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Showing posts with label failure. Show all posts
Showing posts with label failure. Show all posts

Ten Classroom Management Tips with the Brain in Mind

Science has done a whole lot of research lately, and I'm absolutely fascinated by it all. Most important, scientists have been coming to conclusions that most teachers already knew about. Now there's evidence to back it up!
Ten Classroom Management Tips with The Brain in Mind: These tips are research based, and will help teachers manage their classrooms and ensure learning will happen!

Here are some brain based ideas to help keep them learning in your classroom:
Ten Classroom Management Tips with The Brain in Mind: These tips are research based, and will help teachers manage their classrooms and ensure learning will happen!

1. Pick your battles!  Many kids struggle to behave at school. If we call them on every one of those misbehaviors, learning would never happen! It's important to choose which behaviors are most important to correct so that learning will happen.
Ten Classroom Management Tips with The Brain in Mind: These tips are research based, and will help teachers manage their classrooms and ensure learning will happen!

2. Encourage failure! It's hard for so many kids, but as we know, failure is part of growing. It's important to make failure an every day part of the classroom. It's important that children see us fail, and we need to model what to do when failure happens. I often say things to my students such as, "Thank you for making that mistake! Now we all know how to work around this challenge!" (See this post: The Importance of Failure!)
Ten Classroom Management Tips with The Brain in Mind: These tips are research based, and will help teachers manage their classrooms and ensure learning will happen!


3. Take care of your own needs! If you've ever gone on a plane, you've heard the "put your own oxygen mask on first, then assist children," speech. We can't help children if our own needs are compromised. Take care of yourself!
Ten Classroom Management Tips with The Brain in Mind: These tips are research based, and will help teachers manage their classrooms and ensure learning will happen!
 
4. Model respectful, kind behavior! The best way to teach children to be respectful is to show them how to be respectful. When you are respectful and kind to children, you build a rapport with them, which makes them more likely to listen to what you have to say, and learn from you!
Ten Classroom Management Tips with The Brain in Mind: These tips are research based, and will help teachers manage their classrooms and ensure learning will happen!
 

5. Be firm and consistent! Being respectful doesn't mean let them get away with inappropriate behaviors! It's important to speak firmly when unwanted behaviors happen, and remind them each time the unwanted behaviors return. No need to be nasty about it, but acknowledge it.
Ten Classroom Management Tips with The Brain in Mind: These tips are research based, and will help teachers manage their classrooms and ensure learning will happen!


6. Be clear about expectations! As mentioned above, communicating appropriate behaviors is essential! If you don't communicate what you expect, they won't know what to do, and might show a variety of unexpected behaviors! See this post: Quick, Easy, Honest Feedback!)
Ten Classroom Management Tips with The Brain in Mind: These tips are research based, and will help teachers manage their classrooms and ensure learning will happen!


7. Make sure you're working at the student's level! If the work is too hard for the child, the child will become frustrated and act out. If the work is too easy for the child, the child won't be learning a whole lot and could become restless. As teachers, we know what a balancing act it is to work all students at their own levels, but with a lot of tricks up your sleeve, it can be done!
 
8. Keep a sense of humor! Keeping a sense of humor in the classroom helps to keep a good rapport between teacher and student, and keeps them interested in what's going on in class. Plus, laughter is a great stress reliever! (See this post: Laughter is Truly the Best Medicine!)

Ten Classroom Management Tips with The Brain in Mind: These tips are research based, and will help teachers manage their classrooms and ensure learning will happen!

9. Keep your lessons engaging!  No matter how smart the kiddos are, or how clever the materials might be, if you don't portray a positive energy for the subject matter, you'll be wasting your time! Teachers need to be entertainers, in addition to everything else they do!
Ten Classroom Management Tips with The Brain in Mind: These tips are research based, and will help teachers manage their classrooms and ensure learning will happen!


10. Integrate the Arts! I can't even begin to tell you how much I've read about the connections between the arts and learning! I'm not just talking about letting them draw.(Although that's a good start!) Including music, movement, as well as the visual arts will help the learning happen in the classroom!
 
Ten Classroom Management Tips with The Brain in Mind: These tips are research based, and will help teachers manage their classrooms and ensure learning will happen!

The Importance of Failure

Today's post is something to think about. 


It's not a cute strategy or a brilliant organizational idea. 
It's just a little something teachers and parents need to think about.
The Importance of Failure - It's a sticky subject, but failure is an important part of learning. See why!
 
Yes, that says failure, and it's an important part of learning!

Sometimes children just need to go beyond their comfort zone.
 
Sometimes, it's important for children to fail.

I know what you're thinking...


Isn't it easier to help them along, so they can succeed?
 
What about their self-esteem? They'll have loads of failures through life, just like we have: disappointing grades, failed friendships, sports disappointments, college rejections, career failures, and the dreaded failed romance. People that they have loved will die. 
 
 Experiencing failure actually helps the children develop coping skills, resilience, and even creative thinking! 
 
By learning from their mistakes, they actually build self-esteem! Knowing how to cope with little failures will help them cope with the bigger failures that come later in life.

I have a little story from my parenting experience that I share with the parents of my students:

When my daughter was little, I took her ice skating. I'd always loved ice skating, so I'd hoped she'd be successful. She and I stepped out onto the ice holding hands, and we started to skate! She was doing great. There were a couple of times she started to lose her balance, but I was right there to help her, and she got back to skating right away.


After a while, I'll bet you can guess what happened... she stopped trying to stay up on her own.

Then I realized what I needed to do... I needed to let her fall. I let go of her hand and let her go on her own. (It wasn't easy to let go, but I knew it was necessary!)

She fell a few times. She was fine, of course, but that was when she really figured it all out. She started skating, and I learned a valuable lesson.

Kids need failure in order to learn. 


She never would have learned to skate if I kept catching her every time she fell.

Sometimes it's easier on us to do things for our children, like tie their shoes, pack their bags, or make their lunches. But just remember:
The Importance of Failure - It's a sticky subject, but failure is an important part of learning. See why!
 
There are many famous people who have experienced various degrees of failure. Here are some people who brushed it off, then had great success: J.K. Rowling, Thomas Edison, Michael Jordan, Albert Einstein, Mozart, and Walt Disney.

The Importance of Failure - It's a sticky subject, but failure is an important part of learning. See why!


It's not so easy for us, but it's also not easy for the kids. Do you have children in your classroom who are afraid to answer questions because they fear being wrong?

Do you have children who are afraid to complete work because they're not sure they'll get the right answer?

Do you have students who cheat when they play games because they're afraid of losing?

We need to get these kids past that fear of failure!

The Importance of Failure - It's a sticky subject, but failure is an important part of learning. See why!

How can we do that?

1. by making them feel safe.
2. by making them feel confident.
3. by praising their efforts.
4. by continuing to encourage them.
5. by being a role model: let them see you make mistakes and model appropriate ways to cope with failure.

The Importance of Failure - It's a sticky subject, but failure is an important part of learning. See why!

Yes, praise their efforts. I often thank my students for making mistakes.

It might sound like this: "Thanks for pointing that out. You just made us all smarter!"

One last story about my daughter:

She's a perfectionist, and takes pride in her good grades. When she was in 8th grade, she got a C in Algebra. My comment? "Good! Now you know you won't die."

Seriously, it relieved a lot of stress for her. And she turned out to be fine. Plus, it motivated her to work harder in Algebra, and she ended up on the Math Honor Society in High School!

There are loads of studies on the benefits of failure, and how it can be successful. 
 
Give it a google!

I have this poster hanging in my classroom. I refer to it often.

The Importance of Failure - It's a sticky subject, but failure is an important part of learning. See why!

If you look back on your life, can you think of a time when a failure motivated you?

Don't our children deserve that?

The Importance of Failure - It's a sticky subject, but failure is an important part of learning. See why!

Lessons Learned

This is a story I often repeat to parents of my students. It's about my daughter's first ice skating experience. 

Lesson Learned: I had a valuable lesson when I brought my daughter ice skating for the first time. This is a story I share often with parents.

When my daughter was 6 years old, we went ice skating with a couple of friends. My daughter had never skated before, so I was a little nervous about how she'd take to it.  We both laced up our skates, I took her by the hand and we both stepped onto the ice.



She started skating right away! A couple of times she started to lose her balance a little bit, but I was right by her side and helped her find her balance every time.


After a while I noticed something odd: she was no longer trying to keep her balance. That's when I realized I was doing exactly what I frequently advised parents not to do. I was catching her every time she lost her balance! I knew what I had to do.



Of course, I backed off. She fell a few times. She got right back up and skated. By the end of the day, she'd gotten her balance and had a nice rhythm in her skating stride. She was a skater!


It was a nice reminder to parents how we sometimes need to let our children fall. It's definitely not easy, but it's not in the child's best interest to constantly be there to catch them. Sometimes we have to let them fall.


How do we know when to step back and let them fall?

Lesson Learned: I had a valuable lesson when I brought my daughter ice skating for the first time. This is a story I share often with parents.

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