Dealing with Defiance

It's not overly fun to think about, but sometimes we have students who can be defiant in the classroom.

My number one piece of advice in this kind of situation is to not take it personally. Usually, there are a myriad of factors leading to a student's defiant behavior, most of which probably have little or nothing to do with you as the teacher. That said, sometimes the best starting place is to try and explore what is causing the defiant behavior. Who can you talk to about this that may have some insight? The student's guidance counselor? The school psychologist? The parents? Other teachers who have had success with the student? Often, knowing what's causing the behavior can be a good way to begin to know how to address it.

In the meantime, it's best to think of how you will approach classroom management with this particular type of student. Here are some pointers from my own experience and research:

Address the behavior as privately as possible.
This is crucial, especially with adolescents. If you reprimand a defiant student in front of the entire class (even if the reprimand is rather "gentle" from your perspective), you have placed that student in a situation where he or she feels the need to "save face" in front of his or her peers. This need to "save face" may very well cause the student to engage in defiant behavior with you -- often, an adolescent with defiant tendencies sees no other way out of this kind of situation other than to escalate it.
However, if you pull the student aside after class to have a private one-on-one conversation with him or her, you'll often find the dialogue to be much more effective in helping to change student behavior. He or she will typically not be defiant in this kind of situation, because there will be no need to "save face" with no peers around to witness your dialogue.

Use positive, versus negative, statements.
Instead of telling potentially defiant students (or any students, for that matter) what not to do (i.e., "Stop talking"), try telling them what they should do instead (i.e., "Please listen" or "Focus"). In this way, you'll be giving the students expectations of how they should be behaving, which some may truly not be aware of. And you'll lessen the likelihood that they will react defiantly.

Use "I" statements.
Try stating things in terms of what your needs are as the teacher, instead of imposing what you see as the needs of the students on them. For example, instead of saying "You all need to stop talking so you can learn better" (something your students may, unfortunately, try to disagree with), try saying, "I find it difficult to keep everyone's attention when there are other conversations going on. That's why I need you to be quiet at this point and focus your attention here."






If you're interested in reading more about how best to interact with defiant students, check out this link, which goes into a nice amount of detail on causes of defiant behavior and approaches to dealing with it in the classroom. Or work with your district's instructional coach (wink, wink) to see how you may be able to turn things around in your classroom.

Time on Task

As educators, we all want our students' time-on-task to be as high as possible. We don't want our students to waste precious learning time! Sometimes our students have other ideas about this, though, and can spend time off-task for a whole boatload of reasons (boredom, anxiety about an issue outside of class, daydreaming, lack of understanding. . . . . ).

While teachers conduct a lesson, check for student understanding, make on-the-spot decisions about objectives and behavioral management, handle interruptions, give directions, etc., etc., etc., however, it can be tricky to factor in a way to document how much time on task (or off!) students are spending.That's where I come in!

As an instructional coach, this is just one of many areas I can help teachers out with by being a second pair of eyes in the classroom. If a teacher has a goal of increasing student time-on-task, it's good to first establish a base-line. How much time, on average, are students already spending on task? As coach, I can come in to observe a lesson and narrow my focus to just recording on- and off-task behavior. Since this is my main focus, I can even narrow my observations further, recording behavior that is on-task, passively off-task, verbally off-task, and actively off-task (all three of these off-task behaviors can benefit from different intervention strategies, so it's important to distinguish among them). Later, I can share my findings with the teacher, presenting him or her with the percentage of time students, on the whole, are off-task during class, and even the percentage of time students are off-task passively, verbally, and/or actively. We can then work together to plan some interventions with the hope of reducing the amount of time off-task. What's great is that I can continue to come in to collect the same data at different intervals, which means the teacher can have very specific data to inform her about how she's doing with her goal, or about how his interventions are working.

Having another set of eyes to collect student data in the classroom can be helpful in a multitude of ways -- this is just one example of the benefits of instructional coaching!

A Few Tips for Tiering

I've been thinking a LOT about tiered instruction lately since I'm working with a few teachers who are venturing bravely into that particular type of differentiation. I say "bravely" not because anyone should be terrified of tiering, but because starting anything new or changing up your practices and getting a bit outside your comfort zone is always scary.

Managing your class when groups of students are working on different tasks from one another can seem overwhelming. This post will outline a few very practical suggestions for managing the time and space structures of your classroom when tiering (hopefully making it all seem a bit less scary).

First of all, try to reduce the amount of time (and noise!) it can take for students to get into groups. Post a seating chart on your board all filled out with students' names and the locations they need to report to. This way, as students enter the room (before the bell has even rung!), they can make their way to their assigned spot for the day. No need to spend class time getting everyone to where they need to be!

Here's another thing you can take care of ahead of time: at each table or group of desks where groups will meet, place a folder with copies of that particular group's assignment and any other materials they may need. Once again, this saves you from spending class time getting each assignment to each group, and it also allows students to get started right away.

Speaking of students getting started right away, here comes my final tip for today: be explicit! A huge part of ensuring that tiered instruction will be successful is giving students the tools they need to be able to work independently. If the assignment and its accompanying directions and instructions is explicit, detailed, specific, in student-friendly language, and contains models of what students will be doing, then I promise you students will be able to get right down to business without you (I can make this promise because I have seen it happen, my friends!).

There's more to tiering your instruction than what this brief post has covered, but thinking of effective and easy ways to manage the time and space of your classroom is a wonderful starting place for being able to envision how this can all work . . . and work well!

Happy Tiering!

The First Days Are Critical

“The First Days Are Critical.” This is a chapter subtitle from Harry K. Wong and Rosemary T. Wong’s famous The First Days of School (2005), a book that every new teacher was handed in the first district I ever taught in. While in retrospect I calmly agree with this advice, when I first saw it in print as a brand new teacher, I was horrified. Horrified because I didn’t read that particular chapter until the second week of school, and I thought for sure all hope was lost.

I said that in retrospect I agree with the advice, and I do. However, I also think we need to pay attention to the book’s title, The First Days of School, emphasis on days. Plural. Now, as I type this it is officially the fourth day of school in the district where I’m an instructional coach. So, my advice is – don’t despair. Don’t despair if you haven’t set up all your expectations, procedures, and routines just yet. Believe it or not, we are still within the first days of school. Now is the time to dive in to some critical work that will help shape up how your classroom runs for the entire school year.

(Note: Sometimes we don’t get off to a wonderful start with our procedures, routines, and expectations. I’m here to tell you that, although it is honestly much easier to begin such work at the very beginning of the school year, you can establish such things at any time during the school year. But that’s a story for another blog post.)

So, what types of things should we be focused on establishing during these first, critical days of school?

Procedures & Routines

Now is the time to establish with your students how they will pass in homework, where they will sit – or stand – during certain portions of class or of the school day, how transitions during a lesson or between lessons will function, how they should interact with one another and with you, how they should participate in class….

But my biggest piece of advice is not what your procedures and routines are, but how you teach them to your students. Yes, I think you need to teach these to your class, not just tell your class about them. This means you need to discuss the purpose of routines and procedures with your students, model behaviors for them, practice (and practice, and practice, and practice) using a gradual release of responsibility structure. All too often, we tell our students what the routines and procedures are, and then briskly move on to the content we’ll be teaching, expecting that they all understand the routines and procedures and can follow them perfectly. We wouldn’t expect this kind of super-quick mastery of content knowledge, so why do we expect it in other areas such as this?

Discipline

I’m going to let you in on a secret: if you establish really strong procedures and routines, you’ll deal far less with discipline issues. The same goes for having strong, detailed lesson planning: if you’ve thought out your lesson, ensuring that, within it, students have opportunities to actively engage with the material and if you’ve anticipated any potential bumps along the road, you’ll again deal far less with discipline issues.

But even in the most ideal of classrooms, every now and then a discipline issue may crop up. If it does, it will behoove you to discover ways to deal with consequences without stopping the instruction and learning that’s occurring in the classroom. Often when dealing with a discipline issue with one student, a teacher can lose focus on the lesson, and can find him- or herself losing precious time engaging with this one misbehaving student. Finding ways to avoid this trap are key. Are there non-verbal cues or signs you can give to this student? Can you use teacher tools like proximity to send a message without stopping your instruction?

Consistency is Key

With procedures and routines, and with discipline when it pops up, we must be consistent. Sometimes this is easier said than done. Sometimes being consistent requires a lot of effort and attention to detail on our parts, and some days it just feels easier or more manageable to slide away from the systems we’ve created. Avoid this temptation! Our students need to experience consistent procedures and routines, or they will very quickly get the message that these structures are not really all that important and they’ll begin to stop adhering to them. Which will most likely bring up some discipline issues, or at the very least, waste some of our precious classroom time.

The Structure of Lessons

Establishing a structure to your lessons that both you and your students can depend upon can really enhance the learning that occurs in the classroom. Will there always (or, at least, quite often) be an activator that will either review previous learning or that will scaffold students towards new learning? A summarizer that will help both you and students assess their comprehension of that day’s lesson? A workshop structure for particular parts of the day that will always allow time for direct instruction, gradual release, work time, and debriefing?

None of these suggestions are made with the intent of a stale classroom where everything is the same, day in and day out. Mixing things up can often engage our students’ minds and interest levels. But there’s a LOT to be said for consistency within the structure of our lessons. It can keep us teachers on our toes, determined to stick to a structure we know works, and it can be very helpful for students to know what to expect and to establish a pattern for learning. Rather than “mixing up” the entire structure of a lesson in order to allow for some variety (it is the spice of life, after all!), try instead, for example, to vary the types of activators and summarizers you use (don’t get too stuck in the “ticket to leave” rut, but explore some other options).

All of the above suggestions are really quite broad, aren’t they? 

If you’re looking for more detail on any of the above, including specific examples and suggestions, let me know. I’m happy to dedicate future blog posts to this, or to provide one-on-one coaching in these areas.

Enjoy these first days of school!

Write On

     Remember the days when your punishment for misbehaving in class might be to write "I will not ______" statements over and over and over again, ad infinitum? (No? Me neither. I was a pretty good kid. But bear with me here. I'm making a point...)

     Although it seems like these types of punishments are behind us (which is good, since Bart never really seemed to learn his lesson, now did he?), there's another type of repercussion for bad classroom behavior I'd like to discuss that also involves writing.

     Throughout my career in education, I've witnessed the following type of scenario many times. Young Bob or Sue acts up in class. Young Bob or Sue gets several warnings from the teacher. Young Bob or Sue continues to act up in class. Teacher pulls young Bob or Sue aside and delivers the repercussion: you must write a letter of apology (a paragraph about what you did wrong, an explanation of your behavior and how you will improve, etc.). Now I am all for setting behavioral expectations in our classrooms, and following through with students when they are not meeting those expectations yet. But fellow teachers, I must implore you: Don't make writing a punishment. The underlying, hidden message this sends to the misbehaving student (and to his or her peers looking on, as well) is "You've done something wrong and the best way I can punish you for this is to make you -- gasp -- write a paragraph! Because we all know that writing is a horrible, awful task that no one would ever want to do, so that's what you get for acting up." 

     Please understand. I know that no teacher actually thinks that writing is a punishment. And any teacher who requires a student to write as a consequence for misbehaving does not actually have the above thought process. But we have to be careful in thinking about how our messages may be received (consciously or subconsciously) by our students. And none of us want them to associate the act of writing with something negative. Let's vow not to do this and to make it as antiquated a notion as poor Bart writing all those "I will not ____" statements up on the chalkboard. Let's explore other ways to set behavioral expectations and to work with students who don't meet those expectations in our classrooms.

Tyler, Jimmy. "Bart writing on chalkboard." Photo. Flickriver.com 17 Apr. 2012. 15 March 2013. <http://www.flickriver.com/photos/14531705@N00/4529445838/>.

When the Teacher Sneezes

     I've been reading a book by Todd Whitaker lately entitled What Great Teachers Do Differently: 14 Things That Matter Most. It's an easy little read that (unfortunately at times) doesn't delve into too many specifics, but does offer a nice educational philosophy. Whitaker has conducted several studies on great teaching, theorizing to his readers that there are certain things that great teachers consistently do as part of their practices that set them apart from their colleagues. I thought I'd share some of these with you this week:

• Great teachers set -- and stick to -- expectations. Whitaker explains that establishing expectations is vastly different from establishing rules. He claims that "great teachers don't focus on 'What am I going to do if students misbehave?' They expect good behavior -- and generally that's what they get" (2004, p.18). (Remember I warned you about the lack of specifics?? Whitaker doesn't go into much detail about how great teachers expect good behavior -- about what that looks like and sounds like, etc. But his philosophy is a nice starting point for us all to start thinking about what that might look like for us.)
• Great teachers have a bag of classroom management tricks, like using eye contact or proximity. Great teachers know that a teacher never wins an argument with a student: "As soon as it starts, we have lost. If their peers are watching, they cannot afford to give in" (p. 26). And great teachers recognize that yelling doesn't work. (I learned this last lesson the hard way when I first started teaching. During my very first year, I yelled full volume at a very talkative class. It resulted in pin-drop silence . . . for about five minutes. I had lost my cool, my control. My students had won. They had been able to do that to me. I never yelled at a class again because I knew it didn't work.)
• Great teachers know that they want all students on their side. Whitaker offers this scenario: It's the first day of school. There are 25 students in a class and 24 of them are on their best first-day-of-school behavior. But #25 is not. As Whitaker insists, and I agree, right now the remaining 24 students are on the teacher's side. They want the teacher to take steps so that #25 will stop misbehaving. However, because #25 is one of them, they want the teacher to deal with #25 in a professional and respectful way. If the teacher does so, he's got the class on his side. If he does not, other students will begin to shift their allegiance to #25, and now the teacher has several #25s on his hands. Whoops. Whitaker claims that great teachers demonstrate respect for their students.
• Great teachers have high expectations of their students, but even higher expectations of themselves, says Whitaker. As a former high school ELA teacher, my expectations of my students and of myself were tested each time I assigned a major essay. I knew that if I expected my students to be able to complete this essay within a certain time frame, that I also had to be able to assess the essays within a certain time frame in order to provide feedback to my students. My expectations for my students kept my own expectations for myself in check.
• And, finally, when the teacher sneezes, the whole class gets a cold. As Whitaker says, "Our impact is significant; our focus becomes the student's focus" (p. 56). We as teachers set the tone for our classes each day. The teacher is the variable in her classroom. Whose behavior can she control? Her own. Whitaker recognizes that how teachers respond (to misbehavior, to a majority of a class failing a quiz, etc.) is the variable. "Good teachers consistently strive to improve, and they focus on something they can control -- their own performance" (p. 38).

     Now, I fear at times Whitaker might get a little "preachy" or a little simplistic -- and I've already remonstrated the poor man for his lack of specificity (give us some examples -- jeesh!) -- but all in all I enjoyed his common sense approach to what great teachers are doing in their classrooms every day that sets them apart as "great." I like that the above (though abridged) list is full of attainable mindsets and ways of thinking about teacher ownership over what occurs in a classroom. I hope this list sparks some thought and reflection -- I know it did for me!

Model Behavior

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     Looking for model behavior from your students? Then why not model the behavior?

Modeling has become (thankfully) a fairly common practice in today’s classrooms. Teachers model via think alouds what to do when encountering a challenging text. They model the writing process by projecting sample paragraphs and essays for the class to look at together. They model which steps to take and in which order to take them in order to solve an algebra problem.

     We do all these types of modeling as educators because we understand that, often, our students need to see what the process looks like, or need to see what an end product should be, or need to hear what an active reader’s thought process sounds like.

     So why not also use modeling when it comes to behavioral expectations in the classroom? Perhaps, sometimes, students’ inappropriate behaviors are a result of students needing to know what it looks like and feels like to behave appropriately.

     I’ve been doing some reading on muscle memory, thanks to the famous sister authors of The Daily 5 and CAFÉ books, written to promote classroom structures that enhance elementary students’ literacy independence. These are great reads, in my opinion, for both elementary and secondary educators alike, so don’t be surprised if they are the subjects for future blog posts.

     But, for now, I want to zoom in on what the sisters have to say about muscle memory and its connection to behavior in the classroom. Some students, particularly those who are kinesthetic learners, learn best by experiencing the same physical task over and over until it becomes an ingrained way of being because it has become a part of their muscle memory. We’ve all experienced this, actually. Take driving a car, for example. As adult drivers, we no longer have to concentrate on each physical aspect of driving a car; we don’t consciously think, “Now I put the car key in the ignition, now I turn the key clockwise until the car starts, etc.” But we probably did need to think through these steps much more consciously when we were first learning to drive. The difference now is that, through much repeated practice and experience, these tasks have been ingrained in our muscle memory.

     A student in our classroom who is learning a new behavioral expectation from us (how to behave during a mini-lesson, for example, or how to behave when the teacher is busy conferencing with a small group of students) may just well need two things: 1) he or she may need to experience a model of the behavior so he or she knows just what is expected, and 2) he or she may need to practice the appropriate behavior repeatedly until it is part of his or her muscle memories. Muscle memory does not happen overnight, or even after three practice runs (again, think of the driving analogy).

     A great suggestion from the sister authors is to include the students in the behavior modeling. They suggest beginning by discussing with the whole class what student behavior should be during a particular activity, brainstorming a list of behavioral criteria. Then, the sisters ask for a student volunteer to model for the class what this behavior looks like. While the student models the correct behavior (which could include sitting correctly, listening, nodding along in agreement, taking notes, etc.), the teacher points out to the rest of the class how the model student is doing everything on the previously-created brainstormed list of expected behaviors.

     But – wait for it! – here’s my favorite part. The sisters don’t stop there. They then call on a student whom they know will find it challenging to display these appropriate behaviors. They ask this student to model for the class the incorrect way to behave. As they insist – and I’m sure most of us can relate to – “Remember, give that student an audience now, or he or she will certainly take it later!” (from The Daily 5, 2006, p. 88). Modeling incorrect behavior typically results in some laughs from the crowd, and this student has now received the attention he or she typically craves.

     But – wait for it! – here’s my actual favorite part!!! The sisters then have this same student model the correct way to behave. I tried this out just the other day in a classroom I’ve been working in as an instructional coach and I can testify to its effectiveness. After modeling the incorrect behavior and getting some laughs, the student was able to completely shift gears and model the correct behaviors, giving him a chance to further instill these behaviors in his muscle memory, and also proving to himself and to his teacher that he does, in fact, know how to behave correctly and is, in fact, capable of doing so. This modeling exercise provides the teacher with great evidence to bring up with this student should he slip away from the expected behavior later on.

     I do feel I’ve oversimplified the concept slightly. The sisters do get into a lot of stamina-building practices that are very conducive towards building muscle memory that I haven’t talked about here. But I hope, readers, you’ll walk away from this post thinking about one more thing that could – and should – be modeled for students. Even if they are secondary students, they are still in your classroom for the first time and may need to learn your expectations for behavior during certain activities.

     Modeling. If it works for writing assignments, algebra problems, and thought processes, then why not for behavior, too?

     Bye, readers! I’m off to the gym. Gotta work on that muscle memory!