I have a group of some challenging boys in my 7th 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?
Hi Laura,
ReplyDeleteThat does sound challenging! Have you talked to each student individually? Sometimes connecting with each one may help, or at least talking to the ring leader. I would guess the individual student does not want to fail the class. Can you talk about solutions with each one? Maybe phrasing it, "What can I do to keep your attention in class?" Just some ideas...Good luck!
I have the same struggles with my fourth hour class. They just seem so apathetic when it comes to fixing their behavior. The problem I find with these behaviors is that they are small enough to ignore if it would just be one student, but as a whole class it can stop progress. JP observed this hour for me and suggested that I try to get the students up more during the hour (trying some of Deboer's movement strategies). So maybe that could help. I've also been using a lot of wait time. When possible I try to give a reward to classes that are doing what they are supposed to (smartboard games, movies of stories we are reading) that 4th hour doesn't get if they misbehave and get behind.
ReplyDeleteGood luck.
Laura-I have a very similar seventh hour right now. A group of boys who are becoming increasingly disruptive and borderline disrespectful. The main difference is that these boys are relatively high academically-so they can afford to get off track and still do fine academically. The problem is that they disrupt others who can't afford to get off track. I tried taking to the 5 of them after class and I gave them the "you can be a positive leader in this class and right now you aren't" speech. It seemed to help a bit. I also had a coaching session about it and an observation to watch this issue. We are discussing it on Friday :)
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