by tekassi19 | Apr 30, 2018 | Discipline With Purpose, Effectiveness & Efficiency, Empathy, Strategies & Tips for the Classroom
Has anyone noticed how little eye contact there seems to be these days? I was wondering if it was just me or if there has truly been a decline in eye contact. So I went searching and what I found was quite interesting.
Adults these days are making eye contact somewhere between 30% – 60% of the time in an average conversation, according to research from a communications-analytics company. These numbers seemed fairly high to me, until I read further.
I was surprised by what I discovered.
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by tekassi19 | Jan 29, 2018 | Effectiveness & Efficiency, Empathy, Strategies & Tips for the Classroom
Most teachers want to create an environment that is warm and welcoming to the students who enter the doors of their classroom. As educators, we know that children learn best when they are in a safe environment.
But what if some of the things we think are no big deal really are a big deal to children? What if we are contributing to the very problem we are trying to prevent? What if our behavior is having unintended consequences?
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by tekassi19 | Jan 14, 2018 | Effectiveness & Efficiency, Formatve Assessment, Strategies & Tips for the Classroom
Walk into any teacher store and you will find a slew of colorful stickers—Wow! Amazing! Great Job! You’re #1! Excellent! Smart Cookie! Good one! A++! We add brightly colored stickers or markings to student work as a stamp of approval, hoping children will continue this kind of work.
The problem is that it doesn’t tell children anything important. In fact, this kind of “feedback”—vague praise—can do the very opposite of what we are trying to accomplish.
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by tekassi19 | Jan 8, 2018 | Effectiveness & Efficiency, Margin, School-Home Relationships, Strategies & Tips for the Classroom
Teachers make hundreds of decisions every single day—from the most trivial to the most consequential. Does the number of decisions we make have any impact on the quality of our decisions, especially at the end of the day? The answer is ‘Yes.’
No one sets out to make a bad decision, and yet we often end up making decisions we regret. We say ‘Yes’ to things we want to decline and we say ‘No’ to things we want to say ‘Yes’ to. Or we just give in. Why do we do that?
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by tekassi19 | Oct 30, 2017 | Effectiveness & Efficiency, Formatve Assessment, Strategies & Tips for the Classroom
The backlash against teaching to the test came for a good reason. Teachers were teaching students what they needed to know in order to pass whichever test the school district deemed to be most important that year. Teachers sacrificed academic content to make sure students knew how to answer the test questions. The focus was on passing the test, not on what was best for students. Unfortunately, many teachers threw the baby out with the bath water. And that was a huge mistake. You should teach to the test, but only if you do it the right way.
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by tekassi19 | Oct 23, 2017 | Effectiveness & Efficiency, Strategies & Tips for the Classroom
Are you tired of writing in the margin “give more detail”, “please expand”, “elaborate on this idea” or “not enough detail”? How many times have you taken off points on an assignment because a student did not give enough detail?
Getting Students to add strong supporting details in their explanations and in their writing can feel like pulling teeth.
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