In teaching there are many methods and theories about what constitutes good teaching practice and classroom management. My theory is that you should find something that works and go for it! Once you have got the fundamentals working for you then you have a basis for you to experiment with other ideas. The more I travel and speak to teachers about teaching strategies the more I see...
Teachers as a whole are stressed out and consistently under pressure. As I was thinking about this and what we can do to help I thought it might be good to dedicate each Friday to a lighter look at life and teaching. Feel free to leave your own LOL moments and stories in the comment section below. Story 1: Christmas funny by I was sitting in my office on the first Sunday of December. Outside...
In this post I referenced a statistic that said that studies show that on average 50% of students are not engaged, 20% are actively disengaged – the reason – not interested In Dan Pinks book 'Drive - the surprising truth about what motivates us' he suggests that the reason they are not interested in their studies is because we have taught them not to be. In his book he describes an...
When I first posted this I received a question that I felt was worth sharing. Question: Doesn't student compliance come with student engagement? :) My answer (expanded here):...
When it comes to our understanding of management and motivation within the school system a lot of what we believe comes from the industrial revolution. It was during the industrial revolution that people began to look at everything through the lens of systems and processes. In the school context university or at least further study was seen to be the ultimate goal so the question was...
If you take a quick look over the last couple of posts you will understand that as teachers we work in a system that relies heavily on threats and rewards. This is not necessarily the ideal way to motivate students, nether-the-less when it comes to classroom management sometimes you need to give up your ideals and go with whatever works! Now I’m not saying that we become lazy and we...
Yesterday I had the honour of speaking to the staff of Guildford Primary School and Auburn North Primary School. Speaking at staff development days can be a daunting task, there are always those who love what you have to say and those who were wishing they could be somewhere else...anywhere else! I love the challenge of engaging teachers from all different cultures, life experiences and...
In the last post we looked at the stick approach to student motivation and engagement. Today we will look at the carrot approach. Some people will tell you that it is far better to set up an encouraging environment. It is better to praise the student. Every teacher uses a reward system. This could be in the form of a sticker chart, video lesson, outside play etc These work well...
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