Jan

31

Helping students find their way to success

Filed Under "At-risk" students, Behaviour Management, Engaging Assignments and Activities for Students, Evaluation, Special Education, The way I see it, motivating students, positive climate, underachieving students | 5 Comments

Some  students do not have the work habits that make it easy for them to be successful in school.  In class, I talk  a lot about the characteristics of successful people and the role that perseverance plays in their success. Unfortunately,  perseverance is not the only thing some of my  students lack.  They lack another important characteristic that successful people share.  They lack the  emotional support  they need to help them be successful.   Some students don’t have anyone there for them when the going get tough or even to help them celebrate life’s successes great or small.  That’s where I come in.  I try to give them the emotional support they need to help them find their way to success at school.

Sometimes students will work on projects and assignments but for any number of reasons don’t submit the assignments for evaluation. They  seem to run out of energy, interest or whatever  and just give up. I’m always encouraging them to submit things  so I can give them the marks they’ve earned. I’m constantly telling  them if they don’t hand things in it makes it very difficult for me to find marks to give them.  I don’t find it useful to tell them that if they don’t hand work in they’ll fail.  They’re used to hearing that.  They’re used to failing. I take a different approach. I tell them they have to help me find the marks they need to pass them.  Yes, of course it would be nice if my  students just wanted to learn for the sake of learning, but that’s not the way it is for some students.  I have to start where from where my students are.

I used to get very frustrated when I would see my students working on assignments  in class and then not submit  them for evaluation.  In fact, it used to drive me crazy.  I’ve  learned to observe and record their  progress during the time they work in class  so that if for some reason they don’t  submit an assignment,   I still have some sense of their progress and can evaluate what I have seen. Believe me,  there are many reasons why assignments don’t get handed in. Not completing them  is only one reason.

It’s important to know that some of my more reluctant/struggling students are not interested in getting high marks.  They feel they’ve  aced the course when they get  51%.  I know because they’ve told me this.  Of course I encourage my students  to do more than the bare minimum and will often tell them they’ve made a good start.  Then, I encourage them to improve  their work  by suggesting  if they just changed this a bit here or expanded on that a bit there I could find more marks to give them.  Believe me.  It works.

I’ll admit this whole idea of finding marks to give students for assignments they have or have not submitted can seem a bit strange.  But, and this is a big but, I teach students who are at-risk academically, and I need to think creatively to find ways to motivate them and give them the support they need  so they can find their way to success.  That’s what makes teaching so rewarding.

 

 

 

Jan

29

Laughing out loud or how the internet helps me maintain a balance in life

Filed Under Blogging in and out of the Classroom, Computers In The Classroom, Digital toys, The Way I See It, The way I see it | Leave a Comment

In my last post, I suggested that students  spending 53 hours on the new media, mainly the internet, was too much of a good thing.  I argued that spending that much time on-line would lead to a totally unbalance life.  Tracy and MIrjan’s comments caused me to pause and reflect on my own life and the balance I  strive to achieve.  Let me tell you, it didn’t take long for me to start LOL.

Here’s why I started laughing out loud at myself.

  • I love to read books, magazines, newspapers, cereal boxes etc.  Now I download books, newspapers, and magazines from the net and read them on my laptop, netbook or iPod.
  • I’m always behind in my reading. So many books and so little time.  Now I catch up on my reading by listening to ebooks I download. (No more excuses about using the elliptical trainer boring)
  • I love doing jigsaw and crossword puzzles.  Now I down load jigsaw puzzles and do them on my laptop or netbook.
  • I love listening to the radio. Now I listen to it  on my laptop, netbook or iPod.
  • I love trivia so I was always consulting my set of encyclopedias.  Now I ask google my questions and download the answers.
  • I love to knit but find it difficult to find patterns I like in my local yarn shop.  Now I find patterns I like on-line  and  download them.  Many of the patterns are free.
  • I find shopping mostly a frustrating experience so now I do more and more  of my shopping  on-line.
  • I love learning new things so I’m forever downloading podcasts and videos.

Are you laughing out loud with me yet?

Those are just the things I do on-line that aren’t work related.  I spend hours on line looking for ways to engage my more reluctant/struggling students.  I’ve downloaded all kinds of teaching tools and learning tools. I spend writing this blog and reading many others.

Tracy suggested I consider the new media in all its  forms as part of students’  lives and not something  separate from their lives,  something that takes away from their lives or something that creates a huge imbalance in their lives.  I guess I’d have to say that the new media is a really big part of my life, a really valuable tool that helps me keep my life balanced.

LOL!!!

Image thanks to mahalo

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Jan

20

The 53 hours a week teens spend on media use is way too much of a good thing.

Filed Under "At-risk" students, Computers In The Classroom, Digital toys, The way I see it, underachieving students | 6 Comments

“Young people now devote an average of 7 hours, 38 minutes to daily media use, or about 53 hours a week — more than a full-time job.” Whoa!!!! according to the report, “Generation M2: Media in the Lives of 8- to 18-year-olds,” which is based on a survey of more than 2,000 students nationwide.

No wonder some of my student seem dead tired in school. School itself is a full time job. Now that kids are spending more time with media these days than time on school, it’s a wonder students have time to do any homework at all. I guess should be impressed with the marks they do get! Research determined that marks for heavy media users are lower than marks for light media users. although, more research needs to be done to determine if there is a definite cause and effect.

Years ago I remember reading that when kids spend 24 hours a week on a part time job their grades go down significantly because it’s too much for kids to manage. Fifry three hours a week on media must be way, way too much. When do kids sleep? No wonder some of my students aren’t coping. I don’t think I could do my job very well if I spent 53 hours on media either. I tell my students school is their job, and they shouldn’t let anything interfere with their job.

Kids spend most of their time on their cell phones checking out Facebook,MySpace, texting, playing video games, watching TV and listening to music. They actually don’t spend much time actually talking on their cell phones. Those 53 hours kids spend on media takes away from family time. Communication between parents and kids is almost non existent. I can remember before my son, Chris, got his license, I had to drive him every where. Bus service was almost non-existent in our community at that time. We used to talk about things while we were together in the car. I can remember thinking it would be great when Chris gets his license and can drive so that I won’t have to take him everywhere. It turned out to be great on one hand, but wasn’t on the other. Since he drove himself to whereever he had to go, we didn’t have that time together in the car to talk about things. I came to really miss that time. I felt I’d lost something precious. I would imagine now if I were driving Chris, we might not have those conversations because he would be wrapped up in his iPhone or Ipod or iSomething or other. That would be a shame.

Parents of course can limit the time kids get to spend on media. Some parents block incoming messages during homework time and after 11:00 pm. that sems like a good idea. I just had a thought. Teachers in schools have been encouraged to use web based tools as productivity tools to teach with and as a cognitive means to support learning. If using web based technology really catches on in schools so that all teachers use it in their classrooms to teach and to have their students create and demonstrate learning, how many hours a week will kids then spend using media 63, 73 ???. It’s kind of scary. Is that a good thing. I’m not sure.

Photo thanks to azureon2

Jan

17

We’ve forgotten to ask a very important question.

Filed Under "At-risk" students, The way I see it | Leave a Comment

You know what?  I think we’ve forgotten to ask a very important question.  We’ve been asking what can the education system do to help prepare children for the 21st century.  There are lots and lots of debates and suggestions about what skills and tools our children will need to meet the challenges that arise as the  21st century unfolds. Just Google and you will be overwhelmed by it all.   I think, though,  we’ve forgotten to ask another very important question.  What are parents doing to prepare their children for the challenges of the 21st century?

A study

published last month in the Journal of Marriage and Family and funded by The National Institute of Aging, looked at the relationships of 633 Philadelphia-area parents, aged 40 to 60, and their 1,384 children, aged 18 to 33. The authors found that many of the grown children were having trouble weaning themselves off the parental teat: 76 per cent got domestic help monthly, 79 per cent got money most months and 93 per cent got a check-in chat or other emotional support weekly.

How is all that support  helping young adults become independent? Are these parents doing this to fulfill a need they have?   How independent can you be if you are still depending on Mommy and Daddy?  Are these young adults like Peter Pan and never want to grow up?

Educators  are trying to find ways to help students become independent thinkers and risk takers so they can meet the challenges of the 21st century. Our report cards even evaluate kids on things like initiative  and work habits.  Initiative and works habits are valued at school,  why not at home?  It seems teachers and parents like those in the study are working at cross purposes .

Why are some  parents encouraging their children to remain dependent and helpless?  How is this going to help their adult children cope with life?  This major enabling sounds like a recipe for disaster. Are the majority of young  adults going to think the 21st century is a century of entitlement- theirs. ?  Are parents encouraging their children to become narcissistic?  That doesn’t bode well for the future.

I suppose you can argue that life is more complicated now and our children need our support longer, but

If you spend 10 formative years at your peak capacity depending on other people, that has to set up a habit of how you behave in the world,” said Joseph Allen, a clinical psychologist and co-author of Escaping the Endless Adolescence: How We Can Help Our Teenagers Grow Up Before They Grow Old.

I am concerned.  Am I missing something here?

 

 

 

 

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