Student | Education Aims

Classroom Management Strategies

When it comes to classroom management, there are a ton of ideas for keeping the kids in line. One of the biggest strategies is to have management techniques at three levels: class as a whole, rows of students, and individuals.

PARTY

For the class level, a great strategy is PARTY. Each day, the students as a class can earn one letter towards the word party. This means that a party can be earned each week if the children work together. A party is just 30 minutes where the students basically have free time; they can talk, play board games, read, etc. It’s nothing elaborate with treats, which makes it easy for the teacher to provide, and with the students being on task, more than 30 minutes a week is saved in lost time. As a teacher, you decide what the requirements are for earning a letter.

Rows

The next level is each of the rows. At the beginning of each day, you’ll begin with a clean slate. As you do activities, give rows points for being on task and behaving. When you leave the classroom (for recess, lunch, etc.) then the row with the most points gets to line up first.

Individual

This strategy is in the form of punishment for misbehavior. When a student breaks one of the classroom rules, then his or her name is put on the board as a warning. If the student misbehaves again, then a check is placed next to his or her name. For each check, the student must stay in for 30 seconds or so when the other students leave for recess, etc.

Filed Under: Careers, Education Tagged With: Classroom management, Education, Student

Understanding Kids with ADD/ADHD

Image by James F Clay via Flickr

When it comes to teaching kids with ADD, it may be hard for teachers to understand what they’re going through. Many of these students don’t qualify for an IEP because most kids with ADD are very bright and aren’t disabled enough to qualify. So what can you as a teacher do to help?

Extra Allowances

Although these kids don’t qualify for IEPs, extra help is still needed. One of the first things you can do is allow them to do things you wouldn’t for most students. For example, while taking a test, it may be helpful to let them stand or move around. If you have a quiet area in the classroom with cubicle walls, allowing them to study or take tests there will help because they will be less distracted by other students.

Additional Help

Kids with ADD often need extra help with certain thing such as having someone write down their answers. Many times, what happens in the case of a scribe is that the scribe will write down exactly what the student says with not capitalizing or punctuation. Then the student will go through and add those into the text. Another thing that might help is having someone read the questions to the student and working with the student one-on-one.

The main thing when it comes to helping students with ADD is to be understanding of what they’re going through. Many think because they don’t see anything outwardly wrong with them that it’s not as bad as they say. ADD can run from being slight annoying to highly debilitating so take it on a case-by-case basis.

Filed Under: Careers, Education Tagged With: Education, Individualized Education Program, Student

Technology in the Classroom

Image by Extra Ketchup via Flickr

Back 50 years ago, it was unheard of to have computers in the school or in the classroom. PCs were nonexistent. Then the ’80s came and suddenly, it was feasible to have computers at schools. Now computers are part of our everyday lives. There are not many people who don’t use computers in one form or another in their jobs and it’s essential for students today to learn to use computers and other technology.

Learning to Use Technology

For most children, learning to use technology will come naturally because their parents have computers, mp3 players, smartphones, tablet PCs, laptops, and more. These children will learn how to use these computers as they grow up. There are still children, however, that do not have these types of technology in their homes. Schools will the first places where these students will be exposed to computers and other technology. The earlier these kids learn how to use technology, the more adept they will be in the future and with the world becoming so technical, this knowledge is essential.

A Computer for Every Student

In the ideal classroom, there would be one computer for every student. This may be in the form of small netbooks, laptops, or tablet PCs. Every student would have the same applications on their computer and the teacher would have a projector that would display his or her computer on a screen to teach the students how to do things.

Through the use of this technology, students will learn how to use computers in depth and will be more ready to be in a world with so much technology.

Filed Under: Computers and Internet, Education, Personal Development Tagged With: Classroom, Student, Technology