The behaviors of
students can vary from the exaggerated to the subtle. A teacher must be able to
handle all these behavior in an effective and efficient way. This way, the
teacher can reinforce the positive behaviors while hopefully
extinguishing/limiting the negative behaviors. In the classroom, there have
been multiple class clowns, talkative students, and students that are just not
in a good mood. While I do try to praise students and reassure them that they
have done a good job, it is the disruptive behaviors that are more memorable
and noticeable. I have seen that using reprimands are pretty effective (page
261). I've noticed that pulling the student aside and simply talking to them
about what had just occurred can help more so than publicly yelling at them. It
not only gives the student to calm down a bit, but it also lets them reflect on
his/her actions. In my experience, I have used reprimands and (unfortunately)
engaged a student in a public argument. I wish I could go back and change the
way I handled the latter situation. The student's temper was flaring and I was
not doing the best job in deescalating the situation. A student supervisor had
to escort the angry student to the dean's office for not being cooperative with
the teacher and myself.
For some of the students
with behavioral problems, I have seen contingency contracts (page 264) so that
students can improve their behaviors. In one instance, a student was habitually
late or absence to first period. With all the tardies and absences adding up, the
student was accumulating detentions and in-school suspensions. These were not
helping the student change his behavior, if anything it was making school
miserable. The student's dean made a deal with him that if didn’t get one tardy
or absence for a whole week, then he would buy him Portillo's for lunch. This
did improve his attendance for a while because there was now a little
motivation in it for the student. I think that these contracts are helpful in
some situations. A student now has a little push to achieve a goal set, a
student can see this contract as a sign of caring by the school, and this can
be the support starts the reinforcement of a good behavior.
One of the most subtle
ways to lose a classroom's attention is with bad movement management (page
486). The way a lesson is organized and the way it transitions from one point
to another has to be smooth and timely. Spending too much time on one point can
bore the students to sleep they can begin to become disruptive. I have been in
front of a class basically teaching the lesson when there was a sub for the
regular teacher. I can honestly say that movement management is something that
I need to practice. I either ran through a topic too fast or I talked it to
death. The students were uninterested and opted to either try and sleep, goof
off, or ask to leave for a water or bathroom break. Luckily the sub was a bit
of a help and helped me keep things in, at least, a little bit of order. I can
now see how even small flaws in a lesson plan can throw a huge wrench in lesson
plans.
I give you kudos for being able to step back and state you made a mistake and learned from it. It is amazing how little rewards can go along way. What happened with the student who the dean was buying Portillos for?? Did the effectiveness wear off?? The only problem with some of these deals that I see is that the "real world" doesn't work that way. Your boss will fire you instead of offering these deals.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you were brave enough to talk about the situation you had with the student where you publicly had it out. And I'm also glad that you learned from this that it's never a good idea to argue with students, especially in public. It's also best to reprimand privately, always keeping in mind that every student is a child of God, created in him image. I also know that teachers are human and have emotions, and sometimes students can make teachers' jobs very difficult. Students though usually have a way of respecting teachers that also show them respect.
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