Welcome to Teachers At Risk
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Feb
4
Setting SMART goals help students succeed
Filed Under Goals, Graphic Organizers, Special Education, underachieving students | 3 Comments
When I talk to my students about goals, many of them tell me that they don’t have any goals. I tell them they actually do, but they don’t realize it. They call their goals plans. The plans that they make for later in the day , later in week or later in the year are really goals. Then we discuss the characteristics of good goals. I try to lead the discussion so that we conclude that good goals are SMART goals and show the slide show below to illustrate the idea of SMART goals. If you’d like a copy, I’d be delighted to send you one. Just leave a request in the comment box.
After we watch the slide show, I have my students set their own short term, medium term and long term goals using the graphic organizer below.
Smart Goal Setting Organizer
Goals
Specific
(What/Why/How)
Measurable
(Time/Amount)
Attainable
(Strengths to use)
Realistic
(Why you can do it)
Timely
(Target date)
Short Term
Medium Term
Long Term
If you’d like this as well, just ask and I’ll send it to you as an attachment.
I’ve always had good results with this activity. We will revisit their goals during the semester to see how things are going and to set more goals.
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.
Oct
5
The buddy system is working well in my math class.
Filed Under Behaviour Management, Special Education, motivating students, positive climate, underachieving students | Leave a Comment
I love using the buddy system in my math classes because it’s such an efficient way to help kids get answers to any questions they have about the day’s lesson and makes monitoring their progress much easier. The students like the math buddy system because it enables them to meet needs in the classroom more easily.
At the beginning of the semester, I asked my students in my math classes to pair up with another student. I call these pairs math buddies. Sometimes three kids end up working together, but that’s OK too. Sometimes I “help” form the buddy groupings. Usually it all works out. As I’m typing this, it strikes me that the term math buddy might be a bit old fashioned. I guess it is in a way. I first heard about math buddies about 23 years ago. If anyone knows about a more up to date term for math buddies, I’d love to hear it.
Once the students form into buddies, I tell them that they are to work together helping each other by answering any questions they may have. I will only answer group questions, that is questions that their buddies can’t answer. If they have a question about anything they need to ask their math buddies first and if their math buddies don’t know the answer then it’s a group question and they can ask me. This cuts down on lots of questions like what page is the work on or what’s today’s date. I do have this information on the board, but it seems that some kids prefer to have someone tell them this informationn instead of reading it. I think that’s a huge waste of my time and it drive me crazy.
The buddy system with it’s group questions helps me be more effective. It seems to cut the class size in half. Without the buddy system I might have 22 kids in my class, 22 individual units if you will. That works out to a little over three minutes of time for each student. With the buddy system, I have only 11 units. That gives me twice a much time to help each pair of students and not all the pairs need help all the time. I think it’s a wonderful way to use the resources I have available- the student themselves. Since I have more time because the students are helping one another, I can give more in depth help to those students who need it or to those students who quietly sit there and do little.
My students like working together as buddies. There’s a nice vibe in the air while they work away on the day’s assignment. There’s joy and laughter in the class, and the work gets done. I can’t ask for more than that. After I’ve taught the lesson, someone always asks do we get into our math buddies now. I’ve yet to hear a groan. It’s rewarding to look down and see my “at-risk” students working so well and enjoying school, if only for a few moments.
I like the math buddy system because it frees me up to help those kid who might not normally get the help they need. You know those students who sit quietly and hope you don’t notice that they aren’t working. Sometimes they don’t want to ask the teacher for help or sometimes they lack motivation. I can go around to each team and monitor students progress and give them feedback quite easily. If a student it just sitting there, I’m more likely to notice and find out what the problem is. Students can’t “disappear” so easily.
All in all, I love the math buddy system. I’d say it’s right up there with the class blog for motivating my students. I think the math buddy system helps meet the needs of my students in many other ways, not just the obvious one of helping get the work done. The buddy system allows for completion between the buddies. Some students like that. Other students like to help. They certainly can do that. Some students like to work in groups. They can certainly do that. Even those students who like to work alone don’t seem to mind working with just one student. Given all this about the math buddy system, what’s not to love.
Oh yes, it helps keep me sane. I’m not running around like crazy trying to meet the needs of my students and wondering if I’ve missed helping someone.
Aug
12
Accommodating or enabling?
Filed Under "At-risk" students, Evaluation, Special Education, motivating students, underachieving students | 5 Comments
My more reluctant/struggling students will often start projects or assignments with the best of intentions. But, we all know where best intentions lead if sustained effort is absent.Sustaining effort is a challenge for many of my students. They start strong, and then just peter out for whatever reason (that’s a whole other topic) and don’t complete and/or submit their work. I want my students to get credit for what they’ve done, even if they haven’t completed the assignment or haven’t handed it in.
I know. I know. Some of you may be raising an eyebrow or two, but I’m working with “at-risk” kids who are used to failure. I want them to get used to success. So, I use teacher observation on a daily basis to evaluate the assignment as they work through it.
Yes, I can extend deadlines and do, but sometimes deadlines are absolute and can’t be extended like at the end of the semester. Often, I’m just left with promises, empty promises it turns out. Even though students have completed part of the assignment, they decide for whatever reason they’ll take a zero and not bother anymore.
Some of my students are quite used to getting zeros. They’ve gotten them many times in their school career. It’s really no big deal they’ll tell me. It’s a big deal to me though. I want my students to get credit for what they’ve done, and teacher daily observation notes while students are working on the assignments let me do that.
I mostly do this for the final evaluation. This evaluation is worth 30% of the final mark and can mean the difference between earning the credit or not earning the credit. This past semester, I had two students in my grade 12 class who didn’t submit the final evaluation before the absolute deadline. They had marks in the 80’s going into the final, but just didn’t submit the assignment in time. Fortunately, I had my observation notes and used those to evaluate their work. They didn’t get a high mark because they didn’t complete the assignment, but they did get a mark for what they had done.
Now, the question you might pose is: am I enabling my students to get away with poor work habits, or am I just making assessment accommodations so that my students can demonstrate their learning?
I figure that by using teacher observation to evaluate my students’ work in this wa, I’m just making assessment accommodations. My observations enable students to demonstrate their learning, which is just what accommodations are supposed to do. Any ideas?
Photo by Oh mon heros!
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