Monday, September 17, 2012
Mr. Chatty
I am trying to find new and creative ways to deal with an extremely chatty kid. He is super nice and is a great contributor to the classroom discussion but he is overbearing and no one else seems to havea chance to talk. Any thoughts to try to contain his energy and allow other students to feel they can contribute to the discussion as well?
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Different things I have tried are:
ReplyDeleteExplained to the student that what he has to say is relevant and great, but that I also need to hear what other students are thinking. So we need to make a deal and assign him a number of times (i.e. 5) that he can comment per class/subject/whatever.
Another student, I gave a notecard with the agreed number of paperclips on it and as she asked I took the paperclip. It was a visual she needed to train her brain:)
Depending on how much control this student has over his behavior, for another student we came up with a visual cue, which meant they needed to tone it down and give other students a chance to speak when they saw the cue.
In all the above, I always gave a positive for the comments, however expressed how it affects the class as a whole. So they understand it is not so much about them, as it is about the classroom and the other students.
That was wordy, but I hope it's a starting point:)
In our Vertical Team, we tried this protocol using poker chips. One chip color was for questions and the other was for responses to others. Each group member got a certain number of chips and had to turn one in when he or she spoke. The rule was that you couldn't use another one of your chips until someone else had spoken. This way, one person couldn't dominate the conversation, but rather had to wait and build on what other people in the group contributed. In a small group setting, something like this might work well for your chatty student.
ReplyDeleteI have a kid who is super smart with music trivia. He knows more facts about pop literature than anyone I know. I don't want to discourage his fun facts, but sometimes they get the class off task. I decided to have him write down any of his fun facts that pop into his mind during the hour and he then gives me the sheet at the end of the hour. We usually can talk a few seconds about some of the facts and then I use those for music trivia. He gets really excited when he hears his trivia being given to the class, but this allows me to stay on task and keep the class moving forward!
ReplyDeletePut him in charge of something--have him come right up to the front of the room and run a "talk show" to interview students, and tell him he's in charge for a few minutes--that way, he gets the focus on him, then he won't want to be up there after that. Give it a try!
ReplyDeleteI learned a great technique from a colleague - we call it "Turn and Talk." Each student is assigned a partner, who sits next to him or her during group or instructional time. Students know that I will pause periodically and invite them to "turn and talk", by sharing their thoughts with their partners. After the sharing time, some students report on what their partners said to them. Students know that they will have time to share their thoughts, so there is less blurting out. Also, students learn good listening skills as well as speaking skills, knowing that they may be asked to restate their partner's thoughts. I love this technique, and hope you find it helpful.
ReplyDelete