Instructional Insights
Phoenix and Pirate Pedgogical Pursuits
Principal's Message
Hello teachers and staff,
Our year is off to a great start. Thank you for your work in helping our students feel welcomed and loved. Many of our 7th graders have told me about the positive impressions you are making on them, and our 8th graders came in as if they didn’t skip a beat. Our consistent approaches, words, and expectations help students feel safe a secure. As you continue with trust building for your classroom culture, remember that those “marbles” that you are adding to our students’ jars will pay off down the road. It’s about investments!
Our work in PLCs this year will be a very valuable part of raising the bar for our instruction and learning as we build our high performance culture. Thank you for your time and dedication.
Also, as you might remember from the kick off, Dr. Rubin shared her story with us about about the impact of educators as a way to introduce the Englewood Schools story-telling project. As you think about this, consider a story you might be willing to share as we lean into our work this year (more to come on this).
I am looking forward to another great year!
8 Proactive Classroom Management Tips
The beginning of the year is the perfect time to remind ourselves of classroom management strategies that help us feel energized and prepared for our time with students. Teachers report losing 144 minutes of instructional time on average to behavioral disruptions every week, which comes out to roughly three weeks over the course of a year—that's a lot of valuable instruction time! So what strategies are effective at minimizing behavioral disruptions?
Recent research confirms that while negative attention—reprimands like “Stop chitchatting!”—may temporarily stop misbehavior, students eventually became more likely to engage in disruptive behavior. Students who received negative attention felt disengaged, had difficulty concentrating, and weren’t able to effectively regulate their thoughts and emotions, all leading to amplified inappropriate behavior. Here are eight strategies from Edutopia that can help set up conditions in which behavioral disruptions are less likely to occur so that teachers can focus on building community, trust, and, ultimately, student learning.
1. Greet students at the door.
2. Establish, maintain, and restore relationships.
3. Use reminders and cues.
4. Optimize classroom seating.
5. Give behavior-specific praise.
6. Set clear expectations
7. Actively supervise.
8. Be consistent in applying rules.
Click here to read the full article.