Group items tagged

Regain control AND keep everyone entertained! Perhaps not appropriate in every school or classroom, but this teacher seemed to have fun with it. And his students even got in on the action by supplying more powerful 'weapons'. Apparently, it's not only good for cats. Who knew?

Faced with a difficult situation? Difficult student? This is an archive of how to deal with common difficult situations (i.e., cheating, low participation, "homework stragglers", teasing, vandalism, behaviour during assemblies, etc.) as well as handling difficult students (i.e., the aggressive student, the arguer, the backtalker, the class clown, the complainer, the talker, the perfectionist, the shy student, etc.). Just click on what you're interested in or what you need tips on. There is also a section entitled "The ABC's of Bullying Prevention", where topics such as cyber bullying, understanding the bully, bully-proofing your class, and helping victims of bullying are discussed. Each section has an explanation of the issues at hand as well as a "what you can do" list of things for you to try in each situation.

An interesting study on how gender can affect teaching style. The start provides with some background information on gender studies which I was a little surprised by. It states that "a man's world focuses on competition, status, and independence", and "a woman's focuses on intimacy consensus, and interdependence." The second part is a case study on experienced and inexperienced male and female teachers that is worth a read.

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.

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.

You cannot ignore bad behaviour or it will just get worse. Here are some basic rules to dealing with bad behaviour: 1-bad behavior, not bad person 2-act but do not react 3-analyze, then respond 4-be consistent and fair The article continues to discuss other issues like inattention, side conversations, heckling, threatening and fighting. In the extreme case of students fighting one another, you should never put yourself between the fighters unless you are certain you can end it with little harm to anyone. The article is from changingminds.org and contains many other great articles.

This article explains aspects of assertiveness in setting the tone for a classroom and how this eliminates many problems.

Whether or not you move on from Laurier to go teach in other countries it is important to keep in mind that the culture your students have come from may have an impact on the effectiveness of your chosen strategies. This article examines some of the techniques used in countries around the world.

A neat way to make a visual representation of desired class volume levels that can be placed somewhere where all students can see it and be reminded of what is expected of them in terms of their volume. Probably a good strategy for primary/junior level

A few tips on how to deal with disruptive behavior caused by troubled students.

This article talks about what they are doing in California to help new teachers with classroom management. Schools will pay for a supply teacher for the day while the new teacher observes a veteran teacher in the classroom. The best piece of advice that the article gives is a quote from a student. Take a quick read to find out what she says....

Behavior contracts, rules and good ol' affirmation are the key points in this page. A music classroom is a unique place in that it can get very noisy very quickly, and so an established classroom routine and set of rules are essential to the smooth running of a music classroom. Somewhat lengthy, but the ideas presented are applicable in virtually any classroom.

This site outlines eight points about what teachers can do to keep their students engaged and, therefore, quiet. While it doesn't target specific strategies, perse, it does hit upon some broader practices. There are also some great links such as "How do I Keep My Students Away from Me?" posted before the article's main text.

Have you been wondering what the best classroom layout will be, either for your third placement or next year? This site explains the different seating plans that you could use and some reasons why or why not to use them. This will help with your assignment for EU 499 as well as preparing for interviews!

This article contains some ideas/tips on how to deal with unexpected emotional situations and for planned "hot topics". Conflict resolution and the need to listen carefully are discussed.

Ontario Certified Teacher, Elona Hartjes (winner of a Teacher of Distinction Award), talks in her blog about some of the research behind using music in the classroom to promote student productivity. She relates it towards personal audio devices (ie. ipods) but this information is easily translateable to playing a CD in your classroom as well. If you are curious, she also has many more music related blogs, and other useful insights for teachers.

This is a good, in-depth read about how to effectively run classroom meetings in your own class. It talks about what classroom meetings promote amongst your students, some objectives you can address, ways to deal with challenging situations, and how to set it up for different age groups, and some questions you can use to start communication. If you're interested in implementing classroom meetings in your next practicum (or later on as a teacher), this document will give you everything you need to get started.

This is a game that any teacher can use to improve the behaviour of his/her students. It's a point system and the students compete against the students.

Even though this is fake, it's still really funny and a good example of what NOT to do. It lists all the things that were wrong with what the teacher was doing, so if you didn't catch everything it's very helpful.

A collection of professional development resources to assist teachers with everyday issues that arise. Some of the resources include creating a discipline plan, classroom management tips and starting the school year off in a positive manner.