Dealing with Diversity During Holidays

The urban classroom is typically filled with students from many cultures and traditions. While this diversity can offer lots of interesting points of discussion, this same diversity can be an minefield  for teachers during seasonal holiday celebrations. 

Which holiday gets the primary focus? Student populations can represent many nationalities, languages, regions and traditions. So when it's time to celebrate holidays in classrooms, teachers have to determine the best way to be inclusive and welcoming to everyone.

Know Your Students

It's really important to get to know your students as early as possible during the year. Many cultural differences aren't always obvious.  You need to know whether your students celebrate Halloween or are religiously opposed to it. You need to know if any of students have cultural opposition to participating in politics - if so, you may need to tailor your plans to have a mock election in your classroom. In order to get to know your students, talk to them. Use "beginning of the year" surveys that students can share anything relevant with you. If your students are very young, check with parents to get the information you need.

Create an Inclusive Classroom

The classroom is a great place to learn about traditions and cultures, in a place where children can teach each other about their backgrounds. Many teaches give students a chance to explain non-traditional holidays with their classmates. Parents can also be invited to classrooms to orient students about different holidays.  If there are staff members at your school who can speak to your students, you have a built-in "speakers' bureau" that can help explain things to students in child-friendly language. 

How do you address diversity issues during holiday time?

Queen Bee

First Steps for Creating Classroom Groups

Are you nervous about managing students in small groups?

We all know that students work best when they can support each other. We also know that small group arrangements teach students critical problem-solving skills that help today's students become tomorrow's leaders. But we don't always know how to best group students for successful learning. 

Prepare Students before Grouping 
Here are a few things that you need to teach students before putting them into working groups:

• a visual signal for establishing quiet
• how to move into groups
• how to refocus on the teacher when needed
• a vocabulary of kind and motivating words 
• how to be nonjudgmental 
• how to support each other 

Once students learn how to operate as groups, and learn how to work with each other, they will be ready to work in groups.

Introduce Students to Small Groups
It's important that you assign students into groups, rather than have the students group themselves. This will ensure that cliques don't develop that could isolate students.

• When you begin the small groups, start off small. Ideally, you might want to begin by having students work in pairs. This gives shy students practice with opening themselves up to others.  
• After a brief period, rearrange students into groups of three. Make sure that they are practicing the skills that you shared earlier (supporting comments, etc.)
• When students are ready for "the big time," you can place them in groups of 4-5. This is the ideal number for small groups. Research shows that groups larger than 5 are less successful in the classroom.   

Vary Your Student Groupings

Your groups should be dynamic, and change periodically. When you change groupings, you are giving students an opportunity to work alongside different students in the class. 

It's also crucial to have more than one group formation operating when you have small groups:

• one grouping should give students an opportunity to work with other students with similar strengths (this gives students a chance to move in a similar circle of ability), 
• and one grouping that combines students with different strengths (this gives students a chance to stretch and grow).

You can schedule the different groups to operate on different days of the week. 

How do you use student groupings in your classroom?

Queen Bee

Quicken the Pace, or Slow Down?

Sometimes coming to class can be like waiting for the doctor. You wait, wait and wait some more. The typical classroom lesson approach is highly verbal, with lots of description and steps, steps, steps. This is not the life that our students live, so it's no wonder some of them start talking and playing around. Today's students are exposed to thousands of ideas and images in an instant, thanks to the speed of technology, such as:

• Gaming systems that get students to make quick decisions, 
• News accounts that come to us in videos and sound bites 
• Travel options that can take us around the world at breakneck speed. 

The speed of the digital world is impacting our students. They are not used to waiting for information to develop, become exposed or to unveil itself. This is the age of immediate gratification. So, do we teach students to slow down or do we adapt to this faster pace?

Guiding Students to Slow Down:
It may prudent to help students slow down for some things - so that they're prepared for non-digital living.  

• Close reading activities challenge students to take their time and read carefully 
• Learning how to calculate using mental power and pencil power develops logical thinking
• Reading maps, learning how to evaluate, hypothesize, and analyze are all skills that deepen understanding

Integrating Quicker-Paced Activities:

We can also make sure that we include instruction that is geared to a quicker pace.

• Add games and activities that stimulate quick decision making
• Promote physical activities that get students moving in the classroom
• Use technology in your instruction: videos/interactive learning systems/cellphones

Queen Bee

Top 5 Online Teacher Websites

 I don't always have answer to every question. But here are five online resources.

Here's a list of my top five places to find online information: 

1. Google (google.com)  Honestly, where were we before this came along? Images, info,websites, etc - it's all here
2. Discovery (www.discoveryeducation.com) All kinds of online resources.
3. The Teaching Channel   (www.teachingchannel.org)  Videos, lessons and resources 
4. Teacher Files  (www.teacherfiles.com) A place to find clip art, lesson plans, etc. for classrooms
5. Free Technology for Teachers (www.freetech4teachers.com) Tutorials and tech resources

What is your favorite go-to source for educational information? 

  

The 5 Best Ways to Make Consequences Work

Teachers know that it's important to "say what you mean and mean what you say."  That's why we need to have  suitable consequences (punishments) for breaking the rules.

This consequence was never really effective, was it?

Students should know that we mean business when we share norms and expectations. We need to carefully consider what happens when the classroom rules are broken.

Teaching Consequences:

Consequences should be taught when we share the classroom rules. We should plan a list of consequences that fit the circumstance, and share them with students. Then post them to eliminate any confusion about what happens and to keep emotion out of the process. Always include a contingency clause - clearly spelled out - for serious emergencies (like fights or breaches of safety.)

 The 5 Best Ways to Make Your Consequences Work:

1. Make sure that the consequences are progressive - from some really mild to those more severe.
2. Post major consequences and review them, so if a rule is broken there is no surprise.
3. Ensure that you are the giver and taker of consequences. Never share your power with anyone, like the dean or the principal - until the most severe consequences are needed.
4. Be sure to do whatever you promise - good or bad. If you promise a certain reward or punishment and don't deliver, it's a steep climb back to your credibility.
5. Only offer detention after a series of other measures (conference, proximity, the look, behavior contract, call home, etc) Remember that if you give detention, you have to be there - so you have to suffer too.

Also make sure that you don't use the punishments of the past - excessive writing, excessive standing, the dunce cap, missing lunch, paddling, sarcasm, ridicule, etc. Any consequences that cause physical or emotional pain are forms of corporal punishment that will land you in major legal trouble.

  Queen Bee

Teaching Classroom Procedures

We all know that it's important to follow the rules. But what about classroom procedures - are you teaching students how to use them in your classroom?

Here are some procedures that you use every day in class:

• handing in assignments
• entering and leaving the classroom
• heading papers

It's really important show students how you want  them to do these things in your room. If you don't, each student will do things differently - and you'll end up with chaos. 

How to Teach Procedures

Starting the School Year Smoothly

A new school year is beginning. Are we ready?

What comes after summer vacation - a new school year! So now's the time to start planning for a new classroom experience. Now is the time to dust off and review classroom management materials and refresh those "first days of school" lessons. New teachers also need to create these things. One thing that never changes though, is the plan to make each new year better that the one before. Do you feel that way too? Most plans include:

• rethinking the seating arrangement and desk position,  
• planning how to present information - whether  on chalkboard, whiteboard, Smart board or screen,
• creating tiered lessons, 
• developing formative assessments to gauge student levels, 
• and thinking of ways to establish working relationships.

What things can you share to make the first days of school run more smoothly?

Queen Bee