Group items tagged

We have been discussing cyberbullying in a few of our classes and what to do when an incident occurs, but what about prevention? This website offers great ideas, complete lesson plans, and activity sheets categorized by grade. Each lesson/idea is developmentally appropriate and provides great ideas to get students thinking about proper use of the internet. The world is becomming increasingly technological and I think it's up to parents and teachers to take the time to teach children how to use the internet responsibly and safely.

Covered everything you needed to and finished a lesson a bit quicker than you thought? Got five minutes to kill? This site has tons of brief, fun activities that can be used to fill the time. Tailor them to fit your lesson plan and you're set.

The article by Gary Maclean discusses the importance of management in the classroom. He defines management as "designed to bring students to their ultimate objective". Gary briefly outlines five elements of classroom management: organization, simplify, cleaning, standardize and sustain. Most of the article was fairly self explanatory, but the one element I found interesting and very useful that I had not thought of before was cleaning. A busy classroom gets messy, therefore cleaning should be a daily activity. This is not an occasional activity and should be done at the end of the school day. In conclusion, Gary presents us with a great article on classroom management and includes five important elements.

When you feel like you are loosing them, get them standing and doing a Brain Break. They take only a minute or two, need no real preparation or fancy supplies and they can contribute huge dividends to your classroom management by allowing students to re-engage after a mental shift. They can be done with students of any age, usually make you laugh and challenge your brain often by crossing your mid-line thus engaging both hemispheres. They have even been suggested for use during exams and standardized tests. They are backed up by some action research I found on http://abllab.com/ which even shows some cool brain scans illustrating the difference in mental activity when someone was active right before or not! Definite food for thought to do more than your DPA to keep them engage, learning and not creating mischief!

There are a number of classroom management ideas presented at this site which is geared towards substitute teachers and therefore are not about how you want to set up your perfect classroom but more about how to gain and maintain control over a class of students that have never seen you before. Some really good suggestions here.

Since many of us may be venturing in to the substitute teaching role at the beginning of our careers, I thought this was a great site that organized classroom management strategies based on grade levels for substitute teachers. There is everything from effective tips to strategies for gaining attention. There are also great links in the left hand column for books that kids love, curriculum activities and games, discipline techniques as well as interview tips and questions.

In my last practicum, I was in a grade 5 classroom and students got a good amount of time during class for independent quiet reading. I always questioned how productive that was since it seemed to me that many kids were not really reading. This resource gives good ideas as to how to manage that time so that it is productive and how to make kids accountable for the time that is given to them for this activity.

Some interesting ideas - some that I'd want to use all year round! Learning centres, co-operative learning, literature circles, outside learning, team challenges. Some great ideas to keep kids motivated with learning!

This is a site that provides you with additional links for tips about effective classroom management. It talks about routines, procedures, rules, choice, planning, and class participation. In the additional links, there are lists of everything you would need a routine or procedure for (in case some things slip our minds). It also has a few activities that you could use with the students to help enforce these concepts, such as acting out the rules or the opposite of the rule. By doing this, it would really give the students concrete examples of what to do and what not to do.

This website describes ten ways to create classroom rules with your students. It also suggests different rules that you might want to include. This might be useful for our classroom management plan assignment!

I came across this incredible free resource online. It is a mini-course about classroom management that takes a "needs focused" approach to prevent classroom managment issues and to deal with them effectively when/if they do arise. Part one focuses on the need of students to "belong" and contains strategies to build a "classroom community" including student meetings and team building activities.

Classroom management is a big part of fruitful group work. How groups are made and students' understanding of group work are two big factors in how much students get out of group activities. This website lists the many ways that groups can be made. Those new to me were knowledge/subject grouping, skill/strategy grouping and student choice grouping.

The article begins by defining the characteristics of students with Asperger's, which is on the autism spectrum. Students with Asperger's specifically struggle with transitioning between activities because they struggle when their daily routine is disrupted. One strategy is to use picture charts for each part of the day. Another strategy for older students is to use verbal cues that a transition is occuring. Ultimitely, teachers who provide emotinal support will help these students transition smoothly.

Emotional intelligence in my eyes is related to the restorative justice, but concentrates on the skills needed to use restorative justice. It is more of an awareness of their own emotions, their peers emotions and being able to manges emotions and not lash out at peers.

This resource will provide you with activities to get to know your students and allow you to better connect with their needs.