1. Oklahoma City Public Schools
I Can Do It
Heather Sparks, NBCT
Taft Middle School
Oklahoma City Public Schools
August 29, 2009

2. Session 1: Training Goals
Let’s Get Started

3. KWL Chart
What I Know
What I Want to Know
What I Learned

4. Training Goals
Participants will: 1. Learn about the elements necessary for successful classroom management. 2. Discover communication styles and how they relate to student/teacher/parent communication. 3. Learn about interventions for selected difficult behaviors encountered in the classroom. 4. Have opportunities to find out about hints that help create the smoothly flowing classroom. 5. Acquire information that will help build successful parent/teacher relationships Have the opportunity to link with a support partner at or near one's grade and/or content level.

5. Agenda 9:00-10:15 Sessions 1-3 10:15 Break 10:25-12:00 Sessions 4-6
12:00-1:00 Lunch
1:00-3:00
Sessions 7-9

6. Objectives of Classroom Management
Ensure the safety of staff and students.
Create an engaging learning environment.

7. Session 2: Getting to Know Your Students
Page 4

8. Personal Responsibility
Community Triangle
Personal Responsibility
Community
Bonding
Safety
Survival

9. Come To The Edge Come to the edge. It’s too tall. I’ll fall.
And they came.
And you pushed them.
And they flew.

10. Pizza Glyph Draw your crust: Thick = boy, thin= girl
Add pepperoni: Number = age in years
Add mushrooms: Number = siblings
Add onions: Number = number of pets
Add bell pepper: Number = the number of years you have been at this school.
Now practice reading each other’s glyph!

11. Creating Acceptance Make eye contact with each student
Call all students by their first or preferred name
Move toward and stay close to the learners
“With-it-ness”

12. Enhancing Acceptance COMFORT 1. Room Temperature Order 1. Routines
2. Furniture Arrangement
3. Physical Activity
4. Breaks
5. Bulletin Boards/Walls
6. Climate (Humor and Tone)
Order
1. Routines
2. Guidelines
3. Perception of Safety

13. CLASSROOM CLIMATE
What I will do to help students: _____ feel accepted by the teacher and their peers _____ perceive the classroom as a comfortable and orderly place

14. Responding the Right Way These are power behaviors that influence a student’s sense of acceptance and thereby enhance his or her creativity and engagement with the lesson.
Provide Wait Time
Pausing to allow a student more time to answer instead of moving on to another student when you don’t’ get an immediate response
Dignify Responses
Giving credit for the correct aspects of an incorrect response
Restate the Question
Ask the question again using the same words
Rephrase the Question
Use different words that might increase the probability of a correct response
Provide Guidance
Giving enough hints and clues so that the student will eventually determine the correct answer

15. WAIT TIME
WAIT THREE SECONDS AFTER ASKING A QUESTION BEFORE CALLING ON A STUDENT
WAIT THREE SECONDS AFTER CALLING ON A STUDENT FOR THE RESPONSE
WAIT FIVE SECONDS AFTER A STUDENT’S RESPONSE BEFORE ASKING ANOTHER QUESTION OR CONTINUING THE LESSON

17. Session 3: Rules and Routines
Page 12

19. SCHOOL/CLASSROOM CHARACTERISTICS ASSOCIATED WITH DISCIPLINE PROBLEMS
Rules are unclear or seen as unfairly or inconsistently enforced.
Students did not believe in the rules.
Teachers & administrators did not know the rules.
Teachers & administrators disagreed on responses to student misconduct.
Teacher & administrator cooperation was poor.
Administration was inactive.
Teachers had punitive attitudes.
Misconduct was ignored.
Schools were too large.
Schools lacked adequate resources for teaching.
John Hopkins University Researchers, Gottfredsons
CARS Newsletter, April/May 1995

20. Voice + Choice = Loyalty
Formula for Success
Voice + Choice = Loyalty

21. How to Establish Rules Involve the class in making rules.
Keep the rules short and easy to understand.
Phrase rules in a positive way.
Remind the class of the rules at times other than when someone has misbehaved.
Make different rules for different kinds of activities.
Key children in to when different rules apply.
Post the rules and review them every so often.
If a rule isn’t working change it.

22. With Your Tablemates…
Create three rules on page Include the rewards and consequences related to your rule.

24. The number one problem
is not discipline;
it is the lack of
procedures & routines!

25. Independent Activities Students Should Know:
Where to get materials
What to do if they have a question
Where to work
Where to put finished work
What the classroom rules are
How to focus on the task
What the limitations are
If and why the teacher is unavailable

26. Break Time!

27. Session 4: Reinforcements
Page 23

28. If you punish
a child for being naughty, and reward him for being good, he will do right merely for the sake of the reward, and when he goes out into the world and finds that goodness is not always rewarded, nor wickedness always punished, he will grow into a man who thinks about how he may get on in the world, and does right or wrong according as he finds of advantage to himself.
Immanuel Kant
Education

29. Selecting Appropriate Reinforcers
Ask the child.
Observe the child’s preferences.
Use what worked elsewhere.
Give the student choices.
Reinforcers lose value over time.

30. Instructions for Give-One-Get-One
Jot down three (3) of your own ideas.
Get up and find someone from another table. Share your lists.
Give one new idea from your list to your partner. Get one new idea from your partner's list.
Move on to a new partner and repeat Steps 2 and 3.
If your list and your partner's list are identical and you have no new ideas to exchange, you must remain together and brainstorm something that can be added to each of your lists.
**Note: Exchange no more than one idea with any given partner.

32. Session 5: Polishing Your Technique
Page 31

33. Session 6: Smoothly Flowing Classrooms
Page 46

34. Fist = question or I don't know
SIGNALS
Use a classroom signal for attention
Whatever signal you use -- be consistent!!!
GIVING DIRECTIONS
Plan your directions ahead of time
Use 3 step directions
Give directions immediately before the activity
Get the attention of every student
Get feed back from students
Tell them and show them
Keep your voice low
Use signals for whole class response
Thumbs up = yes
Thumbs down = no
Fist = question or I don't know

35. Smoothly Flowing Classrooms
Transition Problems
A few students always seem to be slow during transitions delaying the rest of the class.
Students frequently find reasons to wander during transitions.
The teacher delays the beginning of activities to look for materials, finish attendance reporting, returning or collecting papers, or chat with individual students while other students wait.
Students talk loudly at the beginning of the period. The teacher is interrupted while checking attendance, and the start of content activities is delayed.

36. Smoothly Flowing Classrooms
Transition Problems
Students socialize too much during transitions, especially after an assignment has been given, but before they have begun working on it. Many students do not start their assignments for several minutes.
Two students argue, even after being separated.
Whenever the teacher attempts to move the students from one activity to another, a number of students don’t make the transition but continue working on the preceding activity. This delays the start of the new activity or results in confusion.
While the teacher gives directions during a transition, many students do not pay attention. They continue to put their materials away or get new materials.

37. Sponge Activities

38. Session 8: Home/School Communication
Page 66

39. Individual
Students
Instructional
Program
Home & School
Communication
Engaging
Families

40. HOME AND SCHOOL COMMUNICATION
HINTS
*KEEP A LOG OF PARENTAL CONTACTS
*KEEP YOUR PRINCIPAL INFORMED – GIVE HIM/HER COPIES OF YOUR HOME COMMUNICATIONS
*SAVE COMMUNICATIONS IN FOLDER
*WEB SITES – BLOGGING (USE CAUTION)

41. Session 9: Dealing with Difficult Behaviors
Page 73

42. GOALS WHEN DEALING WITH
DIFFICULT BEHAVIOR
Attention
Avoidance
Power
1. To eliminate or minimize the behavior.
2. To maintain student’s self esteem.
3. To maintain the lesson.

43. Discussing Inappropriate Behaviors
Do It:
Quietly
Calmly
Privately
Every Time You Can!

44. Whenever you are dealing with unacceptable behavior always question whether the behavior in question is an isolated event or a recurring symptom of a greater problem.
Don’t major in minor problems!

45. KWL Chart
What I Know
What I Want to Know
What I Learned

46. Heather’s Favorite Four:
Lavoie, Richard. The Motivation Breakthrough: 6 Secrets to Turning on the Tuned-Out Child. ISBN
MacKenzie, Robert J. Ed.D. Setting Limits in the Classroom.
ISBN
Pohlman, Craig. Revealing Minds: Assessing to Understand and Support Struggling Learners. ISBN:
Whitaker, Todd. What Great Teachers Do Differently: 14 Things That Matter Most. ISBN

47. More titles
Martin, Jane Roland. The School Home: Rethinking Schools for Changing Families. Cambridge: Harvard U Press, 1992.
McLaughlin, Milbrey W. and Talbert, Joan E. Professional Communities and the Work of High School Teaching. Chicago: U of Chicago, 2001.
Nelson, Jane. Positive Discipline. New York: Ballantine Books, 1987.
O’Hanian, Susan. Caught in the Middle. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2001.
Palmer, Parker. The Courage to Teach. New York: Jossey-Bass, 1998.
Power, Brenda Miller and Hubbard, Ruth Shagoury, (eds). Oops, What We Learn When Our Teaching Fails. New York: Stenhouse, 1996.
Ramsey, Robert D Tips for Teachers. Chicago, IL: Contemporary Books, 1997.
Silva, Peggy and Robert A. Mackin. Standards of Mind and Heart: Creating the Good High School. NY: Teacher’s College Press, 2002.
Toch, Thomas. High Schools on a Human Scale. Boston: Beacon Press, 2003.

48. Phases of First Year Teacher’s Attitudes Towards Teaching
Anticipation
Anticipation
Survival
Reflection
Rejuvenation
Disillusionment
Aug Sept Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May June July
Source: Trainer’s Manual, Support Provider Training, Revised May 1996

50. Any Monday can be a new
beginning of the year.

51. Helpful Websites:

52. Heather’s Website