Welcome to Teachers At Risk
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Feb
7
Helping students schedule their homework into their distracted lives.
Filed Under "At-risk" students, Engaging Assignments and Activities for Students, Goals, Graphic Organizers, motivating students, underachieving students | 4 Comments
There are any number of reasons why students don’t get their homework done. Some students have part time jobs after school or have to take care of siblings. Others play sports, take music lessons, just hang with friends or spend time online doing whatever. There’s lots to distract kids from doing homework, especially some of the more reluctant or struggling students I support who welcome the distractions that take them away from doing homework. I’ve found that telling these students that doing homework should come first before anything else is really counterproductive. So I don’t. I surprise them my telling them I can help them work homework into their schedule so that they can do the other things they want to do as well as homework the need to do to be more successful in school.I start by giving them a chart that lists the days of the week and the different times of the day and then ask them to record all their activities and the times they would do them. I just have them do it for one week. Then I help them schedule their homework into the open time slots. Amazingly, this works. I help them “see” the available time slots. Sometimes this involves a bit of rearranging of activities on the part of the student, but usually by the time we’re finished the student is satisfied with the homework schedule. They think it reasonable, and that’s half the battle. They don’t feel homework interferes with their life or that life interferes with their homework.
I suggest that the students tell their friends that they’re busy during the time allotted to do homework so they won’t be disturbed at that time. That shouldn’t be a big deal because they already have scheduled time to talk to friends anyway. I also suggest they don’t do any homework after 10 pm.
Some students schedule homework the same day everyday. Others schedule homework a different time every day. I leave it up to them. It has to be their plan for it to work. Of course we revisit the schedule after the first few weeks and rejig it where necessary.
The point I am trying to make here for my students is that homework can be worked into their lives. Homework doesn’t mean they have to give up the things they like or have to do. I talk about doing things in moderation- homework included. I tell them I try to achieve a balance in my life, and I think they should strive to do the same. Being a student is only part of their lives. Being a teacher is only part of mine. I think we understand one another.
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
15
The problem of using common sense to regulate teacher conduct
Filed Under Behaviour Management, The way I see it, motivating students | Leave a Comment
I was reminded again about the problem with common sense when I read that the Alabama House of Representatives had blocked a teacher code of conduct from becoming law. Opponents argued that the standards were too vague. Supporters argued that they weren’t because they were based on “common sense and something all parents, teachers and legislators should support”.Common sense is not common. It is very subjective. Let me explain. I teach in a high school with a student population of about 1 700 students. You could easily hear over 60 languages being spoken as you negotiate your way through the halls from one class to the next. Many new immigrants settle in the area served by our school. These immigrants bring with them “the common sense” that served them in their homeland. It may or may not be the “common sense” of the community they live in now.
Some students in my class have told me that teachers ought to be able to beat their students when students misbehave. That made common sense to them. That’s what teachers did “back home” and it worked, they tell me. Kids behaved themselves because they could be beaten if they didn’t. A few parents have even given teachers permission to beat their kids if they misbehave. Thank fully, the common sense that dictates corporal punishment for student misbehaviour is not common to everyone.
I don’t mean to imply here that it is only the case that some immigrants have different “common senses”. That’s certainly not the case at all. I just wanted to make the point that common sense can vary from culture to culture, from community to community and even within a community. There’s nothing common about common sense.
In Ontario, the Education Act, law, sets out the code of conduct for teachers regarding students and for students regarding teachers. The code of conduct is not left to common sense. It doesn’t seem to me there are any major problems with the code. If anyone knows of any, I would appreciate hearing about them. I don’t want to go into a lot of detail here except to say that teachers who break the code of conduct suffer consequences for their actions. Sometimes that means they have their teaching certificate withdrawn; sometimes they are required to get appropriate counseling or training.
I think it is useful to have a code of conduct enacted in law because it forces everyone to be on the same page about what is expected from teachers and from students. It doesn’t matter what a person’s “common sense” tells them. It’s what the code of conduct as law says that counts. I think this gets around the problem of different “common senses”. What do you think?
Photo thanks to didbyatgraham
Jan
12
It takes a lot of teacher effort to make math easy.
Filed Under Engaging Assignments and Activities for Students, The way I see it, math, motivating students, positive climate, underachieving students | 1 Comment
Over the years, I’ve found that it takes a lot of effort to make math easy for my students. End of semester exams are fast approaching, and I am doing my utmost to prepare my students. I’ve created some new review material for my grade nine math students that I hoped would help them better understand the unit on slope, intercepts, lines and the equations y = mx and y = mx + b. That’s pretty abstract stuff for some of my grade nine students, especially the ones who didn’t actually pass math in grade eight but because of social promotion are now in my grade nine math class.
It’s been a challenge all semester long to keep these kids engaged enough so they can learn. I feel as if I’ve been dancing as fast as I can. I have found using the LCD projector or even the overhead projector to teach the lesson and take up work useful. I don’t know exactly why kids pay more attention when my lesson is projected on a screen than written on the blackboard. Maybe the screen reminds them of of a video monitor? I don’t know why, but since it works I keep doing it. Has anyone else found this to be the case?
The last couple of days have been pretty hectic. I’ve been pushing my students to do their best, and to be honest, it’s exhausting. At the end of class today, I was beginning to think that maybe I was pushing myself too much, too. I had spent most of Saturday creating review material and most of Sunday refining the exam so that my students could demonstrate their learning to the best of their ability.
My husband, not a teacher, was watching all this and told me that I was handing my students their lessons on a silver platter. He felt I was doing too much. I told him that I wasn’t handing them their lessons on a silver platter. I was differentiating instruction. I thought that was funny. He didn’t. I guess it’s an inside joke.
Today at the end of class as I was gathering up my materials, just dying for a cup tea to sooth my throat, one of my students came over and told me something that had made all that work on the weekend and all those other weekends this semester worthwhile. He told me that he liked the way I taught because I made math easy. He had never found math easy before. If he didn’t get it, I would explain it in another way. I need to remember those words when I get discouraged or feel overwhelmed. Yes, making math easy takes a lot of work, but it is so rewarding. Now, for that cup of tea.
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