You might be wondering how to keep students engaged and focused, especially towards the
end of the school year.
In this video, you not only learn about how to keep them engaged and focused, but also
how to get them to want to come to class.
Classroom management towards the end of the school year is extremely difficult.
As teachers, there is so much to compete with for the attention of the students.
Teachers more than likely have those one or two students that typically challenge them,
distract others, and cause them all kinds of problems through out the school year.
Teachers are human, so at times they want to take these students and put them in the
latest wrestling move to handle the situation and put an end to it.
However, they can't do that and it's illegal.
The parents of these students rarely if ever come to parent teacher conferences, but this
situation would probably be the only way to get them to come and pay you teachers a visit.
So this wouldn't be a good classroom management strategy to use.
From traveling the country and speaking for various school systems, Chris Cannon has learned
that, every behavior of the students is asking some kind of questions.
Unfortunately, those questions are rooted in fear!
When students act out or become a distraction in class, it's really something that they
are of afraid of that's triggering the behavior.
Regardless if a student is challenging, considered an at risk youth, problem student, etc, the
root cause of their behavior closely related.
One thing that teachers want to know is, how to keep students engaged and focused end of
year?
There are several options, but the key factor is having them active from the start to the
end of class.
If students are given too much idol time in class, this sets up much of the low level
behaviors that teachers have to address.
A way for teachers to keep their students engaged and focused is by providing daily
activities.
These activities don't have to be the same everyday, but they need to be consistent.
There needs to be an expectation from the teacher to the students, that communicates
that these activities is something that will be done at the start of class.
In addition to the activities being done at the start of class, they should be short and
meaningful.
If a student knows that what you're giving them is a worksheet that won't get graded
and will probably end op in the trash, they won't put much effort into doing it.
So activities should be short, connected to the students concerns, and meaningful.
When you make activities connected to what concerns students have or what's important
to students, they will not only be engaged and focused, but they will look
forward to coming to class.
At this point, classroom management is something teachers can actually implement.
A great activity that can be implemented are writing assignments.
It could be writing assignments related to current events because there is so much going
on from school shootings, to bombing, among so many other things that students might not
know to do deal with.
These writing assignments could also be geared toward the movie industry, music industry,
or even social media.
Regardless of the focus of writing, it can be a way for
teachers to learn more about students and what's important to them and what concerns
they have.
Regardless if a student is labeled an at risk youth, trouble student, or challenging student,
most of them view school as the safe zone.
These students might not have perfect attendance, but they show up on a regular basis.
The reason being is because some of them fear being at home, which is where much
of the end of school year challenges come from.
The more they think of being home full time, the more they experience fear.
Often times the behavior they display towards teachers isn't about the teacher at all, it's
about what they have to go back to and what they will experience as a result of it.
These students might not have the communication skills or the capacity to express what they're
feeling so in many cases, they act it out.
However, by writing about different things that concerns them, writing can become the
substitute for the behavior.
When classroom management can include ways for students to express their concerns in
a manor that is not threatening, students become more
engaged
and focused, even towards the end
of the school year.
In the next video Chris Cannon will share how to motivate unmotivated students and how
to get uncooperative students to cooperate.