Happy Weekend!
I'm so shocked at how fast these days are flowing by...
I'm just finishing up week 2----
and I feel like I've been back forever!
Today I'm linking up with Joanne from Head Over Heels for Teaching
I'm trying to do things differently this year in many ways and for many reasons.
One main difference is that since I've been at this for 8 years now, I want to stay fresh and different with my teaching and ideas. I also want to incorporate the kids as much as I can in everything that I do, which is why I've done things differently this year.
If you've read anything I've posted this last week,
you will know that my room still isn't 100% ready,
and for the first time in history, I'm ok with it.... well kind of ;)
It's still driving me crazy, but I'm learning to be ok with it.
I've had students do things that I normally do.
Hence my Student Motivation this week:
Student Made Expectations!!
In the past I've always had us 'come up' with our own rules and expectations and then take home all of the notes and make a pretty poster with what I think are the best things for classroom rules and expectations. Well, I'm at the point with a new school year and a new baby where I don't have time for that. So this year, it truly was a student led process, in hopes that they will take even more ownership of their actions, and hopefully spark their motivation to follow the expectations that we have made together for our class.
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We started with reading Officer Buckle and Gloria
to put a funny twist to rules and importance of following them.
After that we started making a list of things that we should
always remember to do as people working and learning
in a classroom environment.
We made our notes on post-its and then grouped them together.
It just so happened that they came up with breaking apart the expectations
for different parts of the day.
They came up with their own consequences too....
Not exactly what I would have done but, like I said,
we're going with all student led at this point....
We also have one big brainstorm chart that we made with everything in one place that is being hung over our classroom door so we can see it each time we exit the room. I am sorry to say that I forgot to take a picture of it. I love how it turned out though, so we can always use it as a reminder when we go out somewhere into the school.
I'm not saying this is going to work
any better than classroom rules/expectations have been done in the past,
but I'm trying to do it a little different.
I would have NEVER been caught putting
posters that looked like this up in my room,
because in my mind they aren't 'pretty' or 'crafty' enough.
So this is new for me and very different.
However, I'm hoping that this will help the students remember
exactly the process and steps
that we took to make these expectations up together
and will think twice before not following them.
How are you trying to spark motivation in students
to follow expectations or take charge of
taking responsibility for following expectations?
We use CHAMPS at our school, so on the first day I put out the words for champs (C=conversation, H=Help, A=Activity, M=Movement P=Participation) and then broke the kids into 5 groups (I know there are 6 letters but the "s" stands for signal and we have a school-wide quiet signal so no need to discuss that one.) In their group they talked about how we should behave in that area to be successful. Then I made a (kinda) pretty poster of it. I call these our agreements and this is powerful when I need to remind someone of appropriate behavior because I say something like "Bobby, you agreed that we need to follow directions, right? This is your reminder."
ReplyDelete-Lisa
Mrs. Spangler in the Middle
I'm using positive behavior management at school and this lesson with Officer Buckle and Gloria goes perfect with learning the rules. It also hits many social studies standards.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing!!
Rambling About Reading
I think you'll be surprised at how receptive your students will be to your new plan for them to take ownership! They're going to be motivated to take on so many more challenges as the year goes on. I've always had my students create their own rules and consequences, but not our class procedures. (only because they're already done for all our routines). I think your students stepped up and did a great job! Thanks for sharing and linking up Ana! I can't wait to hear more about their class decisions/ownership this year!
ReplyDeleteJoanne
Head Over Heels For Teaching