There are several tips that can be incorporated to help with engaging resistant learners. This post is going to use the video “Engaging Resistant Learners” by Dr. Rachel Turney. In the video, there are a couple tips that I want to try to incorporate into my future classroom. There are several tips throughout the video of things that I hadn’t thought of and are things that need to be carefully examined into the classroom.

The first thing I want to try to establish in my classroom is sending POSITIVE notes home to parents. Most notes when sent home are negative. An occasional note sent home talking about how their student is improving or did something awesome in class does a lot for the student. It grows a better connection between the student and the teacher. Anyone, no matter how old, loves a note saying how they are doing something well.

Another idea that I really like was holding an awards ceremony. Every quarter of the year in my elementary school, we held a grade wide awards ceremony. Each teacher would present a handful of awards and recognize different students each time. Parents were also invited to these events and would make these moments even more special. If allowed, I would like to have a grade wide awards ceremony like this too. If not, a classroom awards ceremony is something I would try to implement instead. It’s important for students to be recognized for their hard work to help them continue this hard work.

My last main thought from the video was adding value to the the students. I am going to try to make class time with inspiring content. Students that can find topics valuable to them are more likely to be engaged in what you are trying to teach. If they see no value in what you’re trying to preach, there’s going to be off-task behaviors everywhere. I think this is hard at times to achieve. Some things aren’t going to be easy to relate to students but this is where teachers can get creative. Fun and thoughtful activities to make students excited can save a lot of stress at the end of a lesson.

While watching the video “Effective Instruction and Management” by Dr. Rachel Turney, I was able to pick up some ideas that I would like to use in my future classroom. There are several behaviors that teachers can use in a classroom to support students. Some of the main ones that I will use is modeling and goals. Modeling wanted behaviors is great for students to see what is expected of them. Seeing the desired behaviors in front of them makes it easier for them to connect to. Another great tool for effective instruction and management is goal setting. When I was younger, I used to enjoy reaching a goal and beating it. Students can feel proud about accomplishing goals they have completed. Simple goals can be implemented into the classroom, even for classroom management. One idea that I like is to try to implement a token system where if students stay on-task for a day, they get a sticker. Once they get to a certain number of stickers, they will get a reward. The only problem is being able to measure these behaviors and I will have to figure that out in the future.

Effective teaching can be broken into 3 parts: instruction, environment, and relationships. Instruction can be direct and explicit. An interesting aspect that I don’t usually think about is the environment. The actual arrangement of the classroom and routines can be critical. There has to be consistency in the environment. Rules can’t fluctuate from student to student. It can’t be okay for Shane to be able to be on his phone but Sarah to be punished for it. Rules should stay the same throughout the entire school year, it’s easier on the teacher and the students.

Proximity is another great tool talked about in the video. One example of this that my high school teachers did a lot was moving around the classroom. If a student is off-task, instead of stopping class and confronting them, the teacher would just slowly start walking over towards the students vicinity and stand there and continue the lesson. It’s a great way to be able to continue the lesson but also send a message to the student to fix the behavior.

For engagement, one of the best ways to keep students’ attention is to keep them interested and engaged. A great way to keep them engaged is asking questions. Getting students to interact and talk about the curriculum can help keep them on-task and increase learning. Other engagements can include group activities, having students go up to the board and solve a problem and other various ways.

There are several effective classroom practices you can implement in your classroom to help classroom management. The one I am choosing as my best classroom practice is task difficulty. Task difficulty involves realizing what level a student is at and providing materials and instruction that isn’t too difficult and isn’t too easy causing boredom.

Why is task difficulty important? There are several reasons. Students get distracted easily throughout the day and I am not one to blame them. This is one reason why it’s important sure that material you are giving them aren’t so easy that they will be done in 10 minutes or so hard that they will get frustrated and cause disruptions in your classroom. When I was in school, there were some subjects that I exceeded in. I would understand material fairly quickly in some classes and the homework and assignments seemed like busy work to me and I would become bored and not pay attention. This is one thing I am trying to prevent.

To be able to assess task difficulty, the teacher needs to have a strong understanding of what each student is at and their own level of pace. There are a couple of ways that I am going to try to implement this in my classroom. Keeping a portfolio of student’s homework can be a strong indicator for student’s abilities. If time allows, I would like to label each assignment with the learning targets on the top so it is quick to file. From there, the teacher will be able to see what students are on grade-level, below, and above level.

I think its important to be able to push students to their limit so that they are able to be as successful as possible. Frequent brain breaks, lowering the amount of teacher assistance, and using different types of visuals can all be ways to help with tasks that are harder. Students sometimes don’t know how much they are capable of and I hope to be able to prevent the kids that are too bored or too frustrated with the material.

There are a wide variety of behavioral plans that are used across Missouri. My future personal behavior plan draws from a couple of these plans. I believe in parts of Personal Behavioral Interventions and Support (PBIS), Behavior Intervention Support Team (BIST), and Leader in Me. I think each of these plans have some strengths and a combination of these 3 would be a very efficient plan.

There are a lot of things that PBIS offers that I would want to implement in my plan. One of the things that I really enjoy about PBIS is their overall stance on behavior. If we teach students how to learn, why punish students who don’t know how to behave instead of teaching them? This overall message really stuck out to me and I think if an entire school can back this idea, a really strong learning environment can be created. However, if one teacher decides they don’t like this idea and they send office referrals for talking and other small things, it defeats the entire purpose. I also really like the 3 tiers within PBIS, which are very similar to the tiers in RTI.

Although there are a lot of weaknesses to the Behavior Intervention Support Team plan, there are parts that are great to add into a classroom. I am not a fan of safe seats or buddy rooms because instead of fixing the problem, a student is just moving into another teacher’s room and nothing is being solved. Parts that I would like to add into my classroom would be the think sheet and goals for life. Sometimes all it takes for a student to understand their actions is putting it into writing. I think that it also creates a level of ownership for the student, a very important trait that will be needed in future years for the student. Sooner or later these students will need to take the consequences for their actions. Another part of BIST that I like is their idea of goals for life. Creating goals for students to be able to accomplish can help a lot of students. There is something about knowing you accomplished a certain goal and being able to tell yourself you completed it. Small or long-term goals, goals are great for students to be setting.

Lastly, Leader in Me tries to create leaders in their schools. Allowing students to create class rules and letting them be apart of the classroom can help in behavior problems. Colvin in chapter 2 mentions letting students help in creating class expectations. Students are more likely to follow rules if they had a say in them too. It’s hard for a student to use an excuse such as not knowing the rules or expectations when they are the ones that contributed to creating them.

In conclusion, my future behavior plan has a lot of pieces from several plans. Creating leaders, teaching behavior, and setting goals are the 3 main aspects of my plan that I want to have in my classroom.

• Colvin, G. (2010). Defusing disruptive behavior in the classroom. Thousand Oaks, Calif: Corwin Press.

For this blog post, I will be discussing “Defusing Disruptive Behavior In The Classroom” by Geoff Colvin. Chapter 1 discusses the foundation of classroom management, the seven key behavioral principles. There are a lot of key takeaways in this chapter for me personally, having little experience with classroom management. As known, it’s one of the biggest challenges new educators face, and is a daunting part of teaching.

One of the first takeaways from the chapter for me was avoid escalating the situation to more serious behavior. The example used for this section really stuck with me. Small disruptions such as two students having a side conversation should not result in office referrals most of the time. The way the teacher initially reacts to a problem in the classroom can have a major impact on the situation escalating. Bringing the entire class into the problem is usually not how you want to solve the problem. If these students need to be addressed, it should be when other students are completing work or during a private setting. If a teacher can avoid these escalations from occurring, the lesson can continue smoothly.

Another big takeaway for me was the last principle, establishing fluent responses. Fluency in general is usually difficult for me because I struggle with saying what I want in a smooth manner. In a classroom setting, these smooth fluent responses are very important. If two kids are talking during a lesson and the teacher pauses, looks at them, hesitates, and then acknowledges all students who are on task, it will not have the same impact as the teacher calmly and quickly acknowledging on-task students. As Colvin mentions, teachers can become more fluent with more practice. I hope to be able to improve this skill rather quickly so that I can prevent future scenarios like these. Another key part of this is establishing this early in the year. If students in your class know that you are confident and fluent in your responses and know your responses, they are less likely to continue these actions throughout the year. However, if they know that you have a hard time fluently talking to the class, problems may consist. Having a planned response can help aid in these scenarios too.

With my schooling experiences, I had students in my grade that knew what response teachers would give to certain outbursts. Several students in my grade loved when the teacher stopped what they were doing and yelled their name and told them to stop what they were doing. By doing this, all the students would turn towards this student and give them the attention that they wanted. I’ve always wondered what this particular student would do if the teacher just acknowledged on-task students and continued the lesson. As a student, it would very easy to see what teachers would allow certain things in their class. A lot of substitute teachers I had wouldn’t put up with a lot of the same things as the original teacher would. As a future educator, I strive to be a teacher that doesn’t allow students to get desired reactions and therefore getting this reactions again.

I can already tell that I have so much to learn in regards to classroom management and I am prepared to continue growing in this area. I completely understand why its such a challenge for new teachers and it can be scary to me at times. Being prepared and fluent can go a long way. Just getting out of grade school such a short time ago, I know what students strive for when they interrupt class. If a student wants to interrupt class during math time and the teacher sends them to the office, then the teacher did exactly what the student wanted. The student didn’t want to partake in math and that’s exactly what happened. Being able to address situations correctly and smoothly are two of my goals moving forward.

Be yourself; Everyone else is already taken.

— Oscar Wilde.

This is the first post on my new blog. I’m just getting this new blog going, so stay tuned for more. Subscribe below to get notified when I post new updates.

This is an example post, originally published as part of Blogging University. Enroll in one of our ten programs, and start your blog right.

You’re going to publish a post today. Don’t worry about how your blog looks. Don’t worry if you haven’t given it a name yet, or you’re feeling overwhelmed. Just click the “New Post” button, and tell us why you’re here.

Why do this?

• Because it gives new readers context. What are you about? Why should they read your blog?
• Because it will help you focus you own ideas about your blog and what you’d like to do with it.

The post can be short or long, a personal intro to your life or a bloggy mission statement, a manifesto for the future or a simple outline of your the types of things you hope to publish.

To help you get started, here are a few questions:

• Why are you blogging publicly, rather than keeping a personal journal?
• What topics do you think you’ll write about?
• Who would you love to connect with via your blog?
• If you blog successfully throughout the next year, what would you hope to have accomplished?

You’re not locked into any of this; one of the wonderful things about blogs is how they constantly evolve as we learn, grow, and interact with one another — but it’s good to know where and why you started, and articulating your goals may just give you a few other post ideas.

Can’t think how to get started? Just write the first thing that pops into your head. Anne Lamott, author of a book on writing we love, says that you need to give yourself permission to write a “crappy first draft”. Anne makes a great point — just start writing, and worry about editing it later.

When you’re ready to publish, give your post three to five tags that describe your blog’s focus — writing, photography, fiction, parenting, food, cars, movies, sports, whatever. These tags will help others who care about your topics find you in the Reader. Make sure one of the tags is “zerotohero,” so other new bloggers can find you, too.