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An honour
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Edublog AwardsApr
30
The joys of sharing web 2.0 technology
Filed Under Blogging in and out of the Classroom, Computers In The Classroom, Engaging Assignments and Activities for Students, motivating students, positive climate, The way I see it, underachieving students | Leave a Comment
Today was such a rewarding day at work. I spent the entire day with a young teacher sharing what I’ve learned over the years about teaching reluctant and struggling learners.
I started by showing her a PowerPoint presentation that I used when I did a presentation at a conference a couple of years ago. I’ll share it here with you. (Please forgive the couple of spelling errors.) It was a great starting point for sharing what I use in my classroom that engages my students. Just viewing it without hearing the presentation isn’t as useful as it might be, but perhaps you can get an idea or two from that you can use.
If you have any questions, I’d be delighted to answer them.
Apr
22
The controversy about the benefits of listening to music in the classroom continues.
Filed Under motivating students, music in the classroom, Special Education, The way I see it, underachieving students | 9 Comments
The controversy about the benefits of listening to music in the classroom continues. In an earlier post, I argued that listening to music helps students better concentrate on the task at hand. I have been encouraging my students who have difficulty maintaining their focus in class because they have attentional deficits to listen to music while they work on their assignments. Why? The music they listen to acts like white noise to drown out many of the distractions caused by such things as a pencil dropping to the floor, someone in class sneezing etc. Some students have difficulty ignoring the multitude of minor distractions that occur in a busy classroom. The music they listen to distracts them from the distractions, if you will, so their attention isn’t darting all over the place as each new sound occurs. I hope I’m making sense here. The point being that when students listen to music while working they aren’t as easily distracted by other sounds and can better focus on the task at hand.
I haven’t done any scholarly research to support my contention that listening to music helps students with challenges like attention deficit hyperactive disorder focus on the task at hand. I’m basing my contention on the experience I’ve had for more than years supporting students who have attentional difficulties. Listening to music helps some students retain their focus.
GB, one of the readers of an earlier post of mine about the benefits of listening to music, made me aware ( see the comment she left) of an article that discusses the benefits of listening to music. The article concluded ” listening to music unfortunately won’t increase your concentration”.
I can just hear all the groans from those students who tell me they are writing persuasive essays and looking for evidence to support the practice of listening to music in the classroom to help them concentrate.
The author of the article discusses the current research on the effect of music on concentration with personality types as an independent variable. It does not follow that since listening to music does not help introverts or extroverts concentrate, listening to music would not help students with attentional difficulties concentrate. The independent variables are different. I know of no study that has attentional difficulties as the independent variable. If someone is aware of such a study, please let me know. I’d really appreciate it.
Photo thanks to e-magic
Apr
14
Yesterday I wanted to pack it in. Today I love teaching again.
Filed Under Behaviour Management, Dealing With Stress, positive climate, The way I see it | 6 Comments
Every job has its ups and downs. Sometimes it seems there are more downs than ups. Teaching is no different. This semester thus far has had more than its fair share of downs. Some of my students are extremely needy, and their need is wearing me down.
Yesterday, I actually thought it might be time retire right then and there in the middle of period two. Enough! I won’t bore you with the details, but I was so fed up I actually went on line at lunch time and checked out what my pension would be if I retired right then and there. I was even going to call CBO and ask them to send the retirement information package, but I was too busy at work and after work I didn’t get a chance to make the phone call. I just went home and was very quite- very unlike me. I was so upset, I didn’t even want any dinner. My husband noticed and told me I shouldn’t let my job get to me- easy for him to say.
Later that evening I started to mark a set of tests for my period two class and was pleasantly surprised how well the students did on the test. I’m always concerned that students in my period two class might not do as well they as could because some of the students are so loud and obnoxious in class. I expend so much time and energy calling home to talk to parents and enlisting the support of counseling and administration in an attempt to settle these students down. Drives me crazy.
As I marked more and more of the papers and saw that my students were really doing well, the tension I felt started to lift. I was surprised to see that despite all the noise in the classroom, my students were really learning and doing well. I don’t know how they can learn in all that noise. When I saw how well my students were doing on the test, I started to love teaching again. I know. I’m laughing too. What can I say.
Apr
12
From time to time, I like to have my grade 9 math students do mental math sometimes instead of using their calculator all the time. Today I had them do a puzzle that asked them to add and subtract two, three digit numbers .
Some of the students had forgotten how to borrow when subtracting and how to carry when adding so I did a little lesson on the board. At one point one of my students looked up from his work and said, “Miss, it’s really stressful to do math without a calculator”.
It was interesting to watch how much they enjoyed doing the math once they got the hang of it. I heard a couple of kids who couldn’t do the questions at the beginning of class proudly saying “I know how to do this.”
They were proud of being able to do the questions without a calculator.
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