Management Monday V - Once is Enough

In my teaching career, I learned that I frequently enabled my students by repeating directions or instructions. If you ever get tired of telling kids over and over what to do, where to put things, when to do something and so on, try this strategy.

Say: “Please, everyone, look at me. Point your nose at my nose” (little kids will point their fingers at your face in my experience). You can use any attention-grabbing phrase you like, but get them to look at you.

“From now on I will say things only once. Page numbers, directions, anything like that. So please keep yourself aware. If you miss what I say, find a way to catch up. Perhaps whisper to a friend or watch and see what others are doing or later catch what you missed. Call on your intelligence. You’ll know the best thing to do.”

Don’t ever say “Are there any questions?” because there WILL be! Make sure the students are looking at you when you say the “once” speech and at times that you are giving instructions. Once students realize that you will not be repeating yourself and only smiling back at them, they manage just fine. I promise you; you will never regret the decision to use “ONCE.”

Management Monday IV: Mastering Student Procedures

The purpose of mastery of student procedures is to prevent misbehavior and confusion about classroom procedures. The teacher must spend enough time teaching the procedures so that students can easily follow them without constant reminding.

You may assume that students will understand and follow simple procedures such as "line up for lunch." But some students will neither understand nor smoothly follow such diretions. The solution is to overteach prcedures, especially at the beginning of a class and with elementary age students. Your goal is that students will feel absolute mastery of procedure and feel good about that mastery. For young students, it is wise to walk through a procedure giving explicit instructions as you go.

Spend plenty of time making procedures perfectly clear and acceptable to everyone in the classroom. Get students to enjoy their ability to follow procedures masterfully and smoothly. The increase in student efficiency will more than compensate for the investment of teacher time.

Here is an example of one of my procedures, how I taught it, and how it benefited my students and me:

Since the beginning of my classroom teaching, I have given my students a "magic" number. I alphabetized my students by last name and what their number was in the gradebook is what their magic number was on papers, lockers, and everything else imaginable. They always put their magic number on their papers so I could alphabetize their turned in papers, grade them and record the grades alphabetically. I could also find out quickly the students who had not turned in their papers. We even lined up by magic numbers - in order, odds first, then evens, descending numbers and so on. The first 2-3 weeks of school we practiced writing our numbers on our papers, lining up in "number order," etc. When we had fire drills, I didn't even have to take my gradebook to take attendance, because I would just call out their number and they would holler "here" to present themselves.

Because of all this practice and smoothly running procedure, my students performed the procedure perfectly when we had an emergency in the classroom. We were taking the state reading test and one of my students had a grand mal seizure. I went to my student's aid immediately, told the students to line up, and had the monitor take the students to the office for further instructions. Not a word was spoken, no jostling in line, no outbursts were made, and no other classes were the wiser until the ambulance showed up at the school. I was so proud of my kids and they were proud that they had mastered the lining up procedure so well.

I promise you, if you take the time at the beginning of the year to establish your rules and procedures, you will not regret it. Practice, practice, practice. Get input from the students as to your procedures. They may surprise you with other ways to accomplish your goals.

Management Monday III – Cushioning

The rationale behind cushioning is to reduce student worries related to learning and to produce confident, dynamic learners. The strategy involves the teacher reinforcing the notions that everybody makes mistakes and everyone needs time to think and learn. To do that you need to remind students of those notions and discuss how people learn. Cushioning is most effective if used frequently and especially before students are asked to participate in a class discussion or learning activity.

You may have signs posted in your room stating that “everybody makes mistakes” or “everyone needs time to think and learn.” Signs are only the first step in a process of reducing learning anxieties and creating confidence in learners. Teachers must be reminiscent and support those statements throughout the day.

Reminding students at the beginning of a lesson that they can learn from mistakes and no one will be judgmental of any statements that come out of the lesson will minimize their discomfort and fear of making mistakes.

Cushioning during the lesson is useful in guiding student learning through questioning techniques. For example, if a student answers a question and the answer is not quite correct, using guided questioning will help the student “save face” and continue to learn without embarrassment.

Support students with statements such as “you can learn more when you help each other,” and “you can accept and support one another’s learning by letting others have time to think.” Share with students the different ways people learn. Let them know that their way is okay and that other students should respect their learning style.

Management Monday II – Sign Language

Since I began teaching over 20 years ago, I have taught my students the American Sign Language alphabet. They practiced their spelling words with it in centers, we spelled things together to practice, and I even caught one of my students cheating in the school spelling bee when his friend was up to spell a word! Oops!

After they learned the ASL alphabet, the students clamored for more. I found that teaching them certain signs was very helpful in classroom management. Instead of someone interrupting me when I was working with a small group or grading papers or doing other paperwork while students were having inside recess, I would have them raise their hand and show me the sign for which activity they needed to do. I taught them “restroom,” “yes,”, “no,” “wait,”, and many more as they indicated interest. We didn’t have videos back then, but I had a book that showed the actions and it was the most checked-out book in my small classroom library for many years. One year for a talent show, I taught my class the sign language for the chorus to the song “Angels Among Us.” We sang the song, did the signs, and had a slide show of pictures of the teachers and staff of our school on the projector screen. There weren’t any dry eyes after that!

Now that the internet is readily available, you can find many websites that offer short video clips of signs. You can also find free worksheets and activities to help teach your children sign language. My daughter is teaching my grandson a few words now and he is just about 15 months old! Get them hooked when they are young, make sure you use it in class, and they won’t ever forget it.

Here is the list of websites I found useful:
http://www.aslpro.com/
http://aslbrowser.commtechlab.msu.edu/index.html
http://www.lifeprint.com/

I hope you find ASL to be a useful tool in classroom management and just for fun with your students!