World-Shaker

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There’s a place for this in every classroom management system.

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20 Quick Actions You Can Do Today To Set Your Classroom Up For Massive Success

An impressive and thoughtful list. Most of the ideas come with linked resources. Here are three (click through for the rest):

Action #7 Pay attention to noise and light surroundings, which may distract learning (30 minutes)

Teachers only have so many resources and control over the actual classroom structure. Using throw rugs and curtains help to diminish excess noise from hallways or in the room. If you have a reading area, why not set up a table lamp from home for more cozy lighting? It may not seem like much, but the environment plays a big role in a student’s ability to concentrate.

Do you or your parents have any old furniture at home? Adding a chair or couch to a silent reading area will greatly enhance your student’s willingness!

Action #8 Deal with smartphones from the first day with a proactive plan for integration (10 minutes)

Whether you like it or not, smartphones are working into younger and younger hands. Some schools may have a ban on smartphones altogether, but if your school does not, consider creating a plan that uses smartphones in the classroom. Banning them will only give you a headache as you spend hours trying to referee, confiscate, and deal with unruly students. Who wants to waste time doing that?

Why not create a smartphone area in your classroom? Everyone must put his or her smartphone there at the beginning of the day. For five minutes before lunch or after work is finished, they can go over to that area and use it for research or educational gaming. When you work with your students, you might find they are more apt to compromise as well.

Action #9 Create a list of “question words” that help you with effective questioning (10 minutes)

Create a board or poster with excellent words to use in questioning your students. These words can be used not only for instructing, but when students are asked to question each other. The NDT Resource center has an effective list of words to remember.

"I am always far more impressed with teaching that appears to have excellent routines. Little things like how the students get into groups, how they approach a plenary, how they pair and share and how they can crack on with a task with little input from the teacher (reduced teacher talk) says far more about learning being outstanding on a continual basis than anything like whizz-bang teacher led activities."

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Good to Outstanding teaching – some thoughts

Fun fact: This is what it’s like in an OhMuffins classroom. True story.

(via englishteacheronline)

A Teacher's Guide to Communicating with Parents →

I was especially interested in this tool:

Sometimes, however, teachers need to have a conversation with parents that goes a bit deeper than upcoming due dates. For these calls, it is helpful to remember that the positive phone call is as important as the negative one.  I have a colleague who sends positive e-mails to her students who impress her or are just pleasant human beings, and she always CC’s the parents. Building this positive context goes a long way if problems arise later on.

To keep track of these interactions as well as the student behavior that prompts them, I highly recommend Dash4Teachers. There really isn’t anything quite like it out there.

You can tap smiles or frowns for each day, jot down notes like “asked great questions!” or “was terribly disruptive,” and then tap “Call best contact.” You then select options like “Call completed” or “Left a message.” My favorite feature is the ability to sort by least recent calls, most frequent calls, and positive or negative. The more students we have, the more possible it is for one to “slip through the cracks.” Using this intuitive and simple app goes a long way to ensuring we’re helping all of our students.

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Of all of these, I’m most impressed by rule #3. 

iPad Diaries Part 2: Classroom Management of iPads

holtthink:

Some Tips for Classroom Management of iPads

In our district, we have not purchased enough iPads for a true 1:1 initiative. Therefore, we need to treat the campus iPads a little differently than if each student had one all the time. every 32 ipads come with an associated Ergotron tablet management cart.  Perhaps you will be getting iPads in your school. If you have received a cart of iPads and were wondering how to keep them safe during the school year, here are some tips to make sure that those devices are well cared for and don’t accidentally leave the room:

Keep Count Often!

If you start the class period with 30 iPads, make sure before you dismiss class that there are 30 devices returned. Make sure that there are 30 devices at the beginning of the next period before you hand them out. Make sure that the number of devices you have at the beginning of the day equals the number of devices you have at the end of the day.

Use the Keys

Most cabinets for iPads have some sort of locking cabinet. Make sure you use the keys to keep the cabinet locked whenever the devices are not in use. Times that the cabinets should be locked:  At the beginning and end of each day and/or period. Whenever the devices are not being used, the cabinets should be locked.

One Person in Charge

There should only be one person in charge of the cart. This person is in charge of making sure that the cart has all of the devices at the beginning of the day, and makes sure that there are the same number devices at the end of the day. This person is especially important if multiple teachers will be accessing the cart during the course of a day. One person keeping track of where everything is going is important, especially when conflicts about who took what arise. This person should also have the keys that are used to open and close the park.

Read More

One cool idea I read about (I’ll see if I can track down the source) was to make the wallpaper of each device a different number, so it was easy to tell whose was whose.

Cheat Sheet for the First Days of School →

Here’s an excerpt:

1) Develop an easy slogan for expectations in your classroom.

Having a slogan that everyone can remember will remind kids of the rules you clearly set in the beginning of the school year. Few of us (teachers included) look up at the rules and cite them in our punishment. Most teachers have a general guideline of behaviors that we expect and pull up quickly when a student has crossed a certain line. For instance, my slogan is usually founded on respect: i.e., “Respect yourself, respect me and respect each other.” Most of the rules we live by in the classroom follow in more detail. I rarely have to look up at the rules, because the kids remember the word “respect” and, for that matter, “disrespectful.”

Getting Ready for the Start of School Part II: Why Some Teachers Have Smooth Running Classrooms →

An interesting article. They actually outline procedures to focus on for the first day, week and six weeks of school. Here’s the first day:

First Day of School

• Quiet Signal
• Arrival: putting things away and getting started on “do now” work
• Lining Up
• Walking in the Hallway
• Using the Bathroom
• Talking during group lessons
• Dismissal: cleaning up desk and getting materials ready to go home

An Easy Method of Forming Classroom Groups →

A cool little technique from Cool Cat Teacher. If you’re not already following her on Tumblr or her blog on Blogger, you should consider liking her Facebook page (where I found this gem).

I have colored poker chips in my classroom. There are 4 colors, so take those colors and line them up alternating all 4 colors and then write a number on one side for the total number of seats you have in your largest class (for me it is 22). Flip them over and write A,B,C,D,E on the other side while alternating colors. Let the students draw when you make cooperative groups instead of counting out numbers.

When you need to make groups, count how many students you have and remove chips higher than that number to give you groups of 4 by color. Use the numbers to make groups of 2 (1&2 go together, etc.). Or you can make larger groups using the A,B,C’s.

Plan ahead and this saves tons of time on groups. I use this all the time. It is adapted from Marzano’s classroom Management that works.

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2) Create desktop backgrounds to show numeration

The cases cover the backs - where we originally had numerated stickers showing which iPad was which. Now we have gone with an idea originated by iPad colleague Carolyn Skibba at Burley Elementary - change the backgrounds and lock screens of each iPad to its number. In cases where the iPads are truly 1:1 - that is a single student is using a single iPad all day, every day - many teachers choose to take a picture of the student holding a number and use it as the background. However, I teach a differentiated classroom so although during each period there is a 1:1 student to iPad ratio, three sets of students cycle through the devices each day. Therefore, I used generic numbers as the wallpaper. To do this, I typed the numbers in a Pages document on my MacBook and took a screenshot of the number. I then uploaded all of the numbers to my Google Site and was then easily able to download the picture and set it as the wallpaper/lockscreen from each iPad.

Some iPad Management Tips, Part 2!

Great advice in here—definitely worth a look!

A Principal's Reflections: A Multi-Faceted Approach to Engaging Parents →

Here are three of my favorites (and 2 of these were the first on the list):

1. Make your professional email and Twitter accounts available this way parents can contact you at their convenience. If you have not created such an account for your school I highly recommend that you do.  During the beginning of each school year I send home a letter to all parents that provides detailed information on what Twitter is, how to create an account, and configuring the settings to receive SMS text messages. This versatility, allowing parents to receive updates on their own terms, makes Twitter unlike any traditional communication tool that I’ve ever used as a principal. As far as transparency goes, is there any application more effective than Twitter?  In response to parent feedback I created an “Official” school account (NewMilfordHS). The NMHS Twitter page includes a link to the school’s main website as well as our school’s colors, mascot and logo. This makes our page stand out to viewers and establishes a brand presence. Information tweeted out from this account in real-time includes sports scores, special schedules, school news, student achievements, staff accomplishments, campus weather, and emergency information.
2. Create your own website and include contact information, availability to meet with or speak to parents, extra help hours, student assignments, press, etc. This is also a great way to convey to parents your philosophy on education, professional accomplishments, and vision for helping students succeed.  My website can be viewed by clicking this link.
3.  Set up a separate phone number for parents using Google Voice.

10 Ways to Cheat-Proof Your Classroom →

A fascinating article. Here are three of the ten:

1. Critical Thinking: The best assignments cannot be copied. This might include asking students to develop an argument and defend it individually or having students develop their own math problems or their own processes for solving shared math problems. 
2. Move Toward Mastery: Help students see that the goal is not completion, but mastery. Get rid of averages and zeroes. Students need to understand that cheating prevents teachers from providing necessary intervention and plan for future learning. 
3. Monitor Frequently Engage with Students Often: If a student turns in a plagiarized essay, chances are the teacher wasn’t part of the pre-planning, writing and editing process. Teachers need to monitor students often and provide instant feedback so that incompletion doesn’t snowball into an opportunity to cheat.

Mister Teacher: Crick and Crack →

teachertoolbox:

Even if I am a teacher now officially, I still learn new things everyday. Well, most of the days. One of the teachers that I’ve been working with is very experienced one that the way she teach actually makes me jealous. She has a way with her students. I have seen those same students with me and boy, they are very different. 

These kids are amazing. They are smart and very driven. However as you can imagine from 5th graders, they sometimes become naughty and yelling them with a loud and firm voice just don’t work. This situation is the exact one that I’ve been actually thinking about for my entire college life; “what would I do?”

Now this teacher I’ve been talking about… She has a secret trick that can immediately calm the kids down and make them listen to her. When she sees them misbehaving, she suddenly says “crick!” and the kids go “crack.” 
When I first witnessed the moment, I was like… You can imagine how I was like. It worked and I was really surprised. Kids were quiet and looking at her directly waiting for her to talk.
It was amazing. I told myself that this was what I needed and found myself asking about the “Crick and Crack” method.

I don’t know if it is called by the name as “Crick and Crack” method but I’d like to call it that way since I couldn’t find anything about it online. She told me that she heard about it in a conference somewhere. First you tell them that every time you  say “crick”, they should say “crack” in response. She kept using it only when they were noisy or misbehaving and that’s why some kids in the class were also saying “crick” when they see their friends talking. She warned them that only she could get to say “crick” and there it was. Now it’s working. We couldn’t find too much time to talk about it, maybe she could have told me the name that she has heard it from or the name of the method… maybe even how it works and why. 

Anyway, maybe you can try it out with the kids between 1-5 grades, or maybe with even older ones. Or if you have tried it and you know about the method, maybe you can tell me about it.

Seems pretty useful. Anyone have a similar strategy?

This inexpensive app ($3.99) is unique – while there are a few others apps available today that can provide some of this functionality, what iTeach Pad delivers is a combination of tools that you won’t find in any of those other tools. iTeach Pad lets you set up and maintain the following classroom and teaching information:

• Schedule
• Calendar
• Classes & Students
• Lesson Plans
• To Do Lists

Worth a look if you have some time (and an iPad).

(via A unique classroom and teaching organizer app for the iPad (created with input from our readers!))

6 Powerful, Soul-Searching Things To Say To Difficult Students →

revolutionizeed:

I’m thinking that I need to use these much more often!