EDE 4504 Blog 9

Chapter 8: Making the Most of Classroom Time

This chapter was about how to maximize and make the most out of the time you have with students in the classroom. It started off by talking about the different kinds of time. First, there is total time which is Monday through Friday from the beginning until the end of the day for the whole school year. This amounts to approximately 1,170 hours. Next, there is attended time which is the actual time the students are at school. Then there are four other specific types of time which are: available, instructional, engaged, and productive time. "It is essential to consider ways to increase students' productive learning time within the constraints of the traditional school day"(Weinstein 181). There are four strategies for achieving this goal.

The first strategy is maintaining activity flow. It is obvious when an activity is flowing properly and when it is not. One thing I do in the classroom to make sure the activity flows is making sure the students understand the directions. If the directions are not clear, there is no way the students will be able to do the activity. What will most likely happen is they will start asking their peers what to do which will get them off task or they will all start announcing they do not know what to do and this will waste productive time. So, to make sure they understand the directions, I call on a student to repeat the directions I stated. After they repeat the directions, I tell the students to give me a thumbs up if they understand. I try to design my instruction so that students can achieve mastery. Another thing that keeps activities flowing is when no attention is brought to outside events or objects. It is easy to get distracted but staying on task will maximize productivity.

The second strategy is minimizing transition time. Transition time is the time it takes to move from one lesson to another or one activity to another. By preparing students for upcoming transitions you are able to minimize this transition time. For example, when students are at the end of a lesson, I tell to start getting out a specific book and flip it to a specific page number. This allows for faster transitions. Another way is by establishing clear routines. In the beginning of the year they were told that their learning time is very important and there is little time to waste. Whenever they are done with their assignments, they know to put their materials for the lesson away, and get out their book for the subject taught next and silently read while they wait. Lastly, it is important to make sure that lessons have clear beginnings and endings.

The third strategy is holding students accountable. This is a talk that is done with them at the beginning of the year. They are more likely to be productive with their time when held accountable. For them to held accountable though, assignments should be communicated clearly. The fourth strategy is managing pull outs. If you are able to, coordinate with special services to schedule pullouts to minimize disruption. There are no ESE students in my classroom but there are a couple of ELL students who are pulled out. The students know what time they are pulled out so when the teacher comes for them they are ready to go and the rest of the students in the class do not get distracted by it.

Reference

Weinstein, C. S., & Romano, M. E. (2015). Elementary classroom management. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill

Chapter 8: Using Nonverbal Interventions to Influence Students to Behave

Appropriately

This chapter was about the many nonverbal interventions that can be used to influence students to behave appropriately. Surface behaviors compromise the majority of student misbehavior. These include verbal interruptions, off-task behavior, and disruptive physical movements. Although they do not disappear, they can be influenced. There are two types of intervention skills: proactive and remedial.

There is an essential prerequisite to intervention. This is to make sure that students understand that teaching/learning is the responsibility of not just the teacher but of them too. In the beginning of the year, this was discussed with my students and included in the mission statement that was created with them. They know they must hold high expectations for themselves and always give one hundred percent. "When teachers reinforce the concept of shared responsibility for teaching and learning, intervention techniques are more likely to be effective"(Levin and Nolan 205).

In my classroom, the most common surface behaviors I observe are verbal interruptions and off-task behavior. I do not observe physical movements as much in my fourth-grade classroom and I believe this to be because it might be harder to for a students to sit still when they are in the younger grades. Some of the verbal interruptions I hear are talking, laughing, and calling out. Calling out was a problem in the beginning of the year but is less of a problem now because of a technique we use called the BLURT chart. We put five sticky notes up at the top of the white board at the beginning of the day labeled B, L, U, R, and T. Everytime a students calls out we take away a sticky note. If the class reaches the end of the day with atleast one sticky note, they get a point. Once they reach a specific number of points they get a reward such as outside time or computer time. This helps students to monitor not only their behavior but also their peers in hopes that they will be successful in not calling out.

Reference

Levin, J., & Nolan, J. F. (2014). Principles of classroom management: A professional decision-making model. New York, NY: Pearson

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