The project has actually been pretty infuriating. My student has made little progress with behavior and academics. I have noticed that he does between when expectations are individually reviewed prior to each activity. However, that became quite frustrating quickly. It is the first grade, we switch activities every twenty minutes or so. I have also noticed that he responds really well to praise. However, once praise is given, he quickly slips off track. I guess he stops focusing…
My teacher’s assistant and I have tried several different programs for this student: star charts, stickers, nonverbal cues, starting with one goal a day (after he did well for some time, we added another goal and he fell completely off the wagon). My cooperating teacher looped with this child last year and just giggles at my struggles. She is apparently at the point of giving up with his behavior because nothing has seemed to work over the last two years.
I even went to get the student tested to see what forces drive him (rewards, compliments, and so forth). He took the test on two different days and received two completely different scores.
Although I am not a fan of forcing ADD testing, this child needs to be reviewed by a doctor. I honestly believe he needs medication before he can make significant progress. It is horrible to say, but there are specialists, the cooperating teacher, assistant, mother and I who are at odds end trying to find a system that works for the child.
(Dad recently quit his job as a long distant driver to be around the son more often to fix this behavior problem.)
This article was a great wrap up from all of our courses in the School of Education. It simply stated everything that we should remember for next year.
Laugh
Get to know your students in their community. Teachers should attend afterschool events, let children know that you like them and notice their personal appearance and behavior. What a simple concept, one that teachers need to remember to make time for.
Appreciate Student Diversity. Set up classroom for different learning, physical, emotional, and social needs. Most of us must see this in our classrooms. We need to bring this into our own room.
Be an Advocate for your Students.
Set up an organized and well-managed classroom where students can learn in a task-oriented environment. Basically, we need to plan a variety of activities that are appropriate for learning and foster student involvement and cooperation in all classroom activities. Students are deeply involved with their work, especially with academic, teacher-led instruction. Students know what is expected of them and are generally successful. There is relatively little wasted time, confusion, or disruption. The climate of the classroom is work oriented but relaxed and pleasant
Invest time in developing rules and providing reasonable explanations for why they are needed. This part of the article was extremely interesting since my teacher looped with the children. They did not do that introductory rules and procedures during the first week of school. I had no idea how to introduce rules and set up the beginning of the year.
Manage student conflicts effectively. This can be done by leaving it alone, ending the action indirectly, attend more fully, spell out direction and/ or tracking student progress. I have seen some of these points, but not all. It was great to see a wide range of strategies.
Increase student learning by maximizing student time and effort.
Differentiate instruction. This is most successful through understanding, appreciating, and building on student differences, involving students in setting classroom procedures, finding out what students know, and planning, planning, planning. Our 4Mat wheels are a perfect example!!
Tap into the multiple intelligences. Each lesson should have at least 4 intelligences. How important! Although difficult…
Vary your assessment tools. The different tools include observation, interview or rating scales, portfolio review, and authentic assessment. Using different assessment types will help get a better picture.
Value parents as your students’ first teachers. I have never seen a parent teacher conference. So, they make me feel uncomfortable. This article gave step by step instruction! First assure their child is doing well, present problem, ask for their point of view, take notes, summarize and assure parents that you will follow up.
Invite parents to get involved. They offered great suggestions: take the initiative to involve parents, schedule home visits, if possible, encourage parents to spend time at school, give parents a chance to share their talent and experience, remember to say “thank you”, work with alternative caregivers, turn “back-to-school” night into “family” night, encourage parents to provide a good home learning environment, publish a newsletter to communicate upcoming units of study and class events and give parents a hands-on role.
Learn the ABCs to ARDs (Admit, Review, Dismissal). This steps you through the IEP process!
Become a valuable team player. Teachers can do this by being reliable by following through with promises, making/ exhibiting courtesy to all, and being punctual. Demonstrate commitment and a positive attitude to the school.
Focus on the positive and interpret challenges as opportunities to grow. Easily, plan your day, say “no” to low-priority responsibilities, learn to delegate, create an absentee center, find a quiet work area and complain effectively.
Never stop looking for new resources to enhance your effectiveness as a teacher
Don’t neglect what you love. It worries me that I will not have a life next year, having to make everything perfect. They reminded me to remember to play; you need to escape from the pressures of life and have fun, find pastimes that are enjoyable regardless of your level of ability, leave your teaching at school. If you must take schoolwork home with you, get it done early. Better yet, do it at school and leave it there. Pursue a hobby or project that involves your concentration so much that you forget about school. I NEED to remember to do this.
Get linked. Great links for technology!
Help students be safe.
It has been an adventure with my case study student. Last week was my first week of full time student teaching. Tuesday, my assistant was absent so it was just me and 24 first graders. My case study student was an absolute angel. He did his very best, to the point that half (literally) of the other students came to me commenting on the outstanding behavior. I thought he was really trying to impress me, as a new start for him (which is how I presented my full time teaching.) However, that great behavior did not continue through this week. He has been a terror, having to miss out on part of Saint Patrick’s Day and Science Day. I tried to talk to him on multiple occasions, did not work. Even sitting him out of “fun” activities did not seem to faze him.
We are working on little steps, starting with walking down the hallway and movement activities. There has been little progress. It started with conversations about expectations, good role models in our class, pros and cons of controlling our bodies. It worked last week. Not this week! So we tried two taps and you are out (need to sit out of the activity or hold the teachers hand in the hallway- which he dreads), new conversations, peer talk through a bug and a wish, among others. Let’s see how next week goes…
Like any other unknowledgeable individual, I have had my speculations and assumptions about the cause of student’s disruptive behavior. Yet, I always remained curious to the true reasons. It is not like you can ask a six/ seven year old child, “Why do you act this way?” “What causes you to do this?”
Therefore, the article “Common Causes and/or Antecedents of Disruptive Behavior” appealed to my interests. Frustration to curriculum… makes sense. College students tune out professors or avoid class often when they because frustrated. Inappropriate behavior management… oh yea! I have seen groups of students move from grade to grade through elementary school. One year, they are terrors. Then, they may be angels the next. Student behavior is closely associated with their teacher. Social skills deficits… ok. After watching the video last semester, this statement sounds reasonable. The boy did last out with “behavioral problems”.
With this intrigue about common causes for disruptive behavior, of course I wanted to read about teacher interventions. Within my placement, I have seen the teacher telling students (1) “stop, I don’t like that”, (2) try to ignore the behavior, and (3) reported to another adult. They seem to be great in theory but do not always work. My case study student went through all three of these steps in one day. He left school in the same behavior… they did not work. What should a teacher do in this situation? They put him in the “time out” corner, missing the last hour of the day. In the corner he did not disrupt others but he learned absolutely nothing! (And he is struggling academically.) There has to be another way.
My case study student has remained the same from last semester. He is a challenge academically, having reached a plateau in November of kindergarten. (We are now in the first grade.) He has not jumped reading levels and we have watched his math skills barely increase. This challenge has him in three after school tutoring programs. In addition, the teachers are working on a SAP for him. (The poor thing is also our youngest by three months, as a boy!)
He is also a challenge behaviorally, having difficulties controlling his body (always running into things, falling, etc) and picks on other children (partially while in reading groups or on the carpet). Apparently, the student is finally getting tested for ADHD in April.
I have tried some different things to get through to the child about his behavior, in particular making fun of others. However, none have been successful. What makes it even more difficult is the fact that the student had my CT last year. Many of my “creative” ideas have been tried before, and failed. But maybe a year will make a difference. When I become the full time teacher, we might be trying them. For example, I want to have a class wide discussion about bullying. We could read a book and talk about it. It’s not like it will hurt the class to discuss this topic, especially at my school where bullying spreads like wildfire as you step up through the grades. We will see…
This chapter made me think about next year. What am I going to do to create a classroom environment that promotes positive behavior? Ask around, teacher often say that behavior was the hardest part of their first year teaching.
Am I a fan of the school wide behavior support system? Reading this chapter, I got into the idea. But I have never seen a school implement it perfectly. Usually, there are several flaws in the system. (Forest View was pretty close though.)
Although I have not really thought about the seating arrangement this year, it does make a difference. I have seen classrooms that change the seating chart once a week for the first half of the school year as they try to get it right.
Using nonverbal communication. Oh, that is something that I need to work on. I guess that I have not developed my teacher face to its fullest. Few of the children really respond to the look. But what a great idea. On day my class was wild, it was a rainy day (go figure). So my assistant teacher began to give nonverbal directions to the students. She sat on the carpet like she wanted and stared until they figured it out. She looked as though she was reading a book, and they imitated. The students themselves corrected those who were not following. It was in genius! Defiantly something I will keep up my sleeves.
I would love to hear from someone who is in the upper grades to see what they are going with behavior management. In addition, it would be interesting to hear what people are doing for those students who have aggressive behaviors. What do you do? For some, reading a book or classroom interventions might not work. Reading is one thing, but I would love to hear someone talk about what they have experienced.
My class is apparently “the best [my CT] has had in 35 years of teaching. You might not ever get a class this good”. Which makes the vantage point on classroom management slightly different.
We have five “manatee superstars” at the end of each day. They get a magnetic star placed beside their name on the board, a round of applause and explination. The star remains on the board for 24 hours. We keep record of the manatee superstars because they are “awarded a prize” after winning ten times. The problem with this is that no student has received a prize, although many have been manatee superstars thirty times.
For misbehavior, we have the “thinking jar”. When students misbehave, they are told to put their name in the thinking jar. This entails them writing their name on a piece of paper and placing it in a plastic container. Before recess, students grab their name from the jar. Each time their name goes in, five minutes of recess is taken away. They must sit on the curb and think about what they have done. Before being able to play, they must explain to the teacher why their name was in the jar. The teacher ends this short conversation by telling the students that they are loved and it is the behavior we do not like. Or, that they know the student has the willpower never to repeat the behavior. It proves to be a fairly powerful statement.
I have to agree with most of the points made in this article. My student teaching school does not implement many of them. Nor have I been involved in a school that has. It would have been really nice to see examples.
Promoting Membership: My school is a magnet where half of the students have been selected to attend. In addition, there are less than five with IEP’s that involve something other than speech. Our school has more than four classes per grade. Need I say more?
Facilitating Friendships: This is a definite strength of my classroom. Although my principal is not a happy camper, we change and/or take time away from the Bridges (mathematics) and Reading Street (language arts) curriculum. By doing this the students are involved in collaboration based activities, class meetings, and children’s literature that deals with friendship and so forth. How can we do this while staying true to the curriculum and making the principal happy? That is a balancing act I will need to develop on my own next year.
Collaboration: We do NOT have this in first grade. When going to our PLC (professional learning community), it is like stepping back into middle school with the gossip and lack of kindness towards each other. They definitely do not work together in the interest of the children.
Positive and Supportive Behavioral Strategies: Our class is extremely well behaved. I thoroughly enjoy the fact that five students receive stars at the end of the day for various reasons. It is a public even that highlights the good behaviors we want to see in the classroom. The children love it! I would like to see what else, if there is something that the teachers would do if there were behavior problems.
Responding to Misbehavior while Supporting Planning:
There is very rarely a problem. Often, the class/ student are given a reminder of the expectations and all possible hiccups in the day are erased. I would love to see something more. Watch, they will act up under my care.
School-wide Use of Positive Behavior Supports: Ha! We do have a system, tickets. It is simply a piece of paper with the school mascot printed on the front. When the students receive a ticket, there is no excitement or reaction in the least. In addition, very few teachers use this system. So, we basically do not have a system.
The language arts are presented drastically different from what I experience in my placement, a first grade classroom at Club Boulevard. Both have great benefits and weaknesses. My cooperating teacher does not have units of study. In addition, I did not see an introduction during the first month of school. My students were in the same class, with the same teacher last year. No basics to first grade were necessary.
I almost prefer the units of study that spread across a year. My brain is very mathematical, logical, so it makes more sense for me to create specific units that span. However, the way Collins outlined the unit confused me. I easily got distracted and became confused due to her layout. It will be difficult for me to create a unit based on these chapters, when they do not make logical sense to me.
In the end, I enjoyed reading the Collins text. The units were outstanding! If I teach first grade in the future, I will bring back out the book to steal some of the mini-lesson ideas.
