Motivating+Students

** April 23rd, 2009 ** ** (Tune of “It’s a Small World.) ** ** We are working hard ** ** To choose a better way ** ** We want to be responsible ** ** In every way. ** ** We can work, we can share, ** ** We will show that we care. ** ** Making choices everyday. ** ** Better choices everyday. ** ** Better choices everyday. ** ** Better choices everyday. ** ** It’s a better way! ** media type="custom" key="3736251"
 * Motivating Hard to Reach, Uninterested and Disruptive Students **
 * Opener: Put blue question on table and have teacher put one answer per index card and drop in the brown bag on the table. What kinds of baggage do students bring to school? (Overhead slide with baggage on shirts) Some kids are just more challenging than others. Recognize that you are going to get students like this. Stop being shocked when you get kids like this.  **
 * Part 1-Attitudes for Success with Challenging Students **
 * *Hit and Run-Stop by and whisper to student quietly to change behavior. (If you stay, kid might mumble under their breath, or say that didn’t do it to save face.) Did you expect them to say thank you? Don’t ever ask a student, “What did you say?” when they mumble. If you think you heard it, you heard it. Do a translation instead. What do they really mean? (I’m afraid to care. I don’t want to fail. I don’t want to look like a wimp in front of my friends. I have to spend time with my friends. Could you just ignore my mumbling and walk away so that I can save face in front of my friends?) Don’t ask student why they are doing something. It wastes time and gets only excuses. They blame on others and don’t think about what they are actually doing and why they’re doing it. **
 * *Swearing-Have them repeat what they said in appropriate terms. **
 * (Story about Jimmy-poetry) **
 * *For the teacher-Gripe/Emotional/Physical Support **
 * Gripe-(regroup yourself by letting out how you feel out loud when you’re by yourself. Say how you really feel.) **
 * Emotional Support-When you start thinking about career change and your batteries are low, have a colleague give you a boost. Notice progress that your students are making, even if it’s only a little bit of progress. (Ex. Got out of seat 40 times that day, compared to 70 times usually.) **
 * Physical Support-“I’ll help you, you help me.” I’ll take your kids for a few minutes, you take mine. Ex. Take a book to another teacher, just to have a few minutes of break from the student. Don’t overuse this technique but know that it’s there. (Referral forms are often written out of frustration. It should say, “One of us had to leave and I couldn’t.”) Administrators shouldn’t send kids right back (wait 15 minutes from the time the principal lays eyes on kid) because that teacher is saying, “I’m frustrated and I need some space from that kid.” Administrator should walk kid back, if possible because the kids look way too happy when they return. **
 * *Ten Ways to Motivate (If one doesn’t work, try another. There are 10 ways!) **
 * 1. Show how achievement benefits life-work hard, do well, get a good job, make money, live well (Many kids that are challenging are motivated by money. Not by paying them but by explaining how much more money they will make in their lives by graduating. Show them how much more they could get of something that they currently like) **
 * 2. Make content or school experience relevant-Most school content is not relevant. (5% of content that we teach is relevant.) What do you say if they ask, “When am I ever going to use this?” (I don’t know because I don’t know you that well yet. Write down every single thing you wish to accomplish in your life and I’ll check off things as they relate to what you hope to accomplish.) Relate to them. “I like your shirt. Is it new? How did your soccer game go? Tell me about that new Wii thing that’s out now.” **
 * 3. Create reasonable challenges that can be mastered. (Activity with O’s and A’s) **
 * 4. Focus on the teaching/learning process-kids are motivated by lessons that are hands-on, making collections of examples of things, field trips, interviewing people (not always questioning, but inquiry examples, such as clasping hands to see if dominant/non-dominant thumb is on top), drama, independent projects/activities, use music to teach concepts ( DNA example in orange booklet) **
 * 5. Teach students to associate failure with insufficient effort or inadequate strategy (teachers can’t necessarily help students change thinking but they can help them change their effort or strategy.) **
 * 6. Keep hope alive-Hope precedes responsibility. Ex. Science teacher with test tubes/smoke and airplane with pencil Ex. Instead of focusing on 50%, teacher says to kid, you didn’t expand on this one, this one, this one, but look at how well you did with this, this, this. If you want to expand on the other ones, you can go ahead and redo them. Ex. Teacher says to student, “That’s a really good mistake. Will you share what you did with the class?” **
 * 7. Entertain/Make it fun **
 * 8. Involve students in the decisions that affect them **
 * 9. Value the power of relationship **
 * 10. Provide tangible gain **
 * *Motivation-Attitudes and Belief **
 * Why do teachers continue being persistent when things don’t work? **** Habits, Hope, Policy **
 * 1. Stay optimistic and be persistent **
 * 2. Know change is a roller coaster ride (try 5 times for 2-3 weeks, if you begin to notice roller coaster change, that shows that it’s working.) **
 * 3. Be fair, don’t worry about treating everyone the same. (Tell students this. The reason being, I have 2 goals that I want to accomplish this year: What two major goals do you have, as teachers this year? SUCCESS-I want you to learn. You might not have the same assignment as the person next to you. I will give you assignments that help you to learn. I will not discuss someone else’s assignment with you, but if you have a problem with the assignment that I gave you, we can talk about it. If you think that you should be doing something else, we can talk about it. I want you to learn more about responsibility. With material things, you can reward the group for an individual’s behavior. Ex. Amy doesn’t take notes but took good notes today, teacher rewards everyone 10 minutes of free time to celebrate Amy’s good work. Students will like Amy, want to help Amy, are motivated by Amy, team bonding. Keep in mind that when parents complain, they are standing up for their kid. When parent complains, teacher should listen, restate and thank the parent for taking the time to present the concern and value their kid. Tell parents the two goals that teacher hopes to achieve with students this year. (SUCCESS/RESPONSIBILITY) That is why I did what I did with your child. Don’t discuss someone else’s child/You wouldn’t want me to discuss your child with someone else. Do you have any suggestions? Most often, angry parents will leave you feeling really good. The few 5% that leave angry have their own issues with their kids. Don’t surrender policy.  **
 * 3. Influence change with leverage and persuasion **
 * 4. See your challenging students as having something to teach you **
 * 5. Be willing to think outside the box and have the courage to implement unconventional strategies alongside or instead of conventional ones. **
 * *ADHD kids benefit from more exercise, 5-10 minutes of rigorous exercise provides up to 2 hours of **
 * Attentiveness **
 * *Kids that are constantly out of seat-get a two-inch piece of Velcro and put it on their desk. Have them rub it with their fingers when they think they need to get out of their chair. **
 * *Use music stand to allow students to stand and write-put tape around it to create a boundary. **
 * *Have empty desk for kid who needs to move-Say, “Do problem 1 and 2. Then, if you think you need to move to that other desk, you can.” **
 * *Build on the strength within that kid-I think you can do 2 problems. How many do you think you can do? You want to tell jokes? Give me a wiggle of the thumb and I’ll let you know if it’s a good time to tell a joke. **
 * *Three Types of Strategies **
 * 1. Crisis Strategies-chairs thrown, fights, etc. **
 * *With a fight-Address four kids closest to you to go find other teachers to help. Ask who’s losing the fight if you don’t see. Give a “get out” command to the loser. If you say it loudly enough, the winner will look up and this will give time for the loser to get out. This will work 50% of the time. If that doesn’t work, yell something weird like, “What did you have for breakfast today?” or Make a strange sound. Practice before you would need to do it. You don’t want to have a self-reflective moment during the breakup of the fight. Be prepared by practicing things for students to do (protect yourself, don’t feed into it, stay away), thing that the teacher will do and things that the helpers will do (how do we help, where do we go, backup?). **
 * 2. Short Term-Seeks to defuse an escalating situation. Keep the kid in class if at all possible and quickly get back to instruction, preserving as much dignity for yourself and the kid. Try not to let them get to the office-the only thing they get out of that is that they promise the administrator that they’ll shape up. Every time you send them to the office, it sends a message to the student that you couldn’t handle them that day. Make it tough for kids to get themselves kicked out by using Defusing Methods: **
 * *such as PEP (Privacy, Eye Contact, Proximity)-cruise around the room a fair amount of time to make this work best-Tell students that you’re going to do this before you do it-“I’m going to whisper to people and give some feedback. I would appreciate that you respect that person’s privacy for this.” After a few days, your kids won’t ask each other what you said. Deliver messages of appreciation as well as correcting behaviors. The beauty of PEP is that it helps save face. You can use a post-it, note or a gesture as well. You can laminate your cards to reuse and so they don’t become spitballs, etc. **
 * *Acknowledge students power by agreeing and deferring Ex. When a student says, “You can’t make me,” agree and say, “You’re right, I can’t.” Then, continue with teaching. Let kids know that you’re not going to be stopping every moment of instruction to handle misbehavior because it interferes with learning and it gets into an embarrassing situation. I’m going to be ignoring rule-breaking but I will get with that person later and we’ll talk about it and deal with it. If a power struggle continues, tell them what’s brewing. Teacher doesn’t want to look like he/she’s not powerful and kid doesn’t want to look like a wimp. So say, I don’t want to argue because I don’t like to lose arguments and I bet you don’t like to either. So I’ll meet you after class to talk about it. Thanks for waiting until then. Try not to offer the door, but if you’ve tried everything, say, “I’m going to offer you the door, but I will miss you greatly and I will be very happy to have you back in the group when you’re ready.” Let student teach. Sit in another seat. You can act like that kid. It’s better to have the kid there being educated, than not there at all. What can you do to keep them in the room? Use sense of humor to dissolve problem. Try to hear it differently/Don’t knee jerk react. Try to hear it differently. Hear mean things as common things. Ex. Bad word=chair **
 * 3. Long Term- **
 * *Basic Needs- **
 * Connection-getting proper attention, getting noticed **
 * Competence-acting out as a way to conceal inadequacy **
 * Control-Do I have any control? Do I have too much? Is there a proper balance? **
 * Fun **
 * -If students misbehave, they might be missing one of the 3 basic needs **
 * *6 Solutions for motivating tough students **
 * 1. Relationship-warm, welcoming and supportive classroom environment **
 * 2. Relevance **
 * 3. Success-hope for appropriate academic challenge, incorporation of different learning styles and preferred learning activities. **
 * (refer to success in orange packet on page 21) **
 * 4. Responsibility/Involvement **
 * 5. Safety **
 * 6. Fun **
 * *Rules/Consequences-Put a rule with a what and a how. **
 * Values/Principles-Take care of yourself. Take care of each other. Take care of this place. **
 * *Good consequences should TEACH better behavior, not employ misery-but it’s okay if misery accompanies it. **
 * *Bookbag Story with daughter **** -Good misery. **
 * *Airport Story **** -being late verses writing, “I will never be late again.” Use natural and logical consequences. Apology should be genuine. “You’re better than that. I hope you have it in you to apologize.” A kid that is deconstructive needs to be constructive as well. **
 * *Have fun with your kids. This is your opportunity to have fun, be silly, change lives. Do something that is fun for YOU, as the teacher. **

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