Classroom Management – Helping Teachers Grow

This one’s fresh, my friends!  I was inspired and tried this little trick today, and it really worked!  If you’ve ever struggled to get your students to really, actively listen to each other, then try this little trick.

In class, we’re reading the novel, Ender’s Game.  Great book.  My 7th graders love it.  During one of our written reflections, I had my students share their responses with everyone at their table.  Typical stuff, I know.  But this time, when it came time to share with the class, I had the students share something they’d heard from another student rather than sharing what he or she had written.

This proved to be quite challenging!  More often than not, the students couldn’t remember anything that their other table mates had shared with them.  I told them to share again, only this time, each student needed to be an active listener since each of them would be responsible for sharing what someone else had written.

The conversations and sharing proceeded again, only with more energy, more interest, and greater levels of participation.  Afterwards, I asked the students if they could tell the difference between their earlier passive listening and their newer more active listening.  Sure enough, they could!

I often try to get the students to break out of their “private movie where each of them is the superstar and everyone else is an extra in their move” but it can be difficult.  This little listening exercise really seemed to help- both them and me!

Give it a try and let me know how it works for you.

Darren

Hey all you teachers out there!

Do you see that big orange square off to the right? By clicking on that orange square, you can become a subscriber of this blog! It’s really quite simple. Click on that orange square. You’ll be taken to my RSS page (don’t worry if you don’t know what RSS means). There you’ll see a brief summary of all the posts on this blog. Near the top you’ll see something that allows you to subscribe to this “feed.” Once you’ve subscribed, you’ll be notified any time I publish new content on this blog.

Pretty neat stuff. It’s a great time saver for when you don’t want to enter the address in every time to see what’s happening. And this way you’ll be kept up to date on any new developments with Helping Teachers Grow’s newest online training and free classroom tips and tricks.

Hope to hear from you soon!

Darren Barkett

I’ve been busy all weekend working on a couple hub pages designed to provide a bit of help for teachers who struggle with motivating students and managing the classroom. Go check out my latest page at Help-for-Teachers: How to Manage Your Students.

I provide an outline for developing a respectful and painless way to manage your students while motivating students to work to their potential. The system is so simple and straightforward that any teacher at any level can implement it no matter where they are in their year. Yes, you could start school on Monday, teach your students this simple system, and by Friday, you’d have an entirely different class full of students.

Imagine students who consistently say they like your class best. Imagine students being self-motivated to work, even on standardized tests! Imagine students behaving because they want to behave, not because you are forcing or threatening them to behave.

Imagine finishing your day feeling more energized and excited about teaching than you have in years!

It can happen. And the changes required are subtle, simple, and free!

Check out my hub page at Help-for-Teachers: How to Manage Your Students and start your week off right!

Darren B.

Every day we are faced with a multitude of challenges. Challenging students, challenging parents, challenging schools, challenging financial constraints, challenging personal issues, and on and on.

I’d be interested to know, what do you find most challenging on a daily basis? What consistently keeps you from teaching to your potential? What is holding you back from meeting your students’ needs?

Leave me a comment and let me know what challenges you face. I’d be very interested to know. I have my own set of challenges, and I’ll post of them soon. But for now, I want to hear from you.

You didn’t really think teaching would be easy, did you?

Darren B.