5 Teaching Habits That Are Hurting Your Students

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You are an awesome teacher.

You care about your kids, and you work hard to help them grow.  But it’s possible that one of these habits is keeping your students from fully thriving in the classroom:

1) The Sitting Decree

Many of us have been taught that the only way to maintain order in the classroom is for children to stay seated.  If they are seated they cannot be disruptive or distracted.

In fact, movement within the classroom ENHANCES a child’s learning experience.  “Movement is a powerful teaching tool, and when we as teachers thoughtfully incorporate physical elements into instruction, we elevate the learning experience,” states Aleta Margolis in her Washington Post feature, Letting kids move in class isn’t a break from learning. It IS learning.  In her July 8 Washington Post article, Angela Hanscom states the rise of fidgeting in the classroom and attributes it to lack of appropriate movement opportunities throughout the day.  Teachers can use natural movement in the classroom in many ways:

• Mike Anderson lists a few examples of transitional movement in his article Move Around the Room
• Aleta Margolis suggests a number of great activities that combine several learning experiences at once and promote productive movement
• We have a number of songs, games, and other resources that have movement built in to enhance the students’ learning experiences. Here are some of our bestsellers!
  • Monkey Money Scoot
  • Community Helpers Song and Activities
  • Candy Spiral Math Review Game
• We also have popular Scoot games that the kiddos love and it gets them up and moving as they learn:)  Read more and grab a free scoot game!

2) The Silence Rule

Naturally if children are talking, they can’t possibly be working.  They lose focus, and worse, cause their friends to lose focus.  Aldous Huxley (1958) states quite the opposite: “Language permits its users to pay attention to things, persons and events, even when the things and persons are absent and the events are not taking place.”  In their book, Content-Area Conversations: How to Plan Discussion-Based Lessons for Diverse Language Learners, Fisher, Frey, and Rothenburg assert that conversation is how we learn and process.  It is important for children to converse about their thoughts in order to organize them.  This is especially true with auditory learners.
Now some of you may be saying, “well I let my students talk in group discussions by calling on them.” That is a great start.  You can enrich your classroom even further by encouraging students to talk to you and to one another freely about the subject matter.  Here is an example of a conversation from Fisher, Frey, and Rothenburg’s book.  Focus on the words in bold italics:

Teacher: I was thinking about the life cycle of an insect. Do you remember the life cycle we studied? Malik?

The bold italicized words are the children’s responses.  How much academic language was used?  What if you were to give the students a prompt with the same questions to answer in a group discussion?  How much more academic language would they use?  The more free the environment, the more the conversations will be allowed to develop.  You can monitor this by traveling around the room, listening, and interjecting where appropriate.  Which brings us to our next point…

3) The Teacher’s Perch

We get it.  You only have one planning period per day and you want to put together fun lesson plans for your kiddos.  It makes sense to give them independent work to do and you can conquer your ever-growing to-do list at your desk, right?  There are two pitfalls that can occur with this practice.

Monkey Business

Your students know you’re not paying attention and are more tempted to get into mischief.  The article, Teacher Positioning in the Classroom, from teachingenglish.org.uk states that not only is a teacher’s attention vital to a productive learning environment, but even his or her position can make a difference.  It cites different situations where standing is appropriate, sitting is appropriate, or crouching is appropriate.

Falling Through the Cracks

It is difficult to see if students are following directions properly and eliminates the opportunity for early intervention.  For example, if you see that a child is consistently getting the wrong answer on a math problem because he or she is adding instead of multiplying, you can address it immediately.  This makes it easier for the student to understand.  Also, there may be some shy students who are uncomfortable coming to the teacher for answers.  As a result, they may just suffer in silence.

Now I’m sure some of you are asking, “isn’t it important to allow children to work independently?” ABSOLUTELY!  Too much teacher hovering will impede a child’s development of independent skills.  The article offers some great tips on positioning yourself so that you are engaged with your students, but not smothering them.  Just remember, if nothing else, when you are engaged you are showing your students you care.  That will speak volumes to them at any age.

4) The Lecture

Oh no!  I have all these students and I have to cram all this information into their brains so they can pass the test.  The only way I can possibly do that is by talking at them endlessly until they pass out.  Obviously that is an exaggeration, but it’s understandable that you sometimes feel that kind of pressure.  I know I have found myself doing this from time to time, especially when I am passionate about something.  Still, studies show that even in a college environment, lectures alone are not as effective as switching it up in the classroom.  In his 2014 Sciencemag article, Lectures Aren’t Just Boring…, Aleszu Bajak cites a study from pnas.org that concluded “students in classes with traditional stand-and-deliver lectures are 1.5 times more likely to fail than students in classes that use more stimulating, so-called active learning methods.”
Now you may be asking, “ok smart one, what are some active learning methods I could try?”  I’m glad you asked

Games

Almost everything can be turned into a game.  It may not be pretty, but it is effective. Many times we will take a collection of vocabulary and turn it into a memory game or Go Fish game.  More on that with Friday’s post.  Our Community Helpers Bundle has a Go Fish game that matches each community helper to his or her tool.  There is also a charades game where the kiddos can act out community helpers.  Our Wants and Needs Bundle has a concentration game.  Almost all of our products either have or are games.  You can see all of our games on TeachersPayTeachers  or check out some  ideas on Pinterest.  This article on The Effectiveness of Gaming in the Classroom has some great insights on why games are a great tool and how to use them effectively.

Songs

Take 2 minutes and try to list all the jingles you know… Now imagine those jingles focus on important educational concepts.  Songs can make your job so much easier if you open yourself up to them.  Students learn the songs and they stick in the subconscious, waiting to be retrieved at test time.  We have a ton of songs in our store, along with Jack Hartmann, Dr. Jean and more.  You can access our classroom behavior book, song, and other activities HERE.

Experiments

This one is pretty self-explanatory.  The key with experiments is to let the students guide.  Have them hypothesize and conduct the experiment rather than have it be teacher-centered.  Ask questions and allow the students to come up with their own conclusions.  Even if these conclusions are incorrect based on previous evidence, you are still encouraging students to think freely and independently.  Making mistakes is one of the best ways to learn and retain information.

We even have a free STEM Interactive Notebook page with Straw Bridge experiment for you if you click below!

Drama

If there is a way to act it out, have kids act it out.  Again they will learn more effectively through experience.  Pam did a role play exercise in her classroom where she lined up her community helpers and gave them the wrong tools.  She invited a student to come up and give them the right tools.  This is a simple way to incorporate experiential learning.

Open questions

Ask a lot of 5 W and H questions (Who, What, When, Where, Why, How).  Foster children’s critical thinking by having them explain themselves.  This will allow you to know if they are reproducing information or actually learning.

Technology

Students are becoming even more independent with continuing developments in technology.  Game-based assessments, blended learning, and social media collaborations are just a few of the different advantages available to us in this era.  Jenreviews has a great article on how you can use technology in a meaningful way to engage your students. We have also just discovered these great Boom cards that are wonderful to use for centers and to individualize with your students! Try them out.

5) One-Track Classroom

PD image provided by allenrobert
The only way to ensure that students are on task and learning at a good pace is to have them all doing the same thing at the same time in the same way.  If they are doing different things in different parts of the room, chaos will ensue and I will lose control of my classroom.  How many have felt this way?  How many have experienced this?  It is true that too little structure in a classroom will cause it to descend into chaos.  Too much structure, however, will cause your students to crash and burn.  Herman Miller discusses some innovative classroom design ideas in this article on his website.  While his focus is mainly classroom design and aesthetic, he addresses some important points on organization.  For example, “giving people some control over their surroundings adds to their sense of well-being.”

How to Do It

Rather than having all students doing a single assignment at their desks, allow students to choose what activity they do.

For younger classrooms, centers are ideal.  Here is an article with some suggestions.

For older classrooms, take a look at that article and see where you can incorporate some of the ideas.  If you want a simple solution, make a list of the tasks you want accomplished for the day.  Set up areas where each task can be accomplished and design each space to facilitate that task.  For example, the reading area would be a comfortable space, the writing area set up like a studio.

Divide the day into study blocks and encourage students to choose tasks for each block.  To keep the chaos at bay, limit how many students can work at each center.  This also fosters critical thinking skills for your students.  When a student has completed his or her work, allow for some free centers to open them up creatively.  Your STEM friends can work independently or collectively on an engineering design.  We have created Innovation Stations for STEM enrichment in your classroom.

CLICK HERE for the game-changing resource that will captivate your entire class for good! 

Best of luck transforming your classrooms and skyrocketing your students!  Have an awesome week !