What Great Teachers Do Differently (Study Guide), page 5
Divide the participants into four groups. Give each group a card containing a common school scenario in which someone is adversely affected—for example, a student consistently talks out in class, a student responds disrespectfully to a teacher, a student refuses to complete an assignment, a student uses inappropriate or threatening language toward a classmate. Have each group analyze their assigned scenario and plan out two courses of action, one based on the traditional approach and the other on the restorative approach. Have the groups post their two plans on chart paper and present to the entire group. Discuss the benefits and disadvantages of the two approaches while focusing on the goals of restoration and repairing.
Application
On page 69 of the text, the author describes getting stopped for speeding by the highway patrol and notes that his goal was to avoid getting a ticket. Ask your students if they have ever been in a situation in which they were about to get in big trouble, but managed to minimize the consequence. Relate the story the author tells, tweaking it as appropriate to fit the situation at hand. Teach the students behavior strategies for staying out of trouble—or at least minimizing the severity of the consequence by reacting appropriately—as you share this story. Emphasize the importance of apologizing and treating the offended party with dignity and respect. Observe the students’ reactions and note whether any student employs these behaviors in ensuing days. This activity will be discussed in the next session.
Notes
Part Ten
Chapter 12: The Ability to Ignore
Key Concepts
♦ Great teachers are aware of almost everything that happens in their classroom, and they know which situations demand immediate attention and which can wait for a more teachable moment.
♦ Effective teachers model self-control; their classroom management is grounded in their ability to manage their own behavior.
♦ Great teachers do not automatically react every time a student steps a little out of line.
♦ The great teacher has the ability to pay attention to students, to recognize and praise their achievements, and to overlook minor errors.
♦ High achievers put so much of themselves into what they do that any criticism, no matter how minor, can become a personal affront. This is true of both high-achieving students and high-achieving teachers.
Discussion Questions
1. Why do great teachers ignore certain behaviors?
2. Why do most students misbehave?
3. What is the likely outcome when teachers continually nitpick about a student’s behavior? About a student’s academic performance?
4. In what ways does the information in this chapter relate specifically to high achievers?
5. How do great teachers balance the contradictory themes of ignoring certain behaviors and paying attention to those students who crave it?
Notes
Journal Prompt
The author notes the advice of a friend who is a police officer: “You can look for trouble or you can look away.” Similarly, William James famously theorized, “The art of being wise is knowing what to overlook.” Take a moment to write your reactions to these two quotes as they relate to the classroom setting. What behaviors that often occur in the classroom should teachers regularly overlook? When should they go with the flow and when should they stop and take a stand? How do they determine which disturbances are trivial and should be ignored and which should be responded to? How can they respond without escalating the situation?
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Group Activities
Ignore and Intervene Pointers
Divide participants into small groups of three or four. Have them review the following two lists suggesting when to ignore certain behaviors and when to intervene. After reading and discussing both lists thoroughly, have participants read the ten behaviors in the table below and determine which of these behaviors they would ignore and which require intervention. Each group will report back to the whole group. Compare and contrast group responses.
Pointers for when to ignore behavior:
♦ when the inappropriate behavior is unintentional or not likely to recur
♦ when the goal of the misbehavior is to gain the teacher’s attention
♦ when you want the behavior to decrease
♦ when there is nothing you can do
Pointers for when to intervene:
♦ when the misbehavior might cause physical danger or harm to yourself, the student, or others
♦ when a student disrupts the classroom
♦ when the misbehavior violates classroom rules or school policy
♦ when the misbehavior interferes with learning
♦ when the inappropriate behavior might spread to other students
Behavior Ignore Intervene
A student is tapping a pencil on his desktop.
A student repeatedly taps his pencil on his desk, disturbing others in the classroom.
Every time a particular student enters the classroom, she intentionally kicks the trash can, causing the rest of the class to laugh.
A student enters the classroom and accidentally kicks the trash can.
A student gets out of his seat to sharpen his pencil.
A student blurts out the response to a question without raising her hand.
A student is yanking on the ponytail of a student seated in front of him.
A student calls another student a “fatso” while lining up for lunch.
During independent reading time, a student is silently reading the assignment but has a Power Ranger displayed on her desk.
A student is writing on the surface of his desk with a permanent marker.
Acting It Out
Divide participants into groups of five to seven and have each group prepare a skit involving a classroom situation. In the skits, each group should include three student misbehaviors, two of which they think an effective teacher would ignore and one that they feel an effective teacher would deal with. In each presentation, have the “teacher” deal with all three behaviors. After each skit, have the other groups decide which of the three behaviors was the one that merited the teacher’s response.
Application
Arrange for someone at your school to videotape you teaching for fifteen to thirty minutes. Review the tape and analyze your teaching behaviors, paying particular attention to the way in which you responded—or chose not to respond—to student misbehavior. Make a written record of the strengths and weaknesses you observed in your ability to maintain positive classroom management. Make a second videotape in several weeks and compare your findings.
Notes
Part Eleven
Chapter 13: Random or Plandom?
Chapter 14: Base Every Decision on the Best People
Key Concepts
♦ Great teachers have a plan and purpose for everything they do. They reflect on what did and did not work and adjust accordingly.
♦ Great teachers take responsibility for what happens and plan for success. Less effective teachers allow classroom events to happen randomly and then blame others when things do not work out well.
♦ Great teachers expect and plan for appropriate student behavior by ensuring that certain students do—or do not—work together. Great teachers pro actively anticipate student misbehavior and plan to eliminate it before it occurs.
♦ Great teachers intentionally arrange, rearrange, alter, and adjust the structures that frame their teaching. Their classroom setup, their instructional approaches, and their time management are all carefully planned to promote an optimal learning environment.
♦ Great teachers do not try to prove who is in charge of their classrooms; everyone already knows.
♦ Great teachers make decisions based on three simple factors: (1) What is the purpose? (2) Will this actually accomplish the purpose? (3) What will the best people think?
♦ Great teachers always treat students as if the students’ parents were in the room. They deal with students who disrupt learning, but they do it respectfully.
♦ Great teachers do not “teach to the middle.” Instead, they ensure that every student is engaged. They ask, “What will my best students think?” and teach all students accordingly, considering the best, most well-rounded students at the forefront when making decisions.
Discussion Questions
1. What is the most important idea communicated in these two chapters? How would you implement this idea in your classroom? Are there any ideas in these chapters with which you disagree?
2. How do great teachers respond when classroom events do not occur as planned?
3. How do great teachers differ from ineffective teachers in preventing and dealing with student misbehavior?
4. What are three simple guidelines great teachers use in making decisions?
5. Why is it important to focus on the purpose, and not the reason, when making decisions?
6. Why should teachers avoid “teaching to the middle” of the class?
7. How do great teachers change the dynamics of a classroom without engaging in power struggles?
8. What do the best students expect teachers to do about student misbehavior?
Journal Prompt
Think of a teacher you know—or who taught you—in whose classroom events always seemed carefully planned. Was this teacher effective? Describe a teacher you had or know who always considers her very best students when making decisions regarding teaching and learning.
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Group Activities
Graffiti on the Walls
On page 87 of the text, there is reference to a school whose principal ordered the bathroom stall doors removed in order to prevent students from writing on the stalls. Divide the participants into small groups and have them discuss the following questions: What was the purpose of this decision? Will this decision accomplish the goal? How will the best students feel as a result of this decision? What other steps could the principal have taken to eradicate the problem of graffiti on the bathroom walls, keeping in mind whether the proposed action will accomplish the purpose and what the best students will think of the plan? Have each group share their ideas with the whole group.
More Math Homework
Ask participants to imagine that they are teaching at a school in which recent standardized assessments suggest that students are performing well below average in math. As a result, the principal has directed all teachers to assign more math homework daily. Accepting the assumption that all teachers must comply with this directive, ask participants to think about the best way to move forward, keeping in mind the purpose of raising test scores, whether or not more homework will accomplish the purpose, and what the best students will think. Next, have participants pair up with a colleague and share what they decided with each other. Have several pairs volunteer their insights to the entire study group.
Random/Plandom
On page 79 of the text, the book discusses at length the “structural” things that teachers can do to plan for success, such as grouping students together, using seating charts, and maintaining proximity control. Divide participants into groups of three to five and have them create a list of ten specific classroom occurrences that may result from a teacher’s failure to plan carefully for a successful lesson, situation, or behavior. Then have participants create a second list of ten classroom occurrences that may result when a teacher carefully plans for successful learning and behavior. Place these brainstorming lists on two pieces of chart paper labeled “Random” and “Plandom,” respectively. Have each group post their chart on a wall. One person from each group should present their lists to the whole group.
Application
Choose one concept from these two chapters that you find laudable as well as transferable to your own classroom and incorporate it into your daily professional life. Record your progress toward this goal in your journal over the next few weeks, noting specific occasions when you utilized this concept in your classroom. Arrange through your principal and a colleague you respect to observe in that colleague’s room for twenty minutes one day. Identify ways in which this colleague practices the tenets of “plandomness” over “randomness.” Write these down and share them at the next session.
Notes
Part Twelve
Chapter 15: In Every Situation, Ask Who Is Most Comfortable and Who Is Least Comfortable
Key Concepts
♦ Great teachers avoid lecturing the entire class about rules and never punish the entire class because of a few students’ misbehavior.
♦ Great teachers know that the best students will feel uncomfortable if a teacher yells or uses cutting remarks, even when directed at a student who is misbehaving.
♦ Effective educators attempt to make people who do the right thing feel comfortable. They reinforce such people and such behaviors.
♦ Effective teachers never place the very best students in the position of being uncomfortable for doing the right thing.
♦ Great teachers treat everyone as if they are good and continually ask themselves who is most comfortable and who is least comfortable with each decision they make.
Discussion Questions
1. What is the one internal standard that supports effective practices when making decisions that follow no clearly stated rule?
2. What is the flawed thinking in sending home a note to all parents about a policy being broken by only a handful of those same parents?
3. What happens when people are made to feel uncomfortable? What happens when people feel comfortable?
4. Why is it unwise for teachers to have students “trade and grade” each other’s schoolwork?
5. How should teachers apply the “most comfortable/least comfortable” ground rule when dealing with belligerent parents?
Notes
Journal Prompt
On page 94, Whitaker refers to a “Pay for Performance” program in use at a university and the varying reactions to the program based on a survey of all participants. The author suggests, instead, that the perspective of the entire faculty should not be the decisive factor. Instead, he advises surveying only the top one-third of the faculty to solicit their level of comfort with the program. Explain why he suggests this and how it relates to the chapter title. Think of a situation at your own school when you have felt uncomfortable with an action that was taken, in your opinion, as a response to poor performance on the part of mediocre teachers. How did this make you feel? What could have been done differently to address the problem?
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