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Weeks 15 & 16: Parent Communication

The final few weeks of Management are all about communicating well with the parents and caregivers of the children that we teach.  For your final project, you must show me your ability to initiate and maintain positive partnerships with theses people.  If you lost your rubric, you can download another one here.

In this week's class, everyone had a chance to see some examples of positive parent-teacher communication.  By popular request, here are the sheets from the learning centers and the form that I use for making Happygrams!  I can't believe we only have two more weeks left of Management!  See you in class!

Week 14: Homefun!

In week 14, we begin our unit on working with families.  Korean families are very involved in the education of their children, so it is very important that we establish good partnerships with them from the beginning.  In the class about homework, we learn a little more about how making children's school life a part of their home life can help to bridge the gap between parents and teachers by keeping mom and dad informed about what's happening in the classroom.  Always remember that the more informed parents and families feel about what happens in your classroom, the better they feel about you as a teacher for their child.  Here is this week's handout!

Another thing that will come up this week is your final project.  It's a good project with many practical elements.  After I collect your interview papers in week 15, I'll give out a rubric for the final project.  For right now, I'll say that you need to have a homework policy letter as part of the project.  Every week until finals, I will tell you another thing that you can put in your final project.  Just work at your own pace and I will collect all of it on week 18.  If you do a little every week, it should be easy!  Working on it all at once may not be all that difficult either.  To get you started, here are the sample policy letter and the policy letter writing guide that I handed out in class.

Weeks 11-13: Interview Papers and Other Stuff...

Now that we've finished off the unit on models of discipline, it's time to get started on your interviews.  The link to the required documents for the interview paper are to the right of this post.  The week after next (week 14), everyone needs to bring in their interview notes to share with friends.  It's just fine if the interview notes are in Korean, I will not be reading them very closely.  The actual interview papers will be handed in on week 15.

Here are all the class handouts for the models of discipline and the handouts for logical consequences.

Week 10: Models of Discipline

Time has flown by so fast!  I can’ believe that we are already working on the models of discipline units!  Handling problematic student behavior is not a simple process.  Because of the vast number of possibilities in regards to cultural and individual differences, there is not a single techniques that fits all situations.  Teachers need to be thoughtful and creative in how they deal with every unique student and every unique situation.  This is the reason why I teach models of discipline in our class.  We will take some time to apply these various models to different students so that when you teach, you can assess the situation and creatively apply these models with your actual students.

Personal influence

Everyone has a teacher in their life who was special.  Some lucky people have more than one teacher like this.  When we think of what made that teacher special, part of it is usually that this person was more than just a teacher.  He or she was also a little bit like a friend.  The personal influence model is the foundation on which all other aspects of classroom management rely.  If your students don’t feel a strong connection with you, it’s hard for you to use any of the other models that we will teach.  So get close with your kids! Listen to them.  Share a bit of yourself with them and show them that you love and care about them.  

Self-awareness

Sometimes we have students who display problematic behaviors, but they aren’t exactly aware of the behavior and/or its affect on other students.  The self awareness model is all about helping children realize these behaviors can be problematic and the impact of these behaviors on others.  Some key points with this model are to stay positive and be sure that when you’re discussing these behaviors with the child, your language focuses on the behavior and not on the child.  We will discuss these points more deeply in future classes.

This week, I will introduce you to some very special children.  I also noticed a lot of people take pictures of the handouts, so here are the files if you would like to print your own!

One more thing, don't forget to THINK about who you will interview.  See you in class!

Week 9: Rewarding Good Behavior

This week's class was about showing our students how much we appreciate them, but also about helping them to appreciate themselves.  When we use reward systems, it's important to first be sure that we actually need a reward system.  If you don't need it, don't do it!  However, if your students need a little "push" to help motivate them in class, rewarding the behaviors you want to see could help.

This was a very quick and simple lesson, but is meant as a bit of a rest before we move into some of the more challenging things ahead.  For next week's class, I would like everyone to watch the video below.  It's about a special teacher from Japan who has mastered the art of building community and closeness with his students.  It's the first part in a series of five.  Watch this one for sure, but watch the others if you have time.

Week 8: Cooperative Learning

EFFECTIVE TEACHING PRACTICES

The lesson on cooperative learning is the second lesson about managing classrooms through effective teaching practices. If our classes are well designing and thoughtfully prepared, our students will be engaged enough in class to make management easier for us.

THE ELEMENTS

Not all group work is cooperative learning. For a group activity to truly be a cooperative learning activity, there are five necessary elements that must be present. We learned about these in class by using a jigsaw structure! I was very impressed by the artwork that you all designed to express the meanings of these elements. Just for a review, here are the five elements of cooperative learning:

Positive Interdependence: 

Everybody works together and supports each other. In order for one of us to succeed, we must all succeed.

Individual Accountability:

Each person in the group has a responsibility. It shouldn’t be possible for one students to “coast” through the project or activity.

Face to Face Interaction:

Students work together and discuss in real time. 

Social Skills:

Students develop important interpersonal skills such as cooperation, negotiation, sharing and teamwork, among others.

Group Processing: 

While working and after the job is done, participants reflect on

their group work.


I couldn't find the file for the in-class materials on my computer, so here are some older materials that may even be more useful outside of class.

And just for fun...

Next Week's Agenda:  Positive Reinforcement