Delivering quality professional development & resources for teachers
The end of the year is fast approaching and if you are like any other teacher ever, you will be checking up on how much content you have taught this year, how much you didn’t get done and frantically trying to assess students for their learning so that you can write an accurate report for the end of the year.
When students don’t listen or follow directions, or they roll their eyes when you speak, or they talk while you are talking, it can seem as though they don’t care what you think of them. This is a misconception. Young people do care what adults e.g. parents and teachers think of them. They care very deeply even when they don’t show it. The more it seems they don’t care, the more they do care.
Planning does not just mean preparing your lesson content, but giving thought to how you want your students to behave before, during and after the lesson. Here are 5 simple yet highly powerful ways to create positive behaviour change with your students.
When you are giving instructions, think about the words and tone you use. There is often a more positive way to say most things which will provide a better learning opportunity for your students.
Social and emotional learning is a vital element of student development with clear research showing the positive impact on academic results. However, with all the curriculum content teachers need to cover, many teachers are asking how they can possibly add social and emotional learning to their load. Here are 8 easy ways.....
Focus on teaching the skill of listening (yes those acronyms do help). Break the skill into identifiable components for students and then practise, role play, make posters and dramatise scenarios. Use positive reinforcement to help with this and/or reward students for using the skill appropriately.
Many schools have a hierarchy of consequences that increase the level of punishment as the behaviour escalates. While that approach works with 75-80% of the population, a student with behaviour issues will not respond to increasingly negative penalties.
One of the key takeaways from the Teacher Wellbeing Workshop in 2017 to reduce workload, was prioritising tasks to use your time and energy more effectively. Deciding what tasks you need to do and what can be left undone can be very freeing. As can realising that you can say no: no to students, to colleagues, to parents, and (even!) no to your boss. Teachers are notorious for saying yes to far too many projects and then burning out. It’s a downward spiral.
Here is an outstanding list of Behaviour Management Resources for Teachers.
Engagement is characterised by appropriate behaviour (behavioural engagement), positive feelings (emotional engagement), and, above all, student thinking (cognitive engagement).
While we cannot eliminate all change from a student’s school day, we can put some strategies in place that help students to cope and hopefully prevent difficult behaviour or meltdowns that may result from their anxiety.
Have you ever had a student who displayed challenging behaviour that baffled you? None of your usual behaviour tricks and tools seem to work. The student responds positively to you one day, but the next won’t do anything for you. Or they love your reward system for a couple of days and then refuse to participate in it.
When a student displays challenging behaviour, teachers usually look for the antecedent or trigger. Simply put, the trigger is whatever happened immediately prior to the problem behaviour and seems to contribute to the behaviour.
8 Easy Ways to Differentiate the Curriculum for Your Students - If you think of differentiation in terms of content, process, product and learning environment and begin by providing difference in one aspect, you can reduce some of the associated stress.
Have you ever taught a student who just didn’t seem to care about achieving at school? They don’t seem to care about their work, they may or may not be disruptive, but their lack of achievement and drive is understandably disturbing for a teacher. The student may even be quite capable but they do not seem to have any motivation. These students can be the most challenging because their lack of interest may push our buttons, particularly if they are apathetic about our subject or class!!
As teachers, we are always looking for ways to optimise the learning for our students, whilst also taking little extra preparation time. Simple, effective ways to engage your students that won't require any extra work for you!
How To Engage Your Students (Even The Most Difficult Students) Here are […]
Whole class reward systems have many positive benefits for you and your students. Motivating your students is the key to making them enjoy their learning experience.A major part of motivation is positive reinforcement, one of the oldest tricks in the book used to encourage certain types of behaviour.
While you may already give a lot of thought to increasing academic results by improving your instruction, providing better resources and designing better units of work, have you given any thought to the social and emotional development of your students? Here are 3 steps outline how you can improve academic results through a social and emotional curriculum
There are many times throughout the day, week or year that teachers have to put on their best acting suit to get through certain situations. For example when you are a new teacher, when you are hungry or tired, when you are substitute teacher, when you lack confidence; the list goes on.