C4T #1

Struggles-Becky G

In this blog post Becky talks about her 5th graders preparing to become 6th graders and how they had become more talkative during instruction time. She said she had talked with some coworkers on how to control this and they suggested taking away minutes of their social time. She asked other teachers what their suggestions were and how they prioritized learning time over socializing.

In my reply I took the approach of what I would want as a student. Repeating "get to work" or "be quiet" many times throughout the day would just get annoying to myself as a teacher and a student. I feel that the students would eventually block the noise out. I also suggested that taking away social time would be the wrong approach. I think that it might only provoke the students to talk more during instruction time and for them to even do it on purpose. I suggested that she should reiterate that instruction time is for just that and nothing more and enforce some consequences if those rules aren't followed. If as a class they choose to completely go against this, then social time would be completely removed and they wont have it anymore. I think that this would show them that she means business and not take her actions for a joke. I see that in her following post she came up with an action plan that does this.

"Turning it Over to them- Success in the Making!"-Becky G

In "Turning it Over to them- Success in the Making!" she talks about the struggle of too much social activity and not enough learning happening in classrooms. She then came up with an action plan, identifying the focus areas, collecting data, identifying the data and developing a plan of action. She identified the areas of focus being in the area of behavior: being on task, voice levels, and respect and care towards others. With these areas she identified the times in which they most frequently occur being math, words their way and during independent reading. She had the students assess themselves with a rubric and give themselves a goal. Once the students reached their goal she consistently kept up with this plan and after each week had the students set a new goal.

My reply to Becky G basically said that I like the fact that she had the students assess themselves instead of herself, the teacher or administrator because I think it gives them a better understanding of how others see their behavior and how it can even affect their work and grades because they are not on task. I know from experience that involving socializing with instructional time non-educationally is means for disaster. It only takes away from the student focusing on their work and creates an area where they can fail at turning in and correctly doing assignments. I also expressed that I thought it would capture the students respect for her as an authoritative figure and teacher, seeing that she has enough respect for them to let them assess themselves.