Tuesday, November 06, 2007
Teacher HELP!!
So, there is one of my classes that the students ARE NOT quiet...I have tried several things, but I am to the end of my rope. I am changing seats next class. I had a student recommend 10 participation points a day and if they talk, then the person loses those points. I think it sounds good, but I am not sure...I am so frustrated!
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4 comments:
Kristen,
if it makes you feel better, I see some kids acting like that in college--going to class and sitting there IMing or emailing or websurfing--at least that is less disruptive to the professor. Changing seats and doing participation points are both great ideas. You might want to take the participation points away in blocks of 5. (otherwise if someone is talking and you take away the ten points they no longer have anything to lose and can talk freely, if you do it in steps you can warn them and they have an incentive to "take themselves to taciturnity"). I don't suppose that this is in keeping with current pedagogical trends but you can assign them to do something really boring, like copy a page out of the dictionary (my favorite Jr high teachers punishment--better than writing a sentence a hundred times because you might learn something). Hand that one to the worst offenders and hope it has a deterrent effect on the others. Or to be even more educational assign them to write a one or two page paper on whatever topic you are discussing. "Since you were talking, I'm sure you weren't able to learn as much about this as you should have so..." You might even want to ignore the talking for most of the lesson and just spring it on the worst offenders at the end. If you want to be really mean (more deterrent effect) "and since you love talking during class so much you can give a 3-min oral presentation to the class on it next time." At least they'll learn something. The only catch is you need a plan for what to do if they don't prepare the report. Hope this helps
Thanks! I will definitely take that under advisement!
Hey hun,
One of the hardest things to learn as a teacher but one of the most important is your personal level of noise. Some teachers allow a lot of noise taking it as constructive learning, some don't allow any and most are somewhere in between. You have to find you own personal level of noise that you are okay with and STICK TO IT!! That means you DO NOT GO ON when they pass that level. Stop talking, walk over the the problem area and silently wait until they finish. You need to be close to them. Proximity is VERY powerful. You almost want to be uncomfortably close. That is the worst thing for a student. Talking will stop, EVERYTHING will stop. And it should. When they stop talking, just look at them with you teacher face (I hope your working on that) and hold it for about 30 seconds. It will feel like forever!! But that is what you want you kids to feel too! Then in a quiet but firm voice, say "I will not talk over you, and I need to teach this class. So your choices are to either leave (either principal's office, Detention, whatever kind of implementation you have for adverse behavior) or you will not talk in my class when I am talking, understand? Which will it be? Then sit there until they decide. Rarely will they pick the punishment, but if they do give it to them. If they don't start class again. If they start talking again, give them the punishment. They have been warned and that was their decision. The key to good classroom management if consistency and follow through. Always do what you say you are going to do, and do it every single time it happens. If you want them quiet, you CAN NOT, I repeat, CAN NOT talk over them. When you talk over them, you are giving them the non-verbal message that what you are saying is not important enough for them to listen to. So they don't think it is important enough to listen to. This is going to be hard at first. Getting them back is always harder than establishing the standard in the first place, so just remember, Be Consistent and Always follow through on what you say. Good luck babe!!
I warn my students in the syllabus that I will mark them absent if their talking to a classmate disrupts class, then I follow through.
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