by Adam Waxler

One of the most effective classroom management strategies a teacher can use is also the strategy that teachers are most skeptical of.Why?

I’m not sure…This simple teaching strategy has a positive impact on the student-teacher relationship and greatly reduces classroom management issues and behavior problems…

…of course, there’s a “slight” connection between the teacher-student relationship and classroom management :)So what’s this simple teaching tip?

Teachers need to give their students a break…That’s right an actual 2-3 minute break during class.

Of course, you must teach this procedure just like you must teach every procedure (teach the students exactly how much time they have, what they can and cannot do, and exactly what you expect of them when the timer signals that break-time is over.)I promise you, if you do this right you will be amazed at the results.

I use this teaching strategy with my own 8^th grade social studies classes and I can honestly say that when that timer signals that their break is over…you’ve never seen 14 year-olds get back in their seats and ready to work faster.Break-time for students is truly a powerful teaching tip!

However, like all the teaching tips I suggest, I can not make you try it…only you can do that…Last week, in my classroom management course, one of my students confided in me that she thought I was absolutely nuts to suggest she give her 7^th grade math students a break during class time..

But, she decided to have an open mind and gave it a try …Needless to say she was thrilled with the results.  She set a timer, gave her students specific directions, and when that timer went off signaling their break was over, those students got right back in their seats, were refreshed, and motivated to learn.

Not only that, when teachers give their students break-time, they are building on that critical teacher-student relationship.

********************
Do you know the #1 secret to getting your worst students to behave?

If not, make sure you read this article:
The Number One Secret to Getting Your Worst Pupils to Behave
********************

Share

This has been a particularly tough week to be a Manatee County school teacher.  The school board and superintendent bullied a contract through that does so much more damage than it does good.  Everyone involved suffers…except for maybe a few political agendas.

It is very difficult to find people who understand what teachers actually go through everyday, and I think this email I got the other day sums up the situation quite well…
************

What teachers make…

The dinner guests were sitting around the table discussing life. One man, a CEO, decided to explain the problem with education. He argued, “What’s a kid going to learn from someone who decided his best option in life was to become a teacher?”

He reminded the other dinner guests what they say about teachers: “Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach.”

“enthusiasm is contagious”

The last two days of teaching have been a little difficult.  First of all, the content I am currently teaching is a little “dry” and while I do have some fun activities, the past two lessons felt like I was just torturing my students.

The other thing is…I’ve been exhausted this week. Between teaching middle school, teaching college, running a “side” business, and trying to be a good father and husband…oh, and course, riding my bike …I’ve been a little tired.

Needless to say, all of this has had an effect on how my students have reacted to the last couple of lessons.

Why?

Simple…my students feed off my energy!

When I come in exhausted and unenthused, how can I expect the exact opposite from my students

Fortunately for me, a great teacher I work with said to me in her usual chipper tone, “Just remember, enthusiasm is contagious”

Of course, she is right and, of course, I know that…but sometimes a friendly reminder is just what a teacher needs.

With that thought in my head I walked into my next class with energy and enthusiasm and guess what happened…

That’s right…my students were excited, once again, about learning U.S. History.

Bottom Line: Teachers must teach with enthusiasm!

***Want to discuss this some more?  Stop by the forum and ask a question or make a comment @ http://www.TeachingTipsMachine.com/forum*** 

Share

I was really worried about my lesson this past Friday because the week seemed to be particularly long.  We just had a long break followed by a short teaching week and now I had to get the students to read and comprehend information about Native American forms of government.

One of the lesson’s objectives was for the students to be able to explain how specific Native Americans tribes influenced the U.S. Constitution.

Unfortunately, meeting this lesson’s objective came in the second half of a lesson that happened to fall out on Friday.

So…what did I do?

I knew just having the students read and answer questions would be torture for them on a Friday afternoon (not to mention that many of them would not comprehend the information anyway).

So I decided to use a reading comprehension strategy that I have had a great deal of success with as a classroom teacher.

The teaching strategy is a simple prediction strategy.  And, when I say simple I mean simple.  In fact, that is part of the beauty of this strategy…its simplicity.

All I did was quickly type up 7 statements from the reading, but changed a few of them to be false.

Next, I had students make predictions on whether or not they thought the statement was true or false.  If they thought it was true they put a “t” next to the statement and if they thought it was false they put an “f” next to the statement.

It was not until after students made their predictions (and we did a class poll on those predictions) that I gave them the reading.

Students then read (on their own) and checked whether or not their predictions were correct. They put a check mark if they were correct and an “x” if they were incorrect.

Like I said, the simplicity of this strategy is only part of it’s beauty…the other part is the fact they actually wanted to read…That’s right, on a Friday afternoon, at the end of a long week my students actually wanted to read the information on Native American forms of government.

Why?

Again, it’s simple…they wanted to read to see how many of their predictions were correct.

Bottom Line: teachers need to give their students a purpose for reading…

And, as always, this greatly reduces the chances of classroom management issues arising.

***Want to discuss this some more?  Stop by the forum and ask a question or make a comment @ http://www.TeachingTipsMachine.com/forum*** 

Share

As many of you know I love to use unitedstreaming video clips (www.unitedstreaming.com). Using short video clips at the beginning of lessons is a great way for teachers to spark student interest and increase motivation to learn. It is also a great way for teachers to tap into their student’s prior knowledge and therefore improve reading comprehension.

However, there is something else I use unitedstreaming for…to introduce new units.

No, that’s not the teaching tip

The teaching tip is…don’t be afraid to use video clips that are designed for younger audiences when teaching new topics and/or concepts.

Last week I had a colleague of mine ask me how I was going to introduce our new unit: “The Constitution in a New Nation”.

I told her that since we just had a long winter break I was going to show two short video clips…one 4-minute clip that was going to be a review of what did the first half of the year and one 4-minute clip that was going to preview what I was going to teach in this upcoming unit.

She agreed, but said all she could find were videos geared for 2nd grade through 5th grade (we teach 8th grade).

My response was…”Those are perfect!”

Why?

Too often teachers, and therefore students, get bogged down with too many details and facts and unfortunately lose sight of the “big picture”. When introducing new units I always want to make sure the students understand the “big picture” of the unit.

Video clips that are geared for younger audiences are perfect for that because they usually just give a generally overview without getting bogged down with too much detail.

This is exactly what I did yesterday. Granted, I did not tell my students that I was using an elementary video clip to teach middle school. Nevertheless, the results were exactly what I wanted…the students got a general overview of the upcoming unit with out getting too bogged down with facts, and as video usually does…it sparked the student’s interest to want to learn about the topic.

****Stop by the new teaching tips machine forum and say “hi” @ http://www.TeachingTipsMachine.com/forum****

Share