Here is a book website about a different way to deal with challenging children. It explains that there are 2 main reasons for children have challenging behaviour. These reasons are that the child has lagging skills in some area(s) and the have unsolved problems. The site has a link to a list of common lagging skills. If the website piques your interest, I recommend the book "Lost at School" by Dr. Ross Greene.
This is a link to a free web tutorial on school discipline and classroom management. You can view it as a Powerpoint, as a Word document, or go through the site itself. Read it all, or select the topic of your choice (links on left hand side)! There is information on various strategies (such as Reality Therapy, Positive Approach, Assertive Discipline, etc), how to lay the foundation for a well managed class, and preventitive practices. The information and tips provided all seem manageable and realistic to implement. The great thing is we can save the files provided through the links, for later reference (when we might have some "spare" time to read).
This site has a great explanation for this week's topic - restorative justice. It offers key questions to ask when using a restorative approach, explains the aim and identifies potential advantages of restorative approaches in a school setting. The site also provides excellent charts that outline which type of restorative approach to use in a particular situation and identifies the roles of the members involved.
This is a link to a collection of informative, motivational, and humourous quotes. Take some time to scroll through them! Although they may not overtly relate to classroom management, they do make you think about the importance of teaching, and can help to develop one's teaching philosophy. Here is one that made me think: "In a completely rational society, the best of us would be teachers and the rest of us would have to settle for something less." Lee Iacocca
This short videa gives us as new teachers tips and reminders of what we need to think about when organizing our first classroom routines. It is a basic video but things as new teachers we may forget!
This blog post contains a list of the 10 best of Smart Classroom Management links for 2010. These links were chosen based on feedback and retweets(popularity). A great place to find the best links for 2010 from this interesting blog!
This article lists why you should not yell when you get angry. He gets to the point quickly and clearly. Also, there are previous postings listed below that you can view - various topics that look very useful for us.
This site provides a powerpoint presentation of the classroom rules found in Ron Clark's book "The Essential 55" (http://tinyurl.com/2fg7on8). Ron Clark is a famous American teacher who received the 2001 Disney Teacher of the Year Award, is the founder of the Ron Clark Academy (http://www.ronclarkacademy.com/about.aspx), and his life is featured in the film "The Ron Clark Story" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0473389/). The rules here focus not only on developing and managing a classroom environment, but also encourage students to be courteous and contributing members of society. I highly recommend his book for the explanations of and the stories behind each rule. Pick and choose the ones you like!
This website gives you a glimpse into a great resource that I learnt about this week. The book is called The first Days of School and the website belongs to the creator of the book. This book is so great that the Waterloo Board provides one for their new teachers.
This post contains 9 insights about teaching and classroom management that this blogger has learned over the course of her career. Some of her ideas may be fresh and some may not, but it's always good to hear from the voice of experience. Take a look at the rest of her blog too -- lots of good stuff about teaching and classroom practices.
This site offers a list of common classroom management mistakes that new teachers often make. Written by Dr. Bob Kizlik, this list provides new teachers tips on what to avoid when starting out in the classroom.
This is a video from 1947 intended for TEC's just like us!
The video attempts to outline a number of affective and ineffective methods of classroom management. Overall the video touches on flexibility of the teacher and the importance of creating stimulating lessons - old school, but apropos!
This article reminds teachers to communicate with parents on their child's behaviour from day one and lists the benefits to communicating with parents. The article also lists tips on what and how to say what you have to say to parents.
This site talks about the negative expectations that many supply teachers hold as they walk into a classroom. It gives a few suggestions that will help in classroom management, such as attention grabbers and getting to know the school and the students, meanwhile maintaining organization in the classroom.
This article looks at four areas of classroom management:
-establishing classroom climate
-conducting class efficiently
-reaching all students
-establishing discipline
This video demonstrates power teaching which is a set response between the teacher and students. An associate teacher at my PDS site used this technique and it worked very well to get the students' attention.
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!
This site describes different behaviour types. As well it talks about classroom management strategies for different types of behaviours and common mistakes made in the classroom.