Professional Development- Session One
Welcome to the first Professional Development session on ThreeFiftyMainStreet. These professional
development opportunities will be short and designed to promote discussion and reflection. The edification and the advancement as a teacher and as a person are the reasons we engage in PD but, If you participate in the discussion in any or all of the ways listed at the end of this post you will receive...wait for it...
ONE hour of professional development credit.
PURPOSE
Consider the following:
- All effective teachers are effective classroom managers
- Even the most effective teachers work to continually improve classroom management skills
- Not all teachers are effective classroom managers
- Without effective management skills, learning cannot occur
- All teachers possess the ability to become more effective, yet many fail to do so because they lack management skills
Which leads us back to number 1:
ALL EFFECTIVE TEACHERS ARE EFFECTIVE CLASSROOM MANAGERS
You cannot teach any content effectively until you can manage the students.
IN-SERVICE
So we start with the question- What is the most important procedure that any teacher must have?
The single most important procedure that any teacher must have is a way of getting the students attention.
What is your procedure for getting the students attention? What is the one thing that you do consistently, every time you need the attention of your students?
Some teachers merely ask for attention by saying “I need your attention.” If saying it doesn’t work the first time then they will repeat it- often three or four times and then try variations “excuse me” or I’m waiting” or “please stop the talking” or even the infamous “I can wait!” In most cases, the teacher looks unhappy while they are trying to get the students’ attention.
Here is a simple method that you can try:
Tell the students that there will be some times that you are going to need their attention. Say, "When I need your attention I will do two things; here is what I will do. "At this point smile and raise your hand. Ask the students what they notice you doing. Most often the students will notice you smiling first. Once they have given you their answers tell them, "when you see me doing these things, I need for you to stop talking and raise your hand. This will be your signal to me that you understand and you are ready for whatever comes next." Now say, "let's practice this a few times." Tell the students that when you say go you will allow the room to get noisy. Wait a few seconds and smile and raise your hand. It will take a few seconds for the students to quiet down, but do not begin until you have their attention. When you have their attention, thank them for following the procedure and tell them this is the way you will get their attention from now on. Continue to implement the procedure consistently but remember the smile as it is the most important part. The moment you appear upset, they win, you lose and no procedure will work.
The key to this, and to most things procedural in the classroom, is consistency. You need to have a way, one way, of reliably getting their attention and you need to use that way consistently and with a pleasant demeanor. A pleasant demeanor takes away the allure of a power struggle.
In the comments, you can do the following to receive the hour PD credit:
IMPLEMENTATION
This procedure may seem elementary in nature and, for some classes and/or teachers, it might not be the right fit. Most veteran teachers already have a set procedure for getting their students' attention and that’s fine. The key is that you have something, one thing, that you do consistently and pleasantly each and every time you need the students' attention.
So the activity for this session is to think about your “one thing” and reflect on it. Do the students respond to you in the way you want and in the timeframe you need? Are you pleasant? When you appear annoyed or aren’t consistent, do the student respond differently?
In the comments, you can do the following to receive the hour PD credit:
- comment on something in the post to start a dialogue
- share your “one thing” if it has worked for you
- be brave and share something that hasn’t worked
- any or all of the above
Whitaker & Breaux (2013). The Ten-Minute Inservice. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass
