Adrienne M.

Now that the dust has settled from the first few weeks of school, I was wondering what is the next challenge. I know each day poses new challenges, but my question pertains to the thing(s) that would keep you up late at night (not including your own homework).

You have set your expectations, the students are aware of their routine, you may have even had a chance to assess how much your students have actually retained from last year. Are the back-to-school jitters gone? I ask this because I hope to be teaching next year; and after reading how nerve-racking the first couple of weeks can be, I wonder when things begin to flow and feel "normal".

Marie Mackrell

I was trying to respond to Terri's post. I just started my third year of teaching and I am currently taking my last two classes. I think once we are no longer taking classes, we will regain a portion of our life back. Right now so much of time is devoted to completing classwork on the weekends. There are many weekends I arrive home Friday night and don't go out all weekend, except to grocery shop. This is not fun. For me, December 14 will come and the classes will be done. I hate to wish time away, but I feel like once the classes are complete I can concentrate on teaching, instead of running to try to catch up. I can also get to know my family again.

darius Coulibaly

Class organization as a behavior strategy tool.
Students must be organized. provide them with few minutes to gather materials needed for class. It will cut down on interruptions and redirections.
provide lessons objective s and activities to be completed by the end of the block.

Darius Coulibaly

Darius Coulibaly

Classroom management

One of the most important lesson i have learned teaching BSP students is that never provide them with an opportunity to argue or debate as they will seize the moment. the longer they argue, the angrier they get, and the conversation escalates to a crisis.
Always lay out the rule and don't talk back, and remain calm and lower your voices. They are confrontational individuals and looking for confrontation, so if you stay calm they will eventually cool ioff, and you will have a civilized conversation.

darius Coulibaly

Darius Coulibaly

In response to the count down from 5 to 1 as a strategy to calm students down. I wonder if that can work at the high school level. I believe it can be effective in elementary school. High school respond better to structured and consistent reward system. When they cross the line , they have to live with the consequences which has been explained to them since the first weeks of school.
Well, it is working so far. But never know, they probably will start a riot one day.

darius Coulibaly

Darius Coulibaly

Differentiation is to me, the most important teaching startegy in special education. Teachers can differentiate in the following areas:Content, process, and product.
In order to successfully differentiate you must know the student's learning styule, level of basic skills, strenghs and weaknesses, behaviroal challlenges, and establish a positive relationship with the child.
When this background work is done, it is easy to differentiate, and really teach effectively.

darius Coulibaly

awesome idea

For any of you that might use or want to use whiteboards for the students, I ran across this idea while searching on a website.

Glossy Kodak photo printing paper works perfect for white boards. It wipes clean, easy to store and cheap to replace!

Liz U.