Simpson County Schools New Teacher Induction

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Simpson County SchoolsNew Teacher Induction

• July 20-22, 2009
• Welcome to our Team!

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Goals of New Teacher Induction

• Welcome and orient you to our district.
• Explore topics important to new teachers, and
  whats important for our district.
• Let you know you are not alone You are
  important to us. You are the future of our
  district!
• Long-term goal a network of resources, supports
  and opportunities for your first four years.

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Key Theme

• Effective teachers are proactive They can
  anticipate what students need, and work to
  address those needs before the students even
  appear in class.
• Effective teachers can predict where students are
  going to get off task or confused and plan
  accordingly.

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Key Topics of NTI

• Establishing positive relationships with students
• Predictive instructional planning (including
  classroom management)
• Establishing clear learning targets for student
  achievement
• Writing high-quality classroom assessments
• Delivering effective, engaging, research-based
  instructional strategies

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Expectations Procedures

• You are the expert on you and your experiences,
  so share them!
• Listen actively, ask questions, make a
  contribution.
• Be good to your neighbors.
• Well take breaks, but use the Law of Two Feet
  (youve got two feet, use them when you need
  them).

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The First Days of School Classroom Management

• New Teacher Induction
• Simpson County Schools
• July 20, 2009

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The Craft of Teaching

• Effective classroom management, like teaching in
  general, is a craft, blending elements of art and
  science.
• No one formula, technique or plan is going to
  work perfectly every time.
• The living, breathing, unpredictable little
  people we teach will let us know what works and
  what doesnt from day to day.

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Goals of this discussion

• Identify the most important elements of a
  successful first day of school.
• Explore the basic features of effective classroom
  management.
• Identify the key components of effective,
  predictive instructional planning.

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What makes the difference?

• Think of an effective teacher with whom you have
  had recent contact. Now think of an ineffective
  teacher. Compare these two individuals.
• What quality(ies) or practice(s) made one
  effective and the other ineffective?

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Establishing positive student relationships

• With a partner, generate a list of practical,
  easy steps you can use to establish positive
  personal relationships with students.

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Guidance/Control and Cooperation

• According to Marzano, effective student
  relationships are based two dynamics
  guidance/control and control.
• Guidance/control established by your learning
  targets, rules and procedures, and by emotional
  objectivity.

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Emotional Objectivity

• Its not personal.
• Successful teachers have realistic attitudes
  about kids
• Gushy, kids-are-wonderful teachers are not
  typically successful.
• Neither are bitter teachers who look upon
  students as the enemy.

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Action steps for emotional objectivity

• Consistently enforce positive and negative
  consequences for student behavior.
• Recognize emotions are natural and inevitable.
• Monitor your thoughts and emotions.
• Reframe situations that threaten to evoke
  negative emotions.

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Action Steps for emotional objectivity

• Maintain a cool exterior
• Avoid pointing, raising voice, glaring, moving
  toward students, or using ridicule.
• Speak in a calm respectful voice, make direct eye
  contact, maintain appropriate distance and
  neutral or positive facial expression.

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Cooperation

• Demonstrating concern and building a sense of
  community variables that make a difference
• Duration of interaction
• Encouraging students
• Gestures
• Smiles
• Frequency of interaction
• Praise/eye contact
• Touch
• Enthusiasm

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Action strategies for nurturing cooperation

• Know something about each student
• Start with disenfranchised students
• Use interest inventories
• Parent conferences
• Use your knowledge about kids to initiate
  conversations
• Use behaviors that demonstrate affection
• Greet by name
• Go to students after-school events

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More action strategies for cooperation

• Bring student interests into content areas
• Use physical behaviors that communicate interest
  in students smile, touch, eye contact, space
• Use humor (appropriately) especially laugh at
  yourself

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A word about social networking with students

• Dont avoid all social interaction with students,
  but exercise thoughtful judgment every time you
  face these situations.
• Dont put anything on the internet that you
  wouldnt want on your classroom wall.
• Some considerations regarding Facebook, email,
  texting, etc.

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Predictive Instructional Planning

• The First Days of School
• (with thanks to Harry Wong)

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What makes the difference?

• Effective teachers are proactive They can
  anticipate what students need, and work to
  address those needs before the students even
  appear in class.
• Effective teachers can predict where students are
  going to get off task or confused and plan
  accordingly.

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First Year Teachers

• Feel isolated, vulnerable, deeply concerned with
  how they will be perceived, yet afraid to ask for
  help. BUT the era of isolated teaching is
  over.
• --Harry Wong

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The Stages of Teaching

• Fantasy
• Survival
• Mastery
• Impact
• --Harry Wong
• The First Days of School

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It Takes a Plan

• To succeed, it takes love and skill. . . Love
  without expertise is powerless.
• --Fred Jones, Tools for Teaching

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The First Day (first seconds)

• Establishing consistency is the key
• Establishing control is the effect (but not
  through threats or intimidation)
• You know what you are doing
• You have clear classroom procedures
• You know your professional responsibilities

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What do students want to know?

• In small groups at your table, brainstorm the
  kinds of things students want to know when they
  enter your classroom.

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What students want to know

• Am I in the right room?
• Where am I supposed to sit?
• What will I be doing this year?
• Who is the teacher as a person?
• How will I be graded?
• What are the rules in this classroom?
• Will the teacher treat me as a human being?

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Answer the questions

• Greeting at the door
• Directions on seating and the first assignment
• Your first words

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Introduce your Discipline Plan

• About behavior, not academics
• Limited number of rules (general or specific)
• Posted rules
• Explain both the rules and why these rules are
  important
• Involve students in rule-making, but be careful
• Consequences and rewards

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Introduce your Procedures

• Procedures are critical to effective classrooms
• Explain, rehearse, reinforce
• Differ from rules in that there you will usually
  have limited rewards or consequences
• Reinforce following procedures with praise
  correct not following procedures with re-teaching
  and rehearsal

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Kinds of Procedures

• How to enter the classroom.
• What to do when they enter.
• Where to find the assignment.
• What to do when you want their attention.
• How to ask a question or ask for help.
• How a paper is to be done.

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Kinds of procedures, cont.

• Where you want assignments to go.
• What to do if they want to sharpen a pencil.
• Where to find assignments if theyve been absent.
• What to do at the dismissal of class.
• Substitute Teacher Test

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• Never underestimate what students dont know,
  regardless of their age. Be prepared to teach
  them EVERYTHING.

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Positive Expectations are Critical

• Five things that enhance communication of
  positive expectations
• name
• please
• thank you
• smile
• love

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Classroom Management General Principles

• Its easier to get easier (meaning add
  flexibility over time not the adage dont smile
  until Christmas)
• Fairness is the key.
• Deal with disruptions with as little interruption
  as possible.
• Avoid confrontations in front of students.
• Stop disruptions with a little humor (but not
  sarcasm).

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More General Principles

• Keep high expectations in your class.
• Over plan.
• Be consistent.
• Make rules understandable.
• Start fresh every day.

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Elements of a Well-Managed Classroom (Wong)

• Students are deeply involved with their work,
  especially with academic, teacher-led instruction
• Students know what is expected of them and are
  generally successful.
• There is a relatively little wasted time,
  confusion, or disruption.
• The climate of the classroom is work-oriented but
  relaxed and pleasant.

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Myths about Discipline

• Parents should teach values, not teachers.
• Punishment works.
• Bribing students so they will behave well works.
• Parents need to do something about their kids
  behavior.
• If you are not sure whos guilty, punish the
  entire class until someone tattles.

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More Myths

• They are old enough to know better.
• A teacher temper tantrum now and then shows that
  you mean business.
• Assigning punishment work will stop misbehavior.
• Dont smile until Thanksgiving (or Christmas or
  next summer).

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Disruptions The Teacher Killer (Jones)

• Most common management technique is to nag, nag,
  nag.
• The disruptions that cause a teacher to go home
  tired are the common misbehaviors that occur
  minute by minute, day after day.
• Talking to neighbors accounts for 80 percent of
  disruptions in a typical classroom, while out of
  seat accounts for 15 percent.

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Proximity Your 1 Tool

• Biggest factor in student goofing off physical
  distance from the teacher.
• Make an art of working the crowd.
• Use mobility and proximity to disrupt student
  impulse to be disruptive (using eye contact,
  questioning techniques, etc., to close the
  distances psychologically) classroom
  arrangement is a key.

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Proximity, continued

• Supervise work as you move about discipline
  management for free
• Allows you to speak to student at close range,
  reducing embarrassment and confrontation
• For more on classroom arrangements, see Tools for
  Teaching, Fred Jones

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Relax.

• Any classroom disruption will trigger a mild
  fight-flight reflex.
• This reflex not only makes you vulnerable to
  becoming upset, but it also stresses you
  physically.
• Triune Brain Theory (brainstem, paleocortex,
  neocortex) explains how the brain downshifts
  during a fight-flight reflex so that you end up
  functioning out of your brainstem instead of your
  cortex.

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Relax some more

• The understanding and the complex social skills
  required for leadership reside in the cortex.
• To lead under pressure, you need to use all of
  your knowledge and experience. Thus, the
  fundamental rule of social power is, Calm is
  strength. Upset is weakness.

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Breathe easy

• Remaining calm under pressure is achieved through
  relaxation. Relaxation is a skill that can be
  mastered with training.
• Practice daily relaxation (mindfulness
  meditation, for example), as well as relaxation
  on-the-spot (handout).

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Predictive, Proactive Teaching

• Lesson Planning that Brings it all Together

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What makes the difference?

• A key difference between successful and
  unsuccessful new teachers is the ability to
  predict before a lesson is taught all the ways
  that students might get off task and proactively
  plan to address those problem areas.

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The challenge

• When you are plan a lesson, put yourself in the
  mind of the student and try to anticipate every
  place in the lesson where students will get off
  task or confused.

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Predicting is a learned skill

• For some, this is an innate ability to analyze a
  lesson and find all the things that could go
  wrong.
• But for everyone, predictive teaching can be
  learned and with practice, a teachers ability to
  skillfully predict and proactively plan can be
  enhanced.
• This skill is never fool-proof, of course.

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Off-task triggers

• Lack clear and consistent rules and procedures
• Beginning of class
• Moving from activity A to B
• Gathering materials and supplies
• Wrapping up lesson
• Lesson activities intersect with lack of
  procedures (like moving into groups)

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More off-task triggers

• Students are asked to do something out of their
  comfort zone
• Instructions are unclear
• Deliver instructions verbally, orally, and in
  writing

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Confusion triggers

• Unclear instructions
• Lack of a clear learning target
• Lack of vocabulary or background knowledge
  (forget about what the students are supposed to
  know).
• Teacher doesnt know students are confused until
  its too late (use formative assessment
  techniques)

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Practicing Predictive Planning