The first month of teaching involves a lot of questions and figuring out the answers. How do my students learn? How must I sit my students in order to get to every single student easily? Who are the talkers and how do I keep those people quiet enough to get through my lesson? Am I going to have any uncontrollable classroom management issues to deal with this year? How can I execute clean transitions to avoid losing the focus of my students? The list goes on and on and on.
So far, the year has gone okay. For whatever reason, I have been behind since the first day. I did not get off on the right foot, but I seem to be getting it together. I hope it was just a "back-to-school" thing and trying to get back in the groove. Everything is graded, now I just need to input the grades!
During some bells, it is hard to gauge the learning style as I can barely get through a lecture due to all of the talking. I can definitely say they LOOOOOVE to talk. I am trying strategies to get that under control and hopefully it will be sooner than later. I spoke with the ring leader of the talkers today in hopes that she will switch over to my side and help calm down the pack.
All of my classes contain a mix of learners, from what I initially see. Today, I gave my students a visual of and an analogy for water properties using a volleyball. Students seem to really love that idea. It kept them engaged, too. My lesson plans contain opportunities for visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learners in most, if not all, of my lesson plans. Except for those, perhaps, when the students are taking a test. The real test of kinesthetic learners comes next class period as we study the properties of water.
Sounds like you are having lots of fun! I completely understand the feelig of getting behind and trying to play catch so you don't feel overwhelmed. My partner teacher in marine has a stamp sheet strategy to help reduce the massive amount of grading for that class. I really like her method to the madness and plan on adopting it for the spring.
ReplyDeleteI think you have a good idea about confronting the ring leader and getting her on your side. I do hope it works out best in your favor. It tough enough trying to hold 25+ kids attention for however many minutes but when they will not allow you to smoothly get through a lesson it makes it that much harder.
The good thing you live and you learn (tactics of classroom management)
My year started off to the point where I was extremely behind as well and honestly as time continues to pass I feel like I am only getting further and further behind.
ReplyDeleteI have gotten discipline under wraps somewhat and it definitely helps if you can pintpoint one or two students who seem to be the ring leaders.
At my school we have started using a program called Class Dojo which lets you assign points to students daily for Participation, Helping Others or take points away for behaviors that do not meet your expections such as talking out of turn. The teachers carry around Ipads or tablets and award student points throughout class for good and bad behaviors. There is an audible noise associated with gaining and losing points and it does help with classroom management for most students. The program also randomly selects students with the press of a button for classroom participation.
Classroom Management is a certainly one of the toughest puzzles to figure out going forward.