It was great to be back in class today! I always forget how quickly the day goes by. I just wish we could be going in everyday.
Today I kept my focus on low-key responses that I used myself and that I observed my S.A. using. For myself, I realized I find myself using proximity quite a bit. I think being in a grade seven class, the students are aware that when the teacher is instructing or others are speaking, they are supposed to be paying attention. So really, most of the time, it does not take much to get a distracted student to pay attention. Just standing next to the student(s) quietly gives them the signal that Ms.Bains came over here because we are not doing something right. I find that the students most off-task are the ones to the edges of the classroom, towards the back. For example, these students are playing with anything they can possibly play with – rulers, pens, and pipe cleaners. At one point, two students were throwing little pieces of twigs at each other while I was at the other end of the classroom. All it took for them to stop was me going and standing directly behind them. I did not have to say anything.
That being said, sometimes I feel it is important to actually verbally tell the student why I had to physically come from the other side of the classroom and stand beside them specifically. I found that I verbally spoke when I felt that the students were off-task at a time when something really important was being taught by the teacher or discussed as a class. Usually I stand beside the student, gently put my hand on the desk, and quietly say something along the lines of “You’re missing out on something really important, so you need to be paying attention.” As I said above, some of the students are frequently playing with various objects and at that point I will ask them to put it away because it is not the right time to be playing. However, while writing this blog post, I realized if the student persists playing with the object after being told not to, another response I could use is “deal with the problem not the student,” and take away the object. This way, the student can understand I am being serious when I ask them to stop their disruptive behavior.
To avoid speaking verbally, I have tried to use gestures. When I go stand closer to an off-task student, I look at them and then point at where their attention should be – on the teacher, another student, etc. Or even instead of point, I just look in the direction their attention should be. Thinking back on this, I feel as though engaging in responses that do not involve verbal language almost convey to the student that I should not even have to tell you what to do – you should know by now. Basically, trying to promote their own self-regulation.
Lastly, is “the look.” I think this response is a great example of what I just explained above. And my S.A. actually uses this a lot. A lot of the times when my S.A. sees that a student is not paying attention or is disruptive, she will just look in their direction with her “look.” And it works excellently – probably because students have realized what this look means and what kind of behavior should follow this look. I have tried using this response recently. Usually what I do is shake my head when I would like a student to change their behavior or I will raise my eyebrows. It has been fairly successful. However, I feel this is a response I will need to work on a little more as I spend more time with the students!
In the end, at this point I would like to say that proximity has been my go-to-response a majority of the time. And usually just proximity works to rectify the problematic behavior. And if proximity does not work I move onto use gentle verbal language. It will be interesting to see how my responses develop over time up to our full practicum!