Motivation+and+Management

Meeting: Mondays 11:30-12:00

Members: Justin Suarez James McDonough Stacey Bell Michael Sands Robert Martin

We decided to start by reading the book "Tools for Teaching", by Fred Jones. In the following weeks we will be reading the book and discussing the chapters. Our next meeting we will meet on 1/31/11 to discuss the first chapter.
 * //1st Meeting Notes://**

We dicussed chapter 1 "Learning From Natural Teachers" today. In this chapter the Author describes what a natural is and what they look like in a classroom. The Author describes natural teachers as teachers with energy, teachers that do not work themselves to death they put the students to work, they have effective management which saves them time and effort and thus gives you more energy and enjoyment in the classroom. Natural teachers were also described as being emotionally warm, and relaxed. The main purpose of this chapter was to describe what a natural teacher looks like compared to a stressed out, reactive, tired, regular teacher!
 * 2nd Meeting Notes:**

Today we meet to discuss the chapter 2 "Focusing on Prevention". The key elements of this chapter are being proactive for discipline. The chapter introduced VIPs, visual instructional plan, as well as working the crowd and physical modality. These are tools to help those 'helpless handraisers" or students who are not independent workers and problem solvers become independent. In physical modality, students learn by doing, making learning physical keeps the students active and engaged. Teachers often incorporate verbal ( verbal prompt that helps a students who is stuck) and visual ( using pictures to help facilitate what students need to do next) modality for students who are not independent workers, but physical modality is justa s important.
 * 3rd Meeting Notes:**

Chapter 3 "Working the Crowd". This chapter descibes how important teacher proximity is for disipline management.Effective teachers make an art form of working the crowd. They know that you either work the crowd or the crowd works you. Physical distance from the teacher's body governs the likelihood of students goofing off. Teachers must look at the classroom like a stoplight. Each area is about eight feet in radius. The red zone students (nearest) the teacher have fewer problems.Outside of the red zone is the yellow zone. The students in this area act much in the same way students in the red zone act as long as the teacher is facing in their direction. Outside of the yellow zone is the green zone.The longer students are in this zone (five minutes) or more, the more the students will goof off. This chapter shares how effective teachers use proximity and mobility as tools of classroom management.Also the importance of body language in allowing the teacher to deal in a nonadversarial fashion with the common,everyday disruptions of the classroom.
 * 4th Meeting Notes:**

Chapter 4 "Arranging the Room" In this chapter we discussed how room arrangement is the biggest obstacle to interacting with students and moving around the room. If the room arrangement is poor, the teacher wastes a lot of time taking extra steps to interact with students and does not use their time effectively. The best room arrangement allows the teacher to move around the room interacting with students using the least number of steps. The chapter discussed many different types of room arrangements and the pros and cons of each. The best room arrangement allows for the teacher to use an internal loop. This maximizes the efficiency of the teacher to interact with all the students using the least number of steps, and this pattern can be adapted and has many forms. We discussed these different patterns and which pattern the teachers used in their rooms. The group met on March 21 at 11:30am.
 * 5th Meeting Notes:**

Chapter 5 “Weaning the Helpless Handraisers.” The idea of this chapter is that the more needy students obstruct classroom management by demanding the teacher’s time and attention. He suggests that the average classroom has five to six needier students per class, and that the needier students are consistently the same students you have to deal with everyday. This means that these students are learning to be helpless. They are zoning out during the introduction to a lesson, and then they are immediately raising their hands once the teacher is finished. He calls this behavior Learned Helplessness, and he says that it is the most common learning disability America. He tells us building independence is the only way to deal with this problem, in the following chapters he will tell us how.
 * 6th Meeting Notes:**

Chapter 6 “Simplifying the Verbal Modality”. This chapter gives us some ideas of ways to improve learned helplessness. When a student is in need we improve their chances by simplifying both the procedure and prompt we are giving them. He suggests we are clear, brief, and gone. Teachers often can give to many directions or steps at a time. Another area of concern was when we are helping a student we automatically see the part of the problem that is wrong and address only that problem. He teaches us to first control our physical response to the situation, we are to take a minute and gather ourselves. Next he says to praise, or to focus the student’s attention on what they have done right and use it as a bridge to the next prompt. Lastly he tells us to leave before the student finish the prompt, so they can learn to become independent workers.

** 7th Meeting Notes: ** Chapter 7 “Teaching the Visual Modality”. This chapter starts off by talking about backsliding. It suggests that around three months teachers will fall back into their old habits, and the Helpless Handraisers will again take over. Teachers are encouraged to develop a Visual Instructional Plan or VIP, in order to combat backsliding. A VIP is essentially a step by step visual that utilizes minimal words. There are three types of VIP’s: Performance Illustrations, Performance Outlines, and Mind Maps. A Performance Illustration uses no words it relies on simple steps, and illustrations. A Performance Outline is used when going over notes. Rather than unload information on students and expect them to pick up the important information, an outline is used to showcase the important elements to the lesson. Lastly are Mind Maps, they are a combination of Performance Illustrations and Outlines. Central charts, pie charts, tree charts or flow charts are all examples of Mind Maps.

CHAPTER 8 “Integrating with the Physical Modality”. This chapter’s main focus is dedicated to achieving comprehension and long term memory. It suggests that when teaching our lessons should make a connection between explaining, demonstrating, and doing. It calls this process Say/See/Do. The chapter defines time as the biggest enemy of memory. In order to best retain information long term it suggests that we think of our lesson as a play with a beginning, middle, and end. The begin is called “Setting the Stage”, basically it is letting students know the importance of the lesson, reviewing previous knowledge, and explaining the goals and objectives. The middle is referred to as “The Meat and Potatoes”. This is the point at which the teacher goes over the Say/See/Do. In this process the Say/See/Do should be preformed step by step, so that the lesson isn’t overwhelming. The end is called the “Consolidation”. During Consolidation students are first doing guided practice, then independent practice, then generalization and discrimination. The practice is meant to be structured so that the students are continually reinforcing positive habits.


 * 8th Meeting Notes:**
 * Chapter 9:** "Creating Motivation". The main focus of this chapter was creating independance through motivation. This chapter talked about recognizing things we do not control such as a students attitude toward learning, enrichment in the home environment, students raised by the yell and hit method of parenting, ills of society, etc. The author then talks about things we do control and how to motivate the student while we have them in our classroom. Things that were effective in motivating students are Incentives (formal, and informal), preferred activities, learning games, interest centers and helping the teacher. The author shows us that by using a variety of motivation tools (listed above) in the classroom it helps ween the student off being dependant on the teacher to becoming and independant learner. By using small "cheap" goals, rewards and incentives the student is able to answer "why should I" and now has a reason to do the assignments given other than that of because your supposed to or because we told you to.


 * Chapter 10:** "Providing Accountability" This chapter is focused on the goal of quality and getting the most out of your students. This chapter explains to us that incentive systems require continuous work, that we should check to ensure that studenst work carefully rather than just quickly. Another tool in this chapter is Say, See, Do Teaching and the creation of independent learning. Finally when work becomes too complex to scan and check rapidly, it is time for the teacher to get help. Train students to check their own work and conscientiously solve their own problems.


 * Chapter 11:** Succeeding from Day One: In this chapter the author teaches us that students are good at assessing the absence of effective structure. They can tell whether their teachers are proactive or reactive, whether they are old pros or rookies. The rules in any classroom are defined by reality. Whatever any student can get away with they will. Yet another thing the author teaches us is that much of the management in a typical classroom is by default. Students fool around becasue the teacher has not structured anything better for them to do. Structure begins as the students enter the classroom.


 * Chapter 12:** Teaching Routines: This chapter is about how classroom routines train the students to carry out procedures with a minimum of wasted time. Each routines must be taught with the care of any other lesson. This is time-consuming at the beginning, but it pays large dividends for the remainder of the semester. By having the studens do chores, students learn to take pride in helping out around the classroom. The rule of chores is, Never do anything for the students that they are thouroughly capable of doing for themselves.

Chapter 13 was about trying to understand dysfunctional behavior in children called "brat behavior." It outlined the problem of equating discipline with punishment, and how traditionally the larger the crime or inappropriate behavior the greater the punishment. The author states that 5 percent of the student population makes up 90 percent of the referrals to the office, and how inadequately prepared new teachers are in handling dysfunctional behavior in students. The system is broken, and does not work using this logic. It is emphasized how ineffective the teacher is when the only recourse is to send them down to the office. This sends the message that the teacher can not handle the situation.
 * 9th Meeting Notes:**

Chapter 14 The emphasis is placed on how powerful and effective it is for teachers to learn to be calm in stressful situations, and how it is a show of weakness to lose ones temper and act upset in the face of dysfunctional behavior**.** The natural fight flight reflex is discussed and how to learn to lead and act under pressure to handle the complex social skills needed to manage a classroom. How to remain calm under pressure is a skill that can be learned and mastered through training. How to relax. "Calm is strength. Upset is weakness" can not be overstated as an essential skill for all teachers to have cultivated to become a successful teacher now and in the long term measured by having adaptive functional students as well as healthy, happy teachers.

Chapter 15 The most important maxim of a functional classroom is the rule that in all cases in all times discipline comes before instruction in the classroom. The author states that a teacher must have clarity in where he or she stands in your own behavioral boundaries because without clarity in your thinking there will not be clarity in your actions. The author states that a good teacher must know this to the extinct that when a disruptive behavior is seen that interferes with learning in the classroom a teacher must act and not think. If you think it is too late. The author states to don't consult your feelings. Know your behavioral boundaries and act from your feelings, and above all be consistent. Students show know your expectations and not be surprised by the rules, and to be consistent a good teacher must have mental clarity of what they expect and consistently follow up immediately spontaneously on them as the classroom is progressing toward its goals.

Chapter 16 This chapter beautifully outlines how the clarity of how we have resolved our expectations for classroom management and discipline in our own minds is read by our students through our body language. When a teacher is unclear, unsure, unprepared in their own minds about what they expect behaviorally in the classroom, they telegraph this laissez faire attitude within them selves to the students through their body language. The students read the teachers body language to determine how to act in the classroom. If the teacher has clarity of behavioral management and expectations within their own mind they will reflect this outwardly in their body language which student easily interpret and act upon.

Chapter 20 Cooperation is like a gift. But before students give the teacher any cooperation that is required, the teacher must repeatedly answer the question "Why Should I " ?. We have to get these kids who's parents can't get them to do anything, To do six assignments per day, to the best of thier ability, on time and with neat handwriting.They have to want to cooperate. We must give them an incentive.Parents can give them an allowance.. Teachers give each student an allowance in time. The author calls this time "PAT ". Preferred Activity

Chapter 21: The author says the teacher role is a giver of three gifts; preferred activity time, bonus time, and structure for PAT( Preferred Activity TIme). Teachers give students time and the students decide how to use that time, and they must live with the consequences. They can be a squanderer and be selfish or safe and share by telling student that they can keep the time, and get bonus PAT. This empowers the students. Next is hurry up bonuses by achieveing a difficult objective-- getting kids to hustle. They do this by empowering children to make transition time. Hurry up bonus limits transition time, and gives the savings to PAT. What you have to do first is estimate how long it takes to do a job when they hustle. If they take too much time, take it away. He suggests that discipline management is like a four layer cake. The first layer is classroom structure. The second layer is limit setting, and the third is responsiblity training. Use automatic bonuses. As you add bonus time, the class learns to work together. Use push and pull motivation. Pull motivation gives people reason to choose, and push motivation makes demands and threatens punishment.

Chapter 22 "Turning problem students around" There is always one student who will buck your system, therefore if the student refrains from his negative behavior this could be given to PAT for the whole class. He looks like a hero because the class gets the extra time. Try to find something that he enjoys, and make him buy in. Be careful of giving subs omission training. It is an incentive to decrease behavior because you will come back and the kids will have lost their time until the end of the year.

Chapter 23 When teachers use curriculuum enrichment you get two for the price of one for PAT. A special learning activity and motivation for free. Teach competition is the most reliable hook in education. In the games you play, play defense by giving the missed questions to the other team. Football, baseball, basketball, hangman, and Jeopardy are good games. Television games are of high interest, but the key to success is teacher envolvement. You must be with the students enjoying the activity and structuring it. There are hundreds of PATs. You can get finding PAT ideas by kids, parents, friends, and faculty or use the appendix in this book. There are some very good suggestion in this book.


 * 10th Meeting Notes:**

Chapter 24 "Dealing with Typical Classroom Crises". The chapter suggests that a Backup System should be in place with a hierarchy of consequences for dealing with repetitive discipline problems. The objective of the Backup System is to suppress the unacceptable behavior so that it does not reappear. According to the author there are three levels within the Backup System; small, medium, and large. The goal for the teacher is to deal with all problems first in the small stage. All discipline should be discrete and private in order to minimize any other actions. Sending students to the office or to detention although they do remove the problem student they are only a quick fix that should only be used minimally.

Chapter 25 “Exploiting the Management System”. This chapter follows up with the last chapters Backup System idea. It tells us that our Backup System shouldn’t be just a random bag of tricks that we throw out when we have a problem. We should be using a Management System with three identifiable levels. The first level to an organized classroom is Interpersonal Skills, in a sense becoming a natural teacher. The next level should be Incentive Systems. Incentives provide motivation for students who may need more. Students are encouraged to work together for a common goal giving responsibility and accountability to each individual student. The last part of the Management System is the Backup System, which we discussed in the previous chapter. The combination of the three step Management System and Backup System, allow for minimal teacher effort first leading into more aggressive discipline actions. This will save teachers a lot of time and energy so they can focus better on teaching.