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[female voice] Hi. Welcome to Week 7.
This week we're going to be talking about
creating a strong classroom culture.
And that's Chapter 5 in "Teach Like a Champion" - so I would like to have you
read through the chapter and
in this video we're just to talk about that five aspects of classroom culture
and in this week's essential question.
But in addition to reading Chapter 5, I'd like you to
also take a look at the videos that are provided on the disc for
"Teach Like a Champion" and
look at the
techniques and choose one of the techniques as techniques 28 - 35
and choose at least one to detail in your response as an example
of your answer to this week's essential question.
So I think this is a great chapter and I think thinking about these five aspects of
classroom culture
is really a important step in defining what your classroom
management technique is. So the first part of chapter goes through these five
aspects - and really quickly I'm just going to
go over them and talk to you about how the book defines them
and how also my interpretation of the them is, and hopefully we can continue
that conversation on this week's forum.
So
the first aspect classroom culture is
discipline
and I like that the book talks about how maybe there's a
misdefinition
of "discipline" as traditionally used in a classroom setting
but really this idea that instead of disciplining students
we're creating an environment in which we're teaching
students to be self-disciplined.
So this idea... and we've kind of .... I hope I've emphasized this throughout the course ....
that with a front-end investment of teaching students what's right and how to
be successful in your particular class
you will enable and create a situation in which they can be successful.
So that's all the beginning... all the routines that I've talked about in the
beginning of the year - so, how you pass back papers;
where you post the assignments; what you do at beginning in the bell;
how you call your students for silence - so these are all things that
you're teaching students how to do and you're teaching them how to be
self-disciplined
towards beginning the year and
by the time
they figure out what you expect from them they were able to self discipline
themselves
so that they can be successful.
And then the idea of management is the next one and it's this idea of
reinforcing behavior by consequences and rewards. And this is traditionally when
we say "discipline"
or "management" we're really using them inter- changeably, but I like how this
chapter kind of separates them both.
And the biggest emphasis I think with management and this idea reinforcing
behavior with this series of consequences and rewards is that
the more you use it the less effective it is. So if you're able to help teach your students how
to be self-disciplined, the idea will be that hopefully you won't need
these consequences and rewards. So it's important to have them,
have your students be aware that they will be enforced, but if you're
able to create classroom culture in which you don't have to constantly
be giving consequences
then your class overall will be more successful.
So then that kind of moves on to the next one, which is "control."
And your textbook defines it as "the capacity to cause someone to choose to do
what you ask regardless of the consequences."
So this is the idea that
the more
controlled environment you set up, and the more procedures you have, and the more
your students understand what's expected of them
the more freedom you'll be able to give them within the assignment.
So one example they give, and I like this idea of
replacing
vague commands like, "Be quiet"
with specific and useful ones like, "Please go back
to your seat and complete the warm-up on the board in the next 5 minutes"
So one
is
possibly, you know, a reaction to behavior
but the second one
is specific and useful and that is telling students exactly what they need
to be doing to be successful. So "control" - this idea that
the more control you have of your classroom
the more your students are allowed the freedom to learn. I thought this was a really good one
as well.
Then when you get control of your classroom, you go onto the next one which is you're able
to influence them. So this is the buy-in
that teachers are always striving to achieve within their classroom and this
idea that
as your procedures become well known and well controlled in your classroom
the students aren't even thinking about the consequences, and the rules, and rewards
might get but they're doing it because they want to succeed in your class and
they want to make you happy so this is the "influence" thing.
The final element is "engagement"
and I think, as a lesson planner,
you always want to be thinking about engagement. So how long are the
average student attention spans in my classroom?
How can I keep a variety of
methods of producing material so that my students are busy and productive from
the beginning of class to the end of class?
So you've probably noticed maybe in some classrooms that you've observed that
... I always think of group work
as a time when sometimes management ... classroom management starts to unravel a little bit
and I would argued that part of that reason is because the structure
for what the students are supposed to be doing is not
controlled enough so they don't know what they're supposed to be doing and so
that's when goofing off and other non-productive behaviors
start occurring. So this idea that engagement... it gives
these students...
students don' event have time to consider what they could be doing
because
they're always being productive in your class.
So, for this week's essential question I'd like you to think about these 5
classroom
culture
aspects
and
think about how you can create a synergy of these 5 in your classroom.
so I'd like you to choose one of those techniques that are in the back of
Chapter 5, watch the video and make sure you're detailing at least one and
how you hope to create this synergy
and how you'll utilize one of those techniques
in order to do that.
And then please also mention something that your mentor teacher does or
another teacher
that you see as an example of this technique, or this synergy,
that you hope to achieve.
I hope you have a great week! I can't wait to read your forums!