but most of my kids will do anything they can to get out of working.
After a prep that usually doesn't feel nearly long enough, I teach my second Math 7 class. Friday was my first day of teaching this class, and about half way through my lesson I quickly realized that if I didn't start doing things a little different my voice wouldn't last until the end of the day once I started teaching my third class.
Though my last class is smaller, and more cooperative, it's the end of the day, and kids are antsy.
So my new goals for myself include working on keeping the pitch of my voice low. 'Going under them' as Marna puts it, rather then getting shrill or shrieky. I'm also trying to employ a tactic that Jenn, a member of my cohort, mentioned, of quietly saying sit down and look at me if you can hear my voice, over and over again until the whole class is seated.
Fortunately I seem to have established a pretty positive relationship with several of the more challenging students, so even if they aren't inclined to pay attention, when I ask them specifically to do something, they smile, knowing they've been caught, rather then getting upset at being asked to stop.
She had a really interesting topic tying their history topic to today. They were studying Imperial China, and specifically discussing the Great Wall of China. The students were doing an assignment writing a mini paper comparing the Great Wall of China with the potential 'Great Wall of Mexico', specifically they are asked to discuss why both walls were built, and how they functioned, and what caused it to eventually fail (in the case of the Chinese wall) or why it may or may not work in the case of Mexico.
I think it's a really fascinating topic for kids to look at, especially 7th and 8th graders, however because of the split focus, and the style of the lesson, it was really disjointed and full of tangents. Basically, the teacher talked a bunch, and then assigned a reading and the kids had to fill out a worksheet while they read. It was terribly boring, but then again, she tried to do a role play, and it was well explained and prepared, and the students just wouldn't buy into it. I'm really excited about my unit, I have the great fortune to be teaching a period that I have great personal interest and knowledge in, I just hope I can instill some of that passion into the kids.
After the social studies class I teach a Math class full of the loudest most talkative 30 7th graders I've ever met. I spend way more of the period shouting then I'd like, but the feed back that I'm getting (and comparing my lessons to the ones Marna, my Co-op teacher taught) I'm actually don't pretty darn well. The material is a bit challenging, percents, ratio proportions are not easy concepts to get, but most of my kids will do anything they can to get out of working.
After a prep that usually doesn't feel nearly long enough, I teach my second Math 7 class. Friday was my first day of teaching this class, and about half way through my lesson I quickly realized that if I didn't start doing things a little different my voice wouldn't last until the end of the day once I started teaching my third class.
Though my last class is smaller, and more cooperative, it's the end of the day, and kids are antsy.
So my new goals for myself include working on keeping the pitch of my voice low. 'Going under them' as Marna puts it, rather then getting shrill or shrieky. I'm also trying to employ a tactic that Jenn, a member of my cohort, mentioned, of quietly saying sit down and look at me if you can hear my voice, over and over again until the whole class is seated.
Fortunately I seem to have established a pretty positive relationship with several of the more challenging students, so even if they aren't inclined to pay attention, when I ask them specifically to do something, they smile, knowing they've been caught, rather then getting upset at being asked to stop.
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