I'm currently doing a long-term subbing assignment until just about the end of the year. It's with a great school in the Extended Resource Room. I'm working with the kids that are "integrated", but come to this reading lab to help with their reading and comprehension skills as well as work on homework from other classes in a supportive environment.
However, given the nature of the class and the students in it, we've been running into some issues - on an academic level but also on the behavior level. Students have 3-4 pages of work that need to be completed each day. The students receive their week packet on Monday (with different activities) and I list the pages students need to work on, then support them as they make their way through at their own pace. Each should only take about 5-10 minutes (in a 45-minute class), so students should generally be able to complete the work and have time left over. For some students, it's working great. For other students, not so much - and they're making it harder for the students who would be getting their work done otherwise.
Some of the problems we are having on the academic level is a lack of comprehension and, though the class is small, I cannot attend to the quiet, struggling student sufficiently because I'm dealing with the behavior problems. The behavior problems are general off-task issues, which are usually fairly disruptive and distracting to me and the other students. We need some sort of solution that motivates students to behave properly and do their work, but also one that allows me to give students more support to make sure they're actually understanding the work (which not being able to understand is part of the behavior problem!).
In trying to figure out a viable solution - especially since I'm only here four more weeks - I recalled a strategy that I had read about on the MoreTPRS Yahoo! group and then also experienced in a few elementary-school classes. Moreover, my supervising teacher began using it in his classroom and loves it.
The basic principle is to award students points for good behavior/work, leading up to a certain goal. What makes it powerful is how it's customized for a class.
In this class, I'm thinking of setting a timer for 10 minutes and starting it after I explain the worksheet. Every student who finishes their work with a B or better within that time will get a point for their class and have the remainder of the 10 minutes to choose what they do (within reasonable limits, of course). When the timer goes off, I'll collect all papers - completed or not - and hand out the next activity. When students reach a certain number of points, they get a reward (in this class, it'd be a "free day"). This allows me to make sure students are actually with me to hear my instructions and work on the proper worksheet that I've just explained with help - and a motiviation to get it done!
In the future, I want to use this in a class to motivate students to stay in Spanish. I can have a designated student be the "timer" who starts the timer for 8 minutes. If anyone speaks in English without permission (including me!), the timer restarts. If we make it the entire 8 minutes, we get a marble in a jar! Once the jar fills up, it's reward day! I'll let students pick their rewards, but it'll be something along the lines of a "kindergarten day", movie, etc. - it'll be educational, but fun and relaxing. This is what my supervising teacher is doing, and he says it's made a huge difference in his class!
No comments:
Post a Comment