Many teachers will relate that discipline is a major
challenge. How does high poverty affect
the amount of time spent on discipline?
How can you change that?
What are 2 strategies you use in the classroom to increase
student engagement? (be specific enough others could replicate it)
Respond to 2 others.
According to Eric Jensen, eighth grade teachers at schools with more than 40% low SES students spend more than one-fifth (21%) of their time on discipline compared to 12% in low poverty schools. This means that, in schools where students are less likely to have academic success to begin with, a fifth of teacher time is spent on non-academic tasks.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of changing this trend, one of the best strategies is to get to know your students--know their interests, their families, their obligations before and after school. This can communicate that you care about them and can be the difference in helping them be successful. Ulysses has encouraged teachers to make home or porch visits at the beginning of the year.
Secondly, examine your own mindset. Do you believe that all students can learn and be successful? They likely won't be unless you as their teacher believe they can. Don't give up on them (easy words, but sometimes hard to do, especially when they throw roadblocks in front of themselves).
Thirdly, know their learning styles and needs and differentiate their curriculum. Don't necessarily water it down. They won't grow without challenge, but don't overwhelm them either. Success may be the greatest motivator. Some of our students are great artists; some have words, but don't necessary use their voice. Some need to find that they have the power to help others. Find a way and don't give up on yourself and your ability to teach them.
Your third point about knowing students is huge. Knowing students interests, needs, strengths, areas needing improvement, and learning styles can help us find ways to connect with them to build relationships. Once relationships are built, students are more willing to ‘let us in’ and see where they are struggling and allowing us to work on areas that need to be improved.
DeleteIn many families that live in poverty the parents do not have good discipline in the home. Parents may be too stressed over finances, too busy working too many jobs. The environment may be too hectic with little or no structure. Kids who live in a chaotic environment often struggle when brought into a more structured one.
ReplyDeleteOne way we can increase student engagement is to be consistent. Kids like to know what to expect. Try to keep the schedule as close to the same everyday as you possibly can. You lose time and engagement when students are busy trying to figure out what is next and what they should be doing. This is extremely helpful with students who have disabilities.
I use class dojo in my classroom. i leave it upon the screen and when a student does something very good you can just click on the ipad and it will pop up as a point telling the student's name and what the point was for (i.e.hard work, helping others etc.) It works in the opposite direction also. The students can get negative points too. You don't have to stop teaching to discipline, you just click and the student usually stops negative behavior because his or her name just popped up on the board with a negative point. I was pleasantly surprised when one of my students in first grade told me after seeing a student get a negative point, "Negative point means you take one away."
I agree that structure and consitency are important factors for discipline in the classroom.
DeleteI love Class Dojo! I would try to encourage as many teachers as possible to use it. One of the best parts is not having to stop what you're doing to handle a behavior. You can always talk about it later but, in the moment, you click and keep going. I also love the positive choices and how it can be customized to what ever you need.
Structure and consistency are very comforting.... I didn't really realize this until I began learning about students who are raised in poverty.
DeleteI agree with all of your comment. It is so important to get to know these families. I think that getting to know the families will make the student more willing to work for you. It shows the student and the family that you are able to visit them on their terms.
DeleteI completely agree - consistency is so important. I think we'd all agree, especially when students return after a long weekend with no stability or consistency!
DeleteSometimes the simplest idea makes the greatest impact, like structure and consistency. When all parties understand what is to take place, learning occurs.
DeleteHonestly, I don't have to spend much time on discipline. In classrooms there can be a lot of discipline issues though and I've had kids on my caseload that could have those problems. I think being consistent and keeping them engaged are huge. If a kid already lacks hope and optimism, they might also be at risk for behaviors, so building hope and relationships is also important.
ReplyDeleteI use class dojo and have just started learning earnings. I love them both! Class Dojo really motivates my students to behave and work hard. A couple of kids in my Spell Read group get a little lazy with their "point and sweep" or activity checking, so that is worth a point on Dojo. I rarely have to remind them to do it correctly any more because they really want that point! We now convert the points to learning earning bucks, which they also love. I have one girl who tends to get very restless in class, talk, move around, play with stuff in her desk, etc. I plan to use both of these with her as soon as I work out the details with her teacher. Any time I tell someone that it's worth a point or a buck, they do just what I want them to. It's amazing. I haven't used it with a significantly challenged behavior student yet. Thank goodness I don't have one this year!
I've not heard of learning earnings before. Is it also an app for the i-pad? I've seen dojo used in more and more classrooms. It seems like students like that immediate reinforcement that comes with it as well.
DeleteI don't believe it's an app yet, but I've heard learning earnings is expected to merge with class dojo.
DeleteWhat is class dojo? Just found out a month ago about learning earnings and haven't been able to sink my teeth into it. Maybe we can see how this works during our next meeting. :)
DeleteI have a daughter in classrooms where class dojo is used. I get a report at the end of the week via email that lets me know her behavior. So many of the parents living in poverty would not have email on their phone that they could access. I also think it's important to leave the characters up on white board -- most of the time my daughter doesn't even know what her dojo report will say. And last, I do appreciate knowing how my daughter is behaving, however, I am not sure I need to know every time she visits with a friend or takes too much time in the bathroom. If they wouldn't take the time to call me on the phone, then I don't really need to read about it. At the beginning of the year, I was really getting after her for every little negative mark and that's not fair to her - -most of them are given to the class as whole for misbehaving, but it's not indicated on the report that way. Not sure what I think about dojo as a parent.......
DeleteBuilding relationships definitely cuts down on the amount of time spent on discipline. One of the challenges of high poverty backgrounds is when the parents have no respect for authority – any authority. I still believe that building a positive relationship will bridge that mind-set as much as possible.
ReplyDeleteI try to relate what the students are doing in their general education classes to our world today. If I have time I preview a current news article has to do with something being discussed in history or biology and then have the students research that event and let me know what is going on.
I’m blessed to have a kitchen in my classroom and I’ve found that preparing food engages almost every student. This gives the students a chance to read & follow directions, use hands-on math, sequence, enhance their self-esteem (they get rave reviews when they share w/ staff) and a reward – getting to eat the product of their toil!!
I agree if you build relationships with your students it will cut down on the time spent on dicipline. I also agree about the authority. If the parents see you as a positive role model and a person that they can talk to I feel respect can and sometimes will be earned in that family.
DeleteI agree with your statement about authority. If the parents have no respect for authority, why would their children? They are setting no example. It must be so difficult to get through to these kids!
DeleteCooking in your classroom is great- - it teaches so many skills as well as being a great life skill. How engaging- - and rewarding when you get to eat and share their treats! Great idea!!
DeleteDiscipline is an issue in many of the classroom I have been in. The teachers spend much of their time refocusing students and dealing with non-compliant students. Kids who grow up in low SES homes tend to have issues at home as well. These kids might not have the as much supervision at home. When at school, students need to be taught these explicit behavior skills. A teacher and I are working on implementing PBS in her class. This program teaches expectations in each of the physical areas of the schools, but also recognizes positive behaviors of students. I try to model what I expect from students in my small groups. I also correct student behavior immediately. I use social stories for students who need that explicit teaching as well.
ReplyDeleteI have heard many positive aspects about PBS. I have also used social stories with some of my more significant children. It has helped them with some daily routines. I have even helped create social stories for parents to use at home (at parents' request). Good luck on implementing the PBS.
DeleteKaren- That is great you cook with your students. You are right it is a great skill and kids love to do it.
ReplyDeletedclodfelter- I have seen some teachers use the dojo. I think I want to try it. I know they kids in that class love their avatar, but also love they can see how they are doing.
I have heard about class dojo at inservice. I would love to see it in action sometime. I know it can be very rewarding for both the teachers and students. I am not sure it would fit well into my setting though.
DeleteI've seen class dojo work even in small groups to give reinforcment without interrupting instruction.
DeleteRae Lynn~~
ReplyDeleteI too, LOVE Class Dojo. I have not tried learning earnings, but have heard great things about it. I do wonder if it age appropriate for children second grade and younger.
Karen~~
Though a lack of respect from parents is a real issue, sometimes it is really the parents feeling inferior or lacking when dealing with a highly educated professional. Sometimes, we as teachers, use educational jargon when regular every day words will suffice. Many parents feel talked down to when they don't understand all that we are saying. The parents sometimes believe that we are trying to act smarter than they are and it makes them angry. We need to keep a professional attitude but bear in mind that many of these parents grew up in poverty and may be lacking in educational background.
I have had some discipline issues in the past with students that come from a background of poverty and just hard times. It took a lot of care and getting the student to trust me before I even tried getting to know the parents at a more personal level. I felt that I needed to gain the students trust and permission first before getting to know the parents. After I started talking to the parents and getting to know them the dicipline seemed to get better. We could talk about what kind of day they had the night before and what has and hasn't been tried in the past. Keeping the lines of communication open is so important when working with all students.
ReplyDeleteSome strategies that I have tried is a rewards system. The student would have to get a punch from each teacher and at the end of the day he would get free time with me. That did work for awhile but not for long. I have also tried cooling off time. If the student needed to cool off he was allowed to come to my room no questions asked. The only thing that I did request is that he draw or journal when he was able. That was successful, it gave the student the outlet he needed to get his head back into school.
Communication is very important. But I believe the communication with students about their life outside school isn’t just about communication. Students see it as ‘I’m important enough for someone to care about’ time. It makes them feel cared about and important to an adult when we take time to really talk with them.
DeleteI agree that building a relationship with parents is very important to help with discipline problems in the school-if parents trust you then they are more likely to help their child be more disciplined.
DeleteAccording to Jenson, half of studnts are bored every day. There is an increased amount of time spent on discipline in low poverty schools - up to 21% in 40% low SES. We need to change - how can you engage minds/emotions? Too much time is spent on correcting the behavior than going to the cause of the behavior (boredom) and changing that by preventing the problem rather than remediating it. Students need to be active partcipants.
ReplyDeleteI use a sticker chart system, but I don't spend a lot of time focusing on discipline. A lot of what I do engages students, which is the nature of speech therapy. One strategy I use is discussion, the children use their expressive language to describe objects, events, stories, etc and compare/contrast. I also use conversation questions, Wh- questions, games, social interaction with my small groups (turn taking, etc) to keep my students engaged.
I think the high poverty situations make classroom management and discipline more difficult. When I think about the information presented about students not knowing how to socialize with others and a distrust for others due to a lack of stable relationships, it makes sense. I think one way to change that is something that was said earlier - to teach social skills. That is just one piece, but if students are explicitly taught how to behave and what is expected of them, it certainly helps behavior.
ReplyDeleteThe book mentioned doing surveys at the beginning of the year or quarter to have students let the teacher know their interests and how engaged they feel they are. I think this is something that could be implemented and used without a great deal of preparation.
Another strategy that I've seen used at the elementary level are individual work folders. If a student finishes early, they can grab their work folder and do the next page. There is a great deal of work for the teacher to create an individual, leveled folder with work in it for each student. However, the advanced work helped the teacher to be more organized throughout the week.
You have listed some interesting strategies. I agree creating individual folders take time, but WOW how great for the children in that classroom. I think these strategies would create greater engagement. And as the book states, greater engagement decreases the amount of time a teacher has to spend on discipline.
DeleteJessica, I too like your strategy ideas....and know that I need to work on some individual folders for a couple of students. Thanks for the nudge!!
DeleteLike Jensen reported, teachers with a majority of low SES students spend about 1/5th of their time in discipline. Students with very busy parents get less attention and guidance at home and work to get it from their teachers and peers at school. One strategy is to increase their engagement in learning using movement, music, and cooperative groupings. Another is to provide the structure and consistency lacking in other settings and explicitly teach students what is expected for their behavior and performance in class.
ReplyDeleteI try to build strong relationships with students and I expect they will behave. I think most students will give us what we expect from them. When students act inappropriately because they have not been taught differently, a quiet, short explanation in private is beneficial. I never criticize the home or parents; they are doing the best they can. What I do tell students is, “this is how you will need to do ___ when you are on a job.” That seems to have a stronger impact than presenting it in another light.
DeleteDiscipline is a major challenge when the authority figure is not engaged with the students and/or staff. Eric Jensen has reported that more than 21 percent of time was spent on discipline with a 40 percent low -SES student population. Discipline challenges decrease as students find the attention they are deprived of from home within the school setting. Getting students engaged means teachers need to change their mind set from one of imparting information to becoming a coach. First of all, getting to know the students is a basic move. Talking to them with respect and not down to them will build the teacher-student relationship. Understanding what their basic needs are and trying to meet them, ie food, goes a long way to foster trust. I've had students develop their own parameters to class. It helps in forming those boundaries that all humans need. Last of all, the information on page 141 holds so true. Teachers feel that there is x amount of time to cram as much information into those small minds that are struggling to survive. Why not give them half of that info, time and techniques to make the knowledge more permanent.? We all have a limited memory and need time to make sense of the information given to us. I do this with all of my classes. For math, I would much rather be available to answer questions than having the homework sit in the book bag and brought back with no other problem finished.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, this book reports that more time is spent on discipline in classrooms where ther are children from low SES backgrounds.
ReplyDeleteI think consistency and building relationships are the key for discipline. I often say that I hope each student of mine thinks that they are my "favorite" - that they are special and that I care endlessly! I also think engaging instruction and differentiating instruction are components to increasing positive behaviors. I think of how our kids brains are developing with soooo much technology in and out of the classroom. We HAVE to use interactive technology to engage them in learning- - that is how their brains are getting wired. I also think using several different styles of teaching are key. This is a totally different generation of learners than what their teachers experienced.
Often classrooms with students from high poverty spend more time on discipline. The more time that is spent on discipline then less time is spent on teaching. Utilizing engaging instruction is one way to alter the amount of time on discipline. As an itinerant teacher I often incorporate physical activity to learning an academic concept. For exampale, I want children to learn rhyming words. I place various picature on the floor, then I hold up a picture and have the child (or children) go get the picature that rhymes with the one I am holding up. Another way is by using the child's interest and incorporating it into a project or activity. One of my children is VERY interested in trucks and cars but doesn't like to cut or draw. I had the student draw and cut road signs to use in a roadway that we set up that the student could play with cars and trucks.
ReplyDeleteGood ideas Margie-we know that incorporating a child's interests in their education is very important-just wish all teacher understood that!
DeleteStudies show that teachers from schools with a higher percentage of children living in poverty spend almost double the amount of time on classroom discipline, as do teachers in low-poverty schools. This, in turn, results in a major decrease spent on engaging students with actual instruction.
ReplyDeleteThere haven’t been too many occasions where I’ve had to keep students engaged (I still don’t have a classroom, haha!), however, looking back, I remember strategies that my teachers used with me while I was in school; most of them involved completing some project to demonstrate what we had learned. For example, in 5th grade, we developed our own Catch Phrase type game (3x5 cards instead of the disc, and a kitchen timer) utilizing vocabulary from the units we were working on in various subjects to either pre-teach before the teacher covered something or review before a test. In high school, our Government/History/Geography/Everything Else Related teacher would always have us do some sort of group project at the end of a unit to tie together everything we had learned. In Government, we divided into 2 groups, elected a representative for our side, and conducted our own presidential debates. Then, at the end of this process, we walked down to the voting booths and actually got to vote in the 2004 election. In World History, we made scaled replicas of the 7 Wonders of the Ancient World, presented them to our peers, and if we were able to craft our models out of something edible, we could have a party at the end of class. In Kansas History (8th grade???), we made scaled replicas of what an early homestead might look like. We displayed our projects to the rest of the school (7th-12th was in 1 building), all of the faculty/staff/students voted for their favorite, and whichever group won received a prize (I think it might’ve been free passes on homework…). Also, another project I really liked happened completely by chance. My trig/calc class was comprised of only 2 students. We were covering logarithms, which we thought was the most boring, useless information someone had ever tried to teach us. Consequently, we complained a lot, saying we would never need to know this stuff in the real world, and why couldn’t we do something else that we would actually benefit from??? Our teacher gave in, and the rest of the time that she had allotted for logarithms, we spent developing our college budgets. It sounds simple, but it was actually a decent amount of work. We had to research colleges, determine which one we would most likely attend, what expenses we would have (i.e. gas, food, clothes, rent, etc.), what our realistic income would look like (i.e. scholarships, jobs, grants, etc.), and then calculate it for the duration of our college education (i.e. 2 years, 4 years, graduate school, etc.). I actually followed mine fairly closely, decided not to take a car to college my freshman year because of the expense, knew I’d need to try to get 2 jobs, applied for/received scholarships that I didn’t previously know existed, and didn’t need to take out any loans. Needless to say, we stayed very engaged during this process because what we were learning about was something that was meaningful to us.
Jen Jones~
I appreciate your comments about Class Dojo. When first learning about this at our coop’s inservice, and then reading teachers’ comments on here, I really liked the idea of this program. However, I also enjoy hearing feedback from a parent’s perspective. I don’t have children, so sometimes it’s easy to overlook things like what you mentioned.
Jamie K~
I agree with your statement about parents sometimes not setting the best examples for their children. It’s so frustrating to me when I’m in a staffing, and a parent’s unnecessarily bashing the school/teachers, and the student’s sitting right there (if he/she’s 14+ years old) just taking it all in. So now, if the student’s having problems, he/she is being validated by the parent that, yes, everything wrong that happens to the student is the school’s fault.
I feel that many times discipline is a challenge because children that come from poverty live "in chaos" therefore when there is "order" they have a difficult time adjusting to that. I feel you can change that by having a variety of opportunities for children to move and have some "control" of what they can do in the classroom. Giving children choices in their day also helps a child feel more in control of their day and therefore less discipline problems.
ReplyDeleteThe more students are in poverty the more problems there are going to be with discipline. These students don't always have structure and support and home so they don't know how to transition into the classroom. I think the the most important part is to never give up on the student. There may be times when we have to walk away and take a deep breath. I think if the student sees us keep coming back they learn we care and want to help. I try to communicate and listen when a student has a bad day. The other method I have found that is helpful is having consequences/rewards set up. They know what is going to happen and I stick to it.
ReplyDeleteTammi - I like the idea of allowing students to come to the room no questions asked. Sometimes that is all a student needs is that moment to take a deep breath and calm down.
Dana - you are right if we as teachers can give students some control it may be a way to alleviate some of the problems