Early into my nine weeks with the 4th graders I taught with, I could see that the rules of the classroom weren't working for us. My "classroom management" (which I now feel compelled to put in quotes because of my evolving view of the term) skills were severely lacking, and I knew there were a number of reasons why:
1. I was a new face, and the students didn't know if they could trust me
2. For the same reason, the students wanted to test their boundaries
3. The cooperating teacher had not set clear boundaries and instead relied on authority and a case-by-case plan of discipline
4. The cooperating teacher's and my own classroom management styles were dissimilar
5. The grade-level team had relatively poor communication about discipline which led to an entire 60-some students that were used to getting out of hand
6. It was the last quarter, and the students were anticipating summer
Thus, a couple weeks in, I decided that something must change. Taking a card from Teacher Tom, I wanted to take a shot at allowing the students to create their own list of classroom rules they wanted to abide by and consequences for when those rules were broken. The evening after a particularly poorly run lesson, I went home and planned for a classroom meeting the next morning. I thought up a few example rules and consequences in case the students ran out of ideas or didn't hit on something I felt was important.
(There are a lot of details involved in the process I followed, so I've included the rest of the post following the cut.)
Showing posts with label classroom management. Show all posts
Showing posts with label classroom management. Show all posts
Friday, May 25, 2012
Saturday, January 28, 2012
First class meeting reflection
I've tried a few times to write about the first class meeting I facilitated with the third grade class I'm student teaching with, but I can never finish the thought. I get so frustrated so often during my internship, and perhaps I'm internally not letting myself think everything through properly. Perhaps I'm unconsciously afraid of what I'd find if I did. Consciously, of course, I blame everything on the "public school" scape goat. And, of course, I'll really need to give myself honest reflection time, but perhaps just not during my internship. It feels like that would be unprofessional somehow. In three and a half months time, I'll be back to normal (hopefully).
In the meantime, I'd like to actually finish a thought about my first class meeting. During planning for a day in which my cooperating teacher would be gone, I decided it was time to have a discussion with the students. I wasn't sure exactly what I wanted to say, however, and wound up improvising most of it while I went along. I knew only that I wanted to touch on respecting each other despite your feelings towards a person, ignoring what others say even when it makes you angry, and disagreeing with others respectfully. At the last minute request of the cooperating teacher in her notes to the sub, I started the dialogue with a story, even though it didn't exactly fit with what I fully wanted to talk about. But, really, without it, I would have hardly known where to begin.
While the third-graders were in P.E., I moved the desks to create a larger space on the floor (because they haven't been taught how to move their own desks quickly like I would have taught them) and taught the substitute how to run my Flip camera so that I could watch the meeting again and reflect. When the students returned, we sat in a circle and I read the short book. They were surprisingly somber during the story.
Afterward, I asked what the story made the students think about. I received answers from the title of the book and a synopsis of what the characters in the illustration did, so I told them that the story reminded me about how the class doesn't always work together as a team. Then we brainstormed problems that students in the class have and solutions to those problems. I wrote on hand-held white boards during the meeting, but transferred the notes to poster-sized paper and hung them in the room afterward. I'll include the ideas below.
When I could see that the ideas had been exhausted and the students were getting anxious, I transitioned to role-playing, hoping to build empathy for the problems we had just discussed. The students were excited for the chance to role-play, perhaps because it meant finally getting up (we had been sitting for around 30 minutes) and perhaps for the near-silly nature of the activity. I had two practice what to do "when someone is bothering you" (here illustrated by one student taping his hands on another and saying, "Bother bother bother..."). The "bothered" student acted out the ideas we had brainstormed, first telling the other to stop, then walking away, and finally coming to tell me. Another set of students acted out what to do when someone near them continued to talk without permission ("Blah, blah, blah..."): tell her politely to be quiet and give her a quiet signal.
Unfortunately that was all we had time for. Now that I know that this group of students responds more positively to role-playing than dialogue (probably because they haven't had the chance to be actively involved in a real discussion), I look forward to future class meetings with just a little less time talking and more time acting out. Hopefully I really can appeal to their empathy this way.
Student-generated brainstormed ideas:
Someone is being mean or trying to get me in trouble
1. Stay in control and be respectful.
2. Say, "Please stop ..."
3. Swallow any mean words
4. Ignore them
5. Use a calming technique
6. Walk away
7. Tell an adult
Someone near me won't stop talking
1. Say respectfully, "Please be quiet, I'm trying to learn."
2. Give them a silent quiet signal.
Calming Techniques
1. Take deep breaths
2. Get a drink of water
3. Go to the restroom to splash your face with cold water
4. Write your feelings
5. Write someone a letter
6. Read a book (with permission)
7. Draw a picture (with permission)
In the meantime, I'd like to actually finish a thought about my first class meeting. During planning for a day in which my cooperating teacher would be gone, I decided it was time to have a discussion with the students. I wasn't sure exactly what I wanted to say, however, and wound up improvising most of it while I went along. I knew only that I wanted to touch on respecting each other despite your feelings towards a person, ignoring what others say even when it makes you angry, and disagreeing with others respectfully. At the last minute request of the cooperating teacher in her notes to the sub, I started the dialogue with a story, even though it didn't exactly fit with what I fully wanted to talk about. But, really, without it, I would have hardly known where to begin.
While the third-graders were in P.E., I moved the desks to create a larger space on the floor (because they haven't been taught how to move their own desks quickly like I would have taught them) and taught the substitute how to run my Flip camera so that I could watch the meeting again and reflect. When the students returned, we sat in a circle and I read the short book. They were surprisingly somber during the story.
Afterward, I asked what the story made the students think about. I received answers from the title of the book and a synopsis of what the characters in the illustration did, so I told them that the story reminded me about how the class doesn't always work together as a team. Then we brainstormed problems that students in the class have and solutions to those problems. I wrote on hand-held white boards during the meeting, but transferred the notes to poster-sized paper and hung them in the room afterward. I'll include the ideas below.
When I could see that the ideas had been exhausted and the students were getting anxious, I transitioned to role-playing, hoping to build empathy for the problems we had just discussed. The students were excited for the chance to role-play, perhaps because it meant finally getting up (we had been sitting for around 30 minutes) and perhaps for the near-silly nature of the activity. I had two practice what to do "when someone is bothering you" (here illustrated by one student taping his hands on another and saying, "Bother bother bother..."). The "bothered" student acted out the ideas we had brainstormed, first telling the other to stop, then walking away, and finally coming to tell me. Another set of students acted out what to do when someone near them continued to talk without permission ("Blah, blah, blah..."): tell her politely to be quiet and give her a quiet signal.
Unfortunately that was all we had time for. Now that I know that this group of students responds more positively to role-playing than dialogue (probably because they haven't had the chance to be actively involved in a real discussion), I look forward to future class meetings with just a little less time talking and more time acting out. Hopefully I really can appeal to their empathy this way.
Student-generated brainstormed ideas:
Someone is being mean or trying to get me in trouble
1. Stay in control and be respectful.
2. Say, "Please stop ..."
3. Swallow any mean words
4. Ignore them
5. Use a calming technique
6. Walk away
7. Tell an adult
Someone near me won't stop talking
1. Say respectfully, "Please be quiet, I'm trying to learn."
2. Give them a silent quiet signal.
Calming Techniques
1. Take deep breaths
2. Get a drink of water
3. Go to the restroom to splash your face with cold water
4. Write your feelings
5. Write someone a letter
6. Read a book (with permission)
7. Draw a picture (with permission)
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Socratic Teaching in Practice
Today I was required to teach a math lesson to my university methods class. I taught it Socratically, and in hindsight I realized that it was my first experience doing so! My peers hated it. They were polite, but I could tell the only thing on their mind was, "We didn't do anything! There were no activities! There's no difference between lecture and what you just did!" Part of that was because it was my first time teaching using this method, and the other part was because the group I taught was not familiar with it. If I had a regular class of students I taught using this method frequently, they would have been more at ease with it.
I did think, however, that because teaching Socratically is so different than a regular lesson, I should announce what kind of teaching I will be doing before I begin. A good way to do this might be, "We are going to have a Socratic dialogue about decimals, so please turn your desks into a circle." Having the circle will definitely indicate to the students that they will be working collaboratively to answer questions. Having my "students" sit normally today indicated to them that I would be teaching a normal lesson, and they were confused when my lesson didn't meet their expectations.
I may also need to work on the questions I ask. I tried to use a new classroom management today, as well, using the word "together" to indicate when a choral response was requested. It didn't work so well because it was my first time using it and I wasn't in the habit of using it, but more importantly because it clashed with the dialogue. I asked a lot of low order thinking questions that were answered in one word responses so that I could use the "together" trick, and this did not lead to good dialogue. The "together" trick would have been good in a classroom that needs a lot of management, and it seems that Socratic discussion works better in one that doesn't need as much management, at least after the students have gotten used to the routine of the discussion. At any rate, the technique as unnecessary and a hindrance.
This is what I should remember for my future Socratic teaching:
*Announce in some way when I will teaching Socratically
*Remember those higher order thinking questions. Refer to Bloom's as much as necessary
*There should only be one classroom management technique used at this time, respect. Remind students to raise their hands any time they have something to add to the discussion.
I did think, however, that because teaching Socratically is so different than a regular lesson, I should announce what kind of teaching I will be doing before I begin. A good way to do this might be, "We are going to have a Socratic dialogue about decimals, so please turn your desks into a circle." Having the circle will definitely indicate to the students that they will be working collaboratively to answer questions. Having my "students" sit normally today indicated to them that I would be teaching a normal lesson, and they were confused when my lesson didn't meet their expectations.
I may also need to work on the questions I ask. I tried to use a new classroom management today, as well, using the word "together" to indicate when a choral response was requested. It didn't work so well because it was my first time using it and I wasn't in the habit of using it, but more importantly because it clashed with the dialogue. I asked a lot of low order thinking questions that were answered in one word responses so that I could use the "together" trick, and this did not lead to good dialogue. The "together" trick would have been good in a classroom that needs a lot of management, and it seems that Socratic discussion works better in one that doesn't need as much management, at least after the students have gotten used to the routine of the discussion. At any rate, the technique as unnecessary and a hindrance.
This is what I should remember for my future Socratic teaching:
*Announce in some way when I will teaching Socratically
*Remember those higher order thinking questions. Refer to Bloom's as much as necessary
*There should only be one classroom management technique used at this time, respect. Remind students to raise their hands any time they have something to add to the discussion.
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Minimalist Teaching Redefined (An Introduction and Musings)
Inspired by a recent personal interest in minimalism, the other day I found myself wondering, "What would minimalism as a pedagogy look like?" Immediately I turned to Google, but every search result referenced what I've heard called silent teaching, standing back to let students discover knowledge for themselves. While I admire this approach, it wasn't quite what I was looking for.
I have two large tubs full of "teacher stuff" in my living room closet. The quotes are used in the previous statement to imply that not everything included is actually useful as a teaching tool. Honestly, it's been a while, and I'm not exactly sure what all is in there. I know that there are plastic paper organizers, small containers, stickers, ink pads and a couple of stamps, a few sets of bulletin board borders,... And that doesn't include all of the supplies (pencils, paper clips, sticky notes) that are kept in a separate box in my bedroom closet, the countless children's books that have crowded themselves out of an entire two-shelf book case, or a shelf full of professional books in my bedroom bookcase. And I don't even have a degree yet!
During my time as a paraeducator, I worked with a teacher that, frankly speaking, I shall call a hoarder. She'd been working for 26 years, and her room showed it. The first thing one noticed upon entering her classroom was, despite having one of the larger rooms in the school, the complete lack of space. Stacks of papers lined every surface. The students' tables were topped with a small plastic tub each, but the tubs were overflowing with worksheets in various stages of completion, broken crayons and various bits of their boxes, dirty ziplock baggies, pencils to be sharpened, and fragments of destroyed pink erasers. Boxes and boxes of worksheets stood around the perimeter of the room. Her walls were covered with faded, outdated, childish cartoon character posters. Stuffed animals lined top shelves. And the closet? I had to work with her for a year and a half before she let me take a glimpse. The door could only be partially opened because it was crammed full of tubes of wet wipes (for cleaning?), countless boxes of untouched construction paper, a million worksheets, and a tower of unopened boxes of tissues (literally around 50).
I also worked with a new teacher that had only been out of college for two years. She was unfortunately let go because of cutbacks, but found a position elsewhere in the state. I helped her clean out her classroom at the end of the year. Despite having worked for such a short period of time, it was surprising how much she had accumulated. She had let her students know a couple weeks before school let out that she had a new job in a different city, and they helped her pack most of her materials into boxes. Still, it took the entire morning to finish cleaning out her desk area and closet. By the end, she was tired and frustrated and kept saying variations of, "I don't care, just throw it all away!"
How do these kind of situations come to be? What does it mean? How can we prevent them from happening in the first place? When I did a preliminary search for Minimalist Teaching, I hoped to find more along these lines.
Just the other day, I got a catalog in the mail (who knows HOW they got my address) full of page after endless page of cheap junk. Apparently teachers are just another source of income for capitalist corporations wanting to make a buck. But is it at the expense of your students?
My political stance aside, when I first began looking into minimalism for my personal life, I noted to a friend what a contradiction it would seem to be both a minimalist and a teacher. You never know what might interest or help any particular student specifically. Therefore, everything must be saved in preparation for having that one student in your class. I've come to believe that this is the mutual though process of most teachers.
It's either, "Oh, look at this thing! I could use this in my X lesson!" or "Hey, that's an interesting thing. It might come in handy sometime."
I've learned a lot from Leo Babauta recently about how to quell these feelings and fears. (Personally, I have a fear that I might be able to use something for making something new or for a craft, but I'm not even a crafts type of person!)
Back to my original question, what would a classroom concerned with minimalism in regards to "stuff" look like?
I've been a fan of Socratic teaching for a few years, but since I haven't made a post on it, I'll have to reference this article, in which the author teaches binary to third graders. In my ideal classroom, we wouldn't need a large quantity of materials because we would spend more time in dialogue and discussion.
But how realistic is that? As a pre-service teacher, I'm not entirely sure, but I may be able to approach the topic with more of an open mind than an experienced teacher whose judgement may be clouded with personal bias. The main issues that concerns me are the areas of tactile learners and (with a hint of bias picked up, whether truthfully or not, from media and popular conception) boys. Would I be able to reach them as fully without objects for them to hold and manipulate about every matter we discuss? The obvious answer, at least in the case of the tactile learner, is no, I would not. But perhaps the question I should have asked is whether I would be able to reach them as easily. To which the answer may not change, but the ideas to which it alludes might. It may not be easy to reach these learners, but maybe, it would benefit them more.
Perhaps, a good friend notes, children who are "inundated with the stuff and the entertainment of their parents" would benefit from a blank canvass. It could be a healthy break from the fast-paced, invasive life of our current society. She also suggests bringing in a new set of found objects every once in a while to study, perhaps from nature, seashells, feathers, pine cones, etc., which I thought was a wonderful and simple idea.
Above all, what I want to accomplish the most with this study is to get students to question more. "What is this doing here?" "What do we use it for?" "Why are we keeping it here?" I want for us to constantly re-evaluate and look for ways to improve our shared environment. And, hopefully, our dialogues themselves will be entertaining enough to keep the children's attention more than materials and manipulatives would. I want to teach the powers of community, thinking, and sharing, not the power of items.
I have two large tubs full of "teacher stuff" in my living room closet. The quotes are used in the previous statement to imply that not everything included is actually useful as a teaching tool. Honestly, it's been a while, and I'm not exactly sure what all is in there. I know that there are plastic paper organizers, small containers, stickers, ink pads and a couple of stamps, a few sets of bulletin board borders,... And that doesn't include all of the supplies (pencils, paper clips, sticky notes) that are kept in a separate box in my bedroom closet, the countless children's books that have crowded themselves out of an entire two-shelf book case, or a shelf full of professional books in my bedroom bookcase. And I don't even have a degree yet!
During my time as a paraeducator, I worked with a teacher that, frankly speaking, I shall call a hoarder. She'd been working for 26 years, and her room showed it. The first thing one noticed upon entering her classroom was, despite having one of the larger rooms in the school, the complete lack of space. Stacks of papers lined every surface. The students' tables were topped with a small plastic tub each, but the tubs were overflowing with worksheets in various stages of completion, broken crayons and various bits of their boxes, dirty ziplock baggies, pencils to be sharpened, and fragments of destroyed pink erasers. Boxes and boxes of worksheets stood around the perimeter of the room. Her walls were covered with faded, outdated, childish cartoon character posters. Stuffed animals lined top shelves. And the closet? I had to work with her for a year and a half before she let me take a glimpse. The door could only be partially opened because it was crammed full of tubes of wet wipes (for cleaning?), countless boxes of untouched construction paper, a million worksheets, and a tower of unopened boxes of tissues (literally around 50).
I also worked with a new teacher that had only been out of college for two years. She was unfortunately let go because of cutbacks, but found a position elsewhere in the state. I helped her clean out her classroom at the end of the year. Despite having worked for such a short period of time, it was surprising how much she had accumulated. She had let her students know a couple weeks before school let out that she had a new job in a different city, and they helped her pack most of her materials into boxes. Still, it took the entire morning to finish cleaning out her desk area and closet. By the end, she was tired and frustrated and kept saying variations of, "I don't care, just throw it all away!"
How do these kind of situations come to be? What does it mean? How can we prevent them from happening in the first place? When I did a preliminary search for Minimalist Teaching, I hoped to find more along these lines.
Just the other day, I got a catalog in the mail (who knows HOW they got my address) full of page after endless page of cheap junk. Apparently teachers are just another source of income for capitalist corporations wanting to make a buck. But is it at the expense of your students?
My political stance aside, when I first began looking into minimalism for my personal life, I noted to a friend what a contradiction it would seem to be both a minimalist and a teacher. You never know what might interest or help any particular student specifically. Therefore, everything must be saved in preparation for having that one student in your class. I've come to believe that this is the mutual though process of most teachers.
It's either, "Oh, look at this thing! I could use this in my X lesson!" or "Hey, that's an interesting thing. It might come in handy sometime."
I've learned a lot from Leo Babauta recently about how to quell these feelings and fears. (Personally, I have a fear that I might be able to use something for making something new or for a craft, but I'm not even a crafts type of person!)
Back to my original question, what would a classroom concerned with minimalism in regards to "stuff" look like?
I've been a fan of Socratic teaching for a few years, but since I haven't made a post on it, I'll have to reference this article, in which the author teaches binary to third graders. In my ideal classroom, we wouldn't need a large quantity of materials because we would spend more time in dialogue and discussion.
But how realistic is that? As a pre-service teacher, I'm not entirely sure, but I may be able to approach the topic with more of an open mind than an experienced teacher whose judgement may be clouded with personal bias. The main issues that concerns me are the areas of tactile learners and (with a hint of bias picked up, whether truthfully or not, from media and popular conception) boys. Would I be able to reach them as fully without objects for them to hold and manipulate about every matter we discuss? The obvious answer, at least in the case of the tactile learner, is no, I would not. But perhaps the question I should have asked is whether I would be able to reach them as easily. To which the answer may not change, but the ideas to which it alludes might. It may not be easy to reach these learners, but maybe, it would benefit them more.
Perhaps, a good friend notes, children who are "inundated with the stuff and the entertainment of their parents" would benefit from a blank canvass. It could be a healthy break from the fast-paced, invasive life of our current society. She also suggests bringing in a new set of found objects every once in a while to study, perhaps from nature, seashells, feathers, pine cones, etc., which I thought was a wonderful and simple idea.
Above all, what I want to accomplish the most with this study is to get students to question more. "What is this doing here?" "What do we use it for?" "Why are we keeping it here?" I want for us to constantly re-evaluate and look for ways to improve our shared environment. And, hopefully, our dialogues themselves will be entertaining enough to keep the children's attention more than materials and manipulatives would. I want to teach the powers of community, thinking, and sharing, not the power of items.
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Power Teaching, part II--Exploration
When I discovered Power Teaching a week ago, something about it just didn't sit right. Everything seemed to align perfectly for the students, as I said in the post, they got many opportunities to speak aloud, do motions, and have repetition of concepts. The teacher seems to be at an advantage as well, staying in constant control of her class. But there was something wrong about the video clips I watched that I couldn't explain. After a few hours of not being able to put a name to what I was feeling, I wrote it off by saying, "Well, this method is too energy-intensive, anyway. I would never be able to pull it off in a class of my own."
I started my third semester of co-op yesterday, and part of my day was assigned to a first-grade class I had been in only a few times before. While I was there, the teacher had her children sit at the carpet and discuss a book they had read together the day before. The class was talkative and eventually the teacher had to send them back to their seats (still staying positive and not raising her voice) for being unruly. Despite my previous feelings, I couldn't help but think how well Power Teaching would have gone in that situation.
That caused me to rethink. Maybe Power Teaching isn't so bad; after all, I had given it a lot of praise. It was just curious to me. Perhaps it seemed too good to be true.
Today, browsing through education blogs, I read something about the "quest for knowledge," or some idealism like that, and wouldn't you know it, that's what Power Teaching is missing. Critical pedagogy, a four-letter-word in every public school teacher's mind, actually applies in this situation.
Upon more consideration, I've realized that Power Teaching is, in entirety, fact memorizing. The job of the teachers in the videos I posted last week is to explain. They are the ones standing at the front of the room, stating facts and waiting for them to be repeated back by 20 voices in unison. The teachers teach, the students receive information, but little real "learning" is occurring. This is the essence of critical pedagogy. There is no praxis, learning by problem solving.
Power teaching, though seemingly useful as a form of classroom management, is not effective as a way of learning. With it, there is no exploration by anyone in the classroom, students or teacher. In any classroom, children should be free to consider what they are learning, why it matters, and if they fully understand it. This does not happen in a fast-paced power teaching classroom because the teacher has already moved on to the next thought of her lesson.
I started my third semester of co-op yesterday, and part of my day was assigned to a first-grade class I had been in only a few times before. While I was there, the teacher had her children sit at the carpet and discuss a book they had read together the day before. The class was talkative and eventually the teacher had to send them back to their seats (still staying positive and not raising her voice) for being unruly. Despite my previous feelings, I couldn't help but think how well Power Teaching would have gone in that situation.
That caused me to rethink. Maybe Power Teaching isn't so bad; after all, I had given it a lot of praise. It was just curious to me. Perhaps it seemed too good to be true.
Today, browsing through education blogs, I read something about the "quest for knowledge," or some idealism like that, and wouldn't you know it, that's what Power Teaching is missing. Critical pedagogy, a four-letter-word in every public school teacher's mind, actually applies in this situation.
Upon more consideration, I've realized that Power Teaching is, in entirety, fact memorizing. The job of the teachers in the videos I posted last week is to explain. They are the ones standing at the front of the room, stating facts and waiting for them to be repeated back by 20 voices in unison. The teachers teach, the students receive information, but little real "learning" is occurring. This is the essence of critical pedagogy. There is no praxis, learning by problem solving.
Power teaching, though seemingly useful as a form of classroom management, is not effective as a way of learning. With it, there is no exploration by anyone in the classroom, students or teacher. In any classroom, children should be free to consider what they are learning, why it matters, and if they fully understand it. This does not happen in a fast-paced power teaching classroom because the teacher has already moved on to the next thought of her lesson.
Friday, January 1, 2010
Power Teaching
Whole-brain teaching, or as I like to call it because I think it more aptly describes the method, power teaching, is a high-energy level instructional method. Here is Chris Biffle, the creator, to describe it himself.
But does it work with small children? Absolutely.
Power teaching stresses two very important keys of learning: high-energy for maintaining students' attention and gestures to get through to the ever present kinesthetic learner (a part of every student). Everything about power teaching makes it perfect for the students, the knowing when to talk and when to listen, the micro-lessons and 'tell your neighbor' which allow for short bursts of learning coupled with lots of soaking in time as well as the ability to talk about what they're learning and feeling in-control of learning, as opposed to being talked to death by the teacher.
However, despite all of the positives, my first impressions of power teaching were intimidation and of being overwhelmed. It does take a lot of energy to maintain a class in this fashion. The way I speak, I don't think I could handle 20-some voices saying, 'Yes?' every time I addressed them as 'class.' I don't think the gestures (apart from kindergarteners writing P in the air) reflect their meaning well enough; they aren't specific enough for me. And the 'teach-okay' step (the words, not the actions) just seem silly to me.
Power teaching seems to be a wonderfully effective way of teaching, and though it would not work for me, there are a few points I can take away from it to benefit me. The fact that the teacher has the whole class's attention at "Class," or more importantly, "Hands and eyes," is crucial to any classroom. It is not wholly a power teaching trait, but having a key word, phrase, or action to silence the class is essential. Allowing students to discuss with a partner what they've just learned cements the learning, and the short bursts of information is ideal, especially for younger children. And of course, most students learn better with actions and movement. Also, having the students say, "It's cool," when a classmate answers a question incorrectly creates a positive atmosphere in which children aren't afraid of being wrong, although I might use "That's okay," with students in 2nd grade and below.
Resources:
Whole Brain Teaching--detailed descriptions and instruction of the Whole Brain Teaching instructional methods
Chris Biffle Youtube profile--more videos from the creator
But does it work with small children? Absolutely.
Power teaching stresses two very important keys of learning: high-energy for maintaining students' attention and gestures to get through to the ever present kinesthetic learner (a part of every student). Everything about power teaching makes it perfect for the students, the knowing when to talk and when to listen, the micro-lessons and 'tell your neighbor' which allow for short bursts of learning coupled with lots of soaking in time as well as the ability to talk about what they're learning and feeling in-control of learning, as opposed to being talked to death by the teacher.
However, despite all of the positives, my first impressions of power teaching were intimidation and of being overwhelmed. It does take a lot of energy to maintain a class in this fashion. The way I speak, I don't think I could handle 20-some voices saying, 'Yes?' every time I addressed them as 'class.' I don't think the gestures (apart from kindergarteners writing P in the air) reflect their meaning well enough; they aren't specific enough for me. And the 'teach-okay' step (the words, not the actions) just seem silly to me.
Power teaching seems to be a wonderfully effective way of teaching, and though it would not work for me, there are a few points I can take away from it to benefit me. The fact that the teacher has the whole class's attention at "Class," or more importantly, "Hands and eyes," is crucial to any classroom. It is not wholly a power teaching trait, but having a key word, phrase, or action to silence the class is essential. Allowing students to discuss with a partner what they've just learned cements the learning, and the short bursts of information is ideal, especially for younger children. And of course, most students learn better with actions and movement. Also, having the students say, "It's cool," when a classmate answers a question incorrectly creates a positive atmosphere in which children aren't afraid of being wrong, although I might use "That's okay," with students in 2nd grade and below.
Resources:
Whole Brain Teaching--detailed descriptions and instruction of the Whole Brain Teaching instructional methods
Chris Biffle Youtube profile--more videos from the creator
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