Spring Break!

I feel very fortunate to have a spring break…and a week long one at that! I know not all teachers are so lucky, but what a great chance for us to recuperate and reenergize for the last bit of the school year. I am not going anywhere exciting, but am just looking forward to catching up on other stuff that I haven’t had time to do.

So I am just wondering what other people’s plans are for spring break? How do you plan on spending your time off?

7th Hour Blues

I have a group of some challenging boys in my 7^th hour class. There is a wide range of negative behaviors that occur such as excessive talking, not paying attention, blurting out, and lack of effort/motivation-, which leads to missing or incomplete assignments. I have talked with these students so many times I feel like a broken record…but nothing changes. I am working on contacting parents and having students come in for lunch, but I would like some other “in-class” strategies I could use to help change these behaviors. Any ideas?

Laptops for all students

I have been reading through the postings about getting kids to do their homework--especially papers. Are we at the point where we provide students with laptops? We could write grants so that all students are provided with the same laptop, like they do in colleges now. That way, we provide backup tech support, and they learn, they get papers done and typed, they have no excuse for not being done with work.

Would this be feasible? What do people think?

Pandering to Parents

I find that parents can be the most stressful part of the job at times. Either it seems that our students are behind, and we can't get their help in motivating their students, or parents are emailing constantly and complaining that work is too hard. We are currently trying to revise the 7th grade independent research project, and we as a PLC are trying to wade our way through the parent feedback to figure out what is a legitimate complaint and what is parents just being parents.

Do you incorporate parent feedback into your lessons and curriculum? If so, how?

Making Study Hall Time Useful

On the Owl team we have been struggling with Spring Fever in our study halls. It seems that students are choosing not to use their time to get work done. Either students have all their work done because they've learned how to use their class time, or students are checked out and have given up on school it seems. We have been printing their grades and giving them extra copies of their work. We have also started doing read alouds for silent reading time because students are not reading independently. Mr. Neu suggested that on Friday I give talking time at the end of class if students work dilligently during the first 3/4 of the hour. I was just wondering how you manage your study hall. Also, do you find that study hall is useful for students in lower grades? I never had a study hall growing up and I see the same levels of missing work. So I was just wondering how useful people think this time is for students.

Homework that students love!

Hello Fellow Teachers!

Today, I had the privilege of collecting an assignment from my students. I call it the castle blueprint. All students do is draw a castle, label 7 parts, name the castle, and turn it in. I asked students to use the back side of the directions (8.5x11 paper) or any materials they wanted. The product I received was so incredible. I got 12 3D models and about 75% of the rest used their own poster paper! I can't believe how motivated the kids were to complete the assignment and they all put such much effort into it! The turn in rate was almost perfect as well. I wish kids loved to do their homework this much all the time!

So my question to all of you is... What homework assignments have you given that kids love to do?

Getting Students To Be More In Charge (Responsible!)

I am sorry to report that there are still several 7th grade English papers that are still unfinished. They were due weeks ago. My co-teacher and I have provided after school help a few times a week for a couple of weeks--and even went so far as saying that students who weren't done had to stay after until they were done.
The students who are low-level aren't necessarily low-motivation. Many of the low-level students in the class were adamant about getting help from us. They were worried about their work being late. They sought help. In short, they took responsibility by being in charge of getting help for themselves. We certainly assisted them, but they were the ones coming to the after school help sessions to get finished because they wanted to.

What do you do about students who are at medium skill level, but don't take charge of their work. In fact, when you remind them about their paper not being done, they look at you as if they didn't really realize it wasn't done. I am making one more effort to help these students. I am speaking to them individually about staying after school for the last help sessions tomorrow and Friday. But why aren't THEY coming up to US? I will make a point of asking them this. It almost seems like they think that if they don't mention it, it will just disappear!

Any other strategies??