Procedures, procedures, procedures, does he have a point? Which ones would you argue are the most important to teach? Which ones could you work on? Think of an irritating matter that did not go away last year. Is there a procedure that might address or prevent it?
Thanks, I apologize for not having these up sooner. I ran into an issue I had to address when I got home and it took me longer to get to it.
Great class. I enjoyed all of your contributions. I sincerely hope you have 24 or 25 days of solid rest. What we do is one of the most important jobs on planet earth. Don't ever forget that.
Please keep in touch. Mark
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This blog is for the purpose of extending our conversation regarding the important topic of classroom management. My hope is that ideas stretch our current understandings and that questions stimulate an academic dialogue.
Classroom Management Links
- Eric Online Documents: Step by step (ED433334) First Days of School (ED442770)
- Teacher Vision...Experienced Teachers Offering Ideas and Solutions
- Dr. Mac's Amazing Behavior Management Advice Site
- Discipline by Design: The Honor Level System
- The Really Best List of Classroom Management Resources
- You Can Handle Them All
- Works4Me
32 comments:
I think he makes a great point and I think there is a need to teach the rules/procedures to the kids (obviously, how this is done and the extent to which it is done will be different depending on the grade level). My biggest "irritating matter" was how one of my classes always started packing up before the bell rang. Many times they would try lining up at the door and I would have to keep reminding them to sit their butts back in their seats. Of course, then many would still just stop working 5 minutes, even 10 minutes early and would do nothing but sit there and annoy others. I hate down time in my classroom. I like them to be working the whole time, so this drives me crazy! I think I should always just address this starting the very first day and make sure the kids know that I expect them to make use of every minute that I give them to work and that it simply isn't acceptable to do this. One way it could be prevented would be to make sure I always have an exit activity or assignment (that must be turned into me on the way out the door) at the very end of class so that they are doing something structured those last few minutes... I'm guilty of not doing that enough and making sure it's at the very end would be a great way to keep them working up to the bell.
I think he has a great point. One of the questions that I remember being asked in an interview was what do I think is most important - classroom management, teaching the curriculum, or teaching things students are interested in. I said hands down classroom management is the most important. If you do not have some order in your classroom, learning will not occur. It is only after you have established procedures, rules, and created a safe environment that students can begin to learn the content. One thing that irritated me last year was students piling up at the pencil sharpener. I think that I would like to get some handheld sharpeners for students to use at the tables. I would also like to limit the number of students at the electric sharpener to one at a time. You cannot get up to use the sharpener until the last person is back at their seat.
I have always been a fan of structure. The analogy of the airport having structure and many things can be happening without getting in each others way. I loved the idea of jobs. That should work great in my room because the students sit at table of 4. Now all I have to do is assign each seat a job. I guess over a 12 week period I could rotate them every so many weeks. I also like the idea stated in class about quizing the procedures.
Last thing I have is I would like to thank Lauren for her help and ideas. By the way those hand held sharpeners are great. I had an electric shapener and it broke down last year so I purchased some hand held sharpeners and they worked great. They actual saved some of my better quality colored pencil from being swallowed up by that greedy electric shapener.
I can embrace Wong’s structure. I find that fieldtrips, assemblies, team days run more smoothly and students appreciate them more when there is a procedure to follow and nothing is left to guessing. “What should we do?” frequently results in poor choices. My pet peeve is students neglecting to bring their textbooks to class. I have a procedure, but it’s not working. I think my new procedure will be that students can borrow textbook, but no students will be dismissed until all books are returned. The borrowers will be the last students to leave. Wow, this sounds like assertive discipline, but the management really takes away from instructional time.
Wong has a great point! Procedures are absolutely necessary to avoid chaos in the classroom. And they definitely need to be taught. Every teacher has their own way of what is the best procedure for doing things, and kids are often in different classrooms so they need to know what you expect. I agree that most kids want to do what is right and it makes them feel secure to know what to do in a situation. I feel that way...there are procedures everywhere, so it's a real life skill.
Teaching LS, I had different grade level kids coming into my room and same grade level kids coming from different homerooms, so they didn't all arrive at the same time or may not have been in a small group right away. I always had procedures for what they should be doing when they arrive and are waiting for their direct instruction time.
My "irritating matter" was the few kids who could never get started on their own. The procedures were always on the board and basically the same...SSR, practice your spelling words, complete the reading activity you started yesterday,etc. And it wasn't like they couldn't read it. I think maybe I needed to have a timer go off as a reminder that now everyone needs to be busy, that way they all get a little break and they all get back to work at the same time. My schedule is so different every year, but I'll try that if I have the same problem this year.
Wong's points are well taken by me. I agree that for any meaningful learning to take place there must be a basic structure with routine practices and procedures in place. I think the most important thing about teaching the procedures is to spend quality time the first 2 weeks of school making sure the students know the procedures and are able to carry them out. Reviewing in a fun way or by quizzing them would be effective. The rest of the year will be much smoother by taking the time up front. My irritating matter is when a handful of regulars raise their hands with questions even after I have just explained, reviewed, and had a question and anwer time before starting an activity. I think adding Wong's idea of asking a support buddy instead of relying on me would help to address this.
Wong has truely proven himself in the education world. His ideas have sparked the changing of classrooms across the country for many years. His belief that pounding the class procedures into the students, in my opinion would work most of the time. Kids have so many different classes, so many teachers, friends, imputs, and stimuli, that they are bound to get confused. By making sure that they know the expectations and procedures, and letting them know that it is ok to make a mistake as long as they try to correct it, you are bound to get improved behavior.
One example that I shared in class was the student who was chronicly late to class. I do not think think Wong's method would have been effective on this student. I say this, because this student was late every day for the first month and a half of school, and every day I reminded him of when he needed to be in class, or that he needed to have a pass. None of it worked. It was not until I began assigning detentions that he began to hustle in the halls. But then thats one example out of my 135 students last year. Maybe the "Wong Way" might not be the Wrong Way."
I really enjoyed listening to Wong this morning. If there is a procedure needed in the library, I teach it. We start the first day with how to sit politely, tissues, bathrooms, where and how to choose a book. From there I take just a couple of minutes during each class to explain a new procedure. Throughout the year I try to teach universal library procedures. What they do in our library, they will be able to do in the next school's library, they can do at the public library, will do in the college library, etc. My pet peeve the last few years has been student book exchange when it is not a student's regular library time. I taught this to all my classes but the teacher I shared the library with did not nor would not. Her students would come into the library, be loud, disrupt my classes, have no idea where to put the returned books nor how to go about getting a new book. It really was a problem since the kids often put the unchecked in book back on a shelf, not necessarily the right one! The problem is solved for next year because the library will only have one librarian - me! However, I will be sharing another library with a new librarian. Hopefully we will avoid such conflicts with good communication.
Hmmm...the most important procedures to teach...I think it depends on your grade level. Ninth graders typically need brief refreshers on what you expect them to do for several different tasks. Managerial tasks like bathroom, pencils, what to do at the beginning and end of class, tissues, lined paper...they are important, and need to be modeled and practiced at the beginning of the year. No need to re-teach...I also believe that there are procedures when implementing different reading strategies in my classroom. I am trained in Reading Apprenticecship, and I teach those procedures at the beginning of the school yera to accompany the content that I cover throughout the year. I feel thay are more important than the managerial procedures for the kids to remember because they deal with theit thinking about reading, not just how to sharpen a pencil.
I found one of his main points that connected with me was that "at risk" kids need structure in life. I believe things will run much more smoothly if there is structure and expectations in the classroom. I'm guilty, however, of not getting all the procedures engrained in the students brain and then having to repeat procedures over and over throughout the year. I'm going to try to go elementary this year with the watch me do it and then have them do it and then rehearse it several times. Hopefully after 4 to 6 weeks the students will know what's expected.
I think Harry Wong works very well at the elementary level. The first week of school, I go over the routines, procedures over and over and over again with the children. We practice and act out all of the procedures and then we go over the procedures weekly as I only see them once a week. Once the routines are firmly established, the classroom has more structure and the lessons run more smoothly.
His points really made sense to me and I am going to begin to incoporate them this year. With my phys ed classes it's tough to give every kid I have a list of my procedures but I think after the first or second class they know my routine and what to expect from me. I plan on applying these procedures to my homeroom next year. I always cover my expectations/procedures with my kids the first day of school but it seems as the year goes on things gradually begin to slide. This year I plan on posting my procedures in the room that I am in, I just need to make sure it's alright with whatever teacher is in that room, since homeroom time will be the only time I am in there. I am also goiing to type out the procedures and hand them to the kids so they each have a copy of them to refer to.
Believe it or not, one of my biggest problems with my seventh graders was pencils. They just would not bring one to class. Some of them would sit there and do nothing instead of asking for one. I began by giving them out. After giving away about 1,000 pencils,I stopped. I started loaning them out for collateral like a shoe or a text book. I felt that took up too much time, and I was annoyed by having to do that. I have finally decided to give up. I am going to have someone distribute them and collect them for each class. That way one person is responsible for any missing pencils. I really didn't want to give this battle up, but I have so many other ones to fight that I think this one will have to go to the kids. This is Tanya by the way. I changed my login name. I am working on a blog for my kids.
I am a person who thrives on organization, so Wong's methods really appeal to me. I do think a fine line exists in a high school classroom between teaching procedures and leaving the students feeling like elementary students. An appropriate number of procedures would have to be implemented and they could not be introduced at one time because high school students would revolt or feel belittled if a teacher had a procedure for every little thing the students did.
One procedure I will work to improve this year is the way my students enter and exit the classroom. In some of my classes, I have students who hang out outside of my room before the bell rings. This sometimes causes a traffic jam. I have never taught or practiced the procedure with my students and have just figured they knew what was expected. If they knew my expectations, this could eliminate the annoyance of this behavior.
I really enjoyed listening to Wong Friday morning. I am a firm believer that being organized and implementing classroom procedures can really decrease misbehaviors and disruptions to the learning process. Through the years I have had the experience of teaching all 3 levels (K-12) and each level is different in how you present the classroom procedures and practice them. In elementary, I would spend a class period or 2 rehearsing procedures (how to line up at the door; how to walk quietly down the hall;etc). At the middle school, I have some of the procedures listed on their syllabus that I hand out to them in the beginning of the year, and we discuss them frequently. I don't recall spending too much time discussing procedures at the high school level. .....The one thing that drives me crazy is when at the end of the day, someone puts their chair up on their desk before I ask them to ..... and then it just snowballs. (Little in the scheme of things. LOL)
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This is my first blog...
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The Wong Way
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Hello everyone!
This is a facinating discussion!
This is the first comment.
If Donald is a duck and Pluto's a dog, then what in the world is Goofy?
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THis is going to be a long week for me:0)
I want to eat brownies!!
I am trying out this blogging site.
I certainly was not prepared for the blogging lesson that I received today. I am excited to have a conversation with "real" people on the way home from class today. Thanks for the lesson.
Would that be Harry Wong?
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