This noticing blog is geared toward behavior management in my class. There are a lot of students in my class who seem to have behavior issues. This makes getting control of the class at times a bit rough. This also transcends over into math instruction. When students attempt to give answers during a math game or during whole group discussion and they do not get called on, they will raise their voices which then causes popcorn conversations which means time has been lost from learning. There was an instance where a student (a 4th grader) came back from Spanish and knocked a chair across the room because he was upset at something that had happened in Spanish. This was completely unacceptable and the student knew that it was. I feel as 3rd and 4th graders, they should have a better way of channeling their anger but at this point it seems that they do not. The positive side to this is that the students do respect me as an adult in the classroom and when I ask a student to do something or reevaluate their behavior, most students do it right after they are asked to do so. However, on average we lose about 15-20 minutes of instruction a day trying to refocus the class after an outburst, transitions and dealing with behavioral issues. This time is usually made up at the end of the day but I feel this is ineffective because the students continue to talk at the end of the day like their time lost learning does not matter to them.
The important thing here is that the students who have behavioral issues have been identified and parents have been notified. However, it seems that students do not care, well some of them, that their parents are being called. This leads me to think that the consequences students are getting at home are not effective. It may be that parents need to re-think ways to help students identify what they did wrong. As for classroom consequences, the students know their expectations and there is an interventionist in the school if students cannot handle themselves inside the classroom. Students need to recognize the wrong choice they have made and they should give suggestions and talk about the decisions that they made and what they can do to rectify the situation.
These are not uncommon experiences or concerns in the process of learning to teach. Here are just a few of the things that come to my mind in considering what you describe:
ReplyDelete1. The more meaningful the instruction is (e.g., the more relevant; the more draws on what students already do, are already interested, already know), the more they will tend to engage in instruction as opposed to engage in off-task behavior.
2. Make sure that students know the consequences for their off-task behavior, and make sure that these consequences are consistently enforced; also make sure to positively reinforce positive behavior (such as praise for good student behavior or using exemplary student work as exemplars)
3. Think about the relationships that you have with these students. The more that you can form relationships with these students (i.e., the more you know about them and the more that they know that you are interested in them as individuals), the more they will respond to your gentle nudges to get back on task. This way, you can simply give a dirty look when they are talking, as opposed to yelling at them and being punitive for minor infractions.