Helping You Become a Successful and Confident Classroom Teacher

Welcome!

I'm Dorit Sasson, freelance writer, ESL teacher, and creator of the New Teacher Resource Center, your online new teacher support site dedicated to helping you develop strategies for taking control in the classroom.

Here you'll find a wealth of information on lesson planning, classroom management, learning styles and teaching methods, and many other issues new teachers face. Take time to look around, and please leave a comment.

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Sep 30

SubSuggestions: 61 Ways to Save the Classroom Environment

classroom management plan, classroom management tips, substitute teaching tipsNo Comments


1193228_doodled_desks_2Whether you’re a regular classroom teacher or a sub, you may want to signup to receive teacher tips and news. I find many tips applicable to the new and veteran classroom teacher as well. Look through these suggestions from STEDI.org, a substitute teacher e-newsletter, October 2009. How many of them can also be applied to the classroom management plan of a regular classroom teacher?

We often come across lists of how we can save the environment, which also always include simple suggestions on what we can do to help the environment. The following is a list of ways we can “save” the classroom environment.

1. Students respond better to positive rather than to negative consequences.
2. Greet students at the door with a warm smile.
3. Direct students to a starter activity.
4. Minimize “down-time.”
5. Don’t let students lead you off task.
6. Follow the lesson plan left by the permanent teacher.
7. Have “back-up” activities prepared.
8. If students complain, respond with empathy, understanding, and firmness.
9. Don’t compromise your expectations.
10. Follow thru with consequences.
11. Use proximity to your advantage.
12. Do not read a book at the permanent teacher’s desk.
13. A teacher’s attention is a powerful consequence to student behavior.
14. On average, teachers allow 98% of appropriate behavior to go unrecognized.
15. Appropriate forms of praise are: verbal praise, smile, or nod.
16. The behavior you are trying to control is your own.
17. Smile
18. If you know of a student who is a “problem student,” ask them to be your helper for the day.
19. Maintain a risk-free environment.
20. Maintain a ratio of eight positive teacher-to-student interactions to every one negative interaction.
21. Follow the permanent teacher’s classroom expectations.
22. If the permanent teacher hasn’t set classroom expectations, be prepared to set your own.
23. Keep the number of classroom expectations to a maximum of five.
24. Classroom expectations should be specific, concise, instructive, and must convey an expectation of student behavior.
25. Avoid phrases such as: “be cooperative,” “respect others,” and “be helpful.”
26. Students want to know exactly what your expectations are.
27. Students want to know when they have met those expectations.
28. Be clear of what the consequences are for obeying and disobeying the expectations.
29. Avoid coercion!
30. Ignore inconsequential behavior.
31. Remember 94% of behavior is inconsequential.
32. Respond non-coercively to consequential behavior.
33. Stop and redirect inappropriate student behavior.
34. When disciplining students, be sure to provide them with positive feedback.
35. When possible, consequences should be a natural outcome of the behavior.
36. Consequences should not provide any undue attention to the student.
37. When it is necessary to speak to a student, remove the student from the situation first and speak to him/her privately.
38. Punish individual students, not the whole class for the misdeeds of a few.
39. Write a list of names of the students who are behaving appropriately to leave for the teacher.
40. Don’t make statements lightly - students remember!
41. Know and understand the school’s policy for electronic devices.
42. Provide students with motivators for behaving appropriately.
43. There is virtually no reason to ask a student why s/he behaved inappropriately.
44. Sarcasm is NEVER appropriate for a classroom.
45. Know the teacher next door.
46. Think positively of every student.
47. Leave your personal life at home.
48. Have a sense of humor.
49. Be an assertive and proactive substitute teacher.
50. Keep confidentiality.
51. Ask effective questions.
52. Pause after asking a question to give students time to think.
53. Create a SubPack.
54. Be organized.
55. Dress professionally.
56. Leave a detailed report for the permanent teacher.
57. Leave the classroom the same as you found it.
58. Respect each student, especially students with disabilities.
59. Handle accidents with common sense.
60. Show that you can remain calm and in control.
61. Never leave students unsupervised.

Sep 27

Answers to Your Questions on Teaching ESL

UncategorizedNo Comments

Question

I am a graduate school student in Korea and teach English to Korean students. It is kind of a tutoring group. Here students learn more grammar and work with complicated texbooks. This kills their self-esteem to study English well. Some are bored with studying grammar and many think English is a “mountain” they will never overcome. I need a simple method that I can use to encourage them to talk. They are bored of English and their behavior is already negative towards studying English.

Answer

It’s great that you want to help your students develop a positive attitude necessary for learning English. It’s also great you’ve identified that as your main problem! Without knowing your students, the mechancial drill type activities from your textbook may be causing those behavior/attitude problems you’ve identified. Sometimes changing the activities in a lesson plan can make all the difference!

Think of fun, short but structured speaking activities you can do to supplement your textbook. (Don’t get rid of the textbook altogether) For example, use getting-to-know you activities that use a specific grammar tense. Students love to talk with their peers! They then can report to the class/group about 1 thing they learned.

Brainstorming is also a great technique which generates lots of responses to a single picture prompt or cue. Plus, all the participants are involved!

Continue building on your students’ individual interests in your lesson plan. Consider teaching any parts of American culture like books, food or movies. Food was (and still is) a bit hit in my lessons!

Try this book! 5 minute activities- Penny Ur

Many of the activities here work just as well for 15 or 20 minutes, as warmers and fillers but also as controlled practice and free production. They also cover a wide range of grammar, speaking and vocabulary points, and cover different “moods” from the very silly and energetic to the serious and even slightly dry. I suggest picking a few ideas you can use for the next couple of weeks. There’s lots of great ideas!

Sep 24

Weekly Teleclasses from the Children’s Writers’ Coaching Club

Uncategorized, children's writer's coaching clubNo Comments


cwcc-272x78Wow! Thanks to the G-20 Summit here in Pittsburgh, (all schools are closed) I was able to take advantage of a very quiet afternoon and listen to an amazing Thursday teleclass - something which I hardly ever get to do!

This teleclass was presented by Nancy Sanders who has a new book coming out called Yes! You Can Learn How to Write Children’s Books, Get Them Published, and Build a Successful Writing Career. In this 2 part teleclass, she discussesThe Importance of Voice in Fiction and Nonfiction. Today she talked about finding a voice as an author. I got so many helpful tips and techniques which I’ll be implementing right away with my own writing!

These teleclasses are ideal for any writer at any stage of his/her writing career: they are short and informative complete with a learning guide and helpful tips. Best yet - the price is very reasonable! You can attend or listen to the recordings of all teleclasses every month when you become members of the Children’s Writers’ Coaching Club or you can purchase the teleclasses separately. No time? A recording of the call is also available.

Click here to join the Children’s Writers’ Coaching Club

Click here to purchase individual teleclasses

Sep 23

Improve Your Lesson Plan and Prevent Discipline Problems by Thinking in Threes!

Uncategorized, preventing discipline problems, strategic lesson planningNo Comments


860597_number_0-4_in_stoneA lesson is like a story: it has a good beginning, a middle and an end.

Any content can be presented in threes. The first step is to elicit what students know about a topic before they are presented with any new information. This is truly an important stage that many teachers simply rush through to get to the middle part of the lesson. But by then, they may find that students aren’t engaged and discipline problems have already taken over.

With brainstorming for example, the teacher elicits as many responses as s/he can. Brainstorming is a great technique for mixed ability classes: the quieter students absorb what their more verbal peers say. Afterwards, all students copy the contributions. The teacher can create a word recognition activity using the students’ responses. So a simple pre-reading activity becomes a listening, reading and writing activity!

When brainstorming, be thorough and give students plenty of time to think through their responses. Be patient and see what happens. Then present them with new information. Chances are, you’ll notice a huge difference in their behavior and ability to retain information!

A strategic lesson ending is just important as its beginning. Students need to be made consciously known of new information they learned and how well they have learned it. End the lesson for example by asking students to reflect on the question: “What did you learn about skydiving from today’s reading?”

So as you plan your weekly/daily lessons, see how you can make each of these three parts come together like a good story with of course, a happy end!

Try it!

Sep 22

New Teacher Tips on Handling Grades: Consistency is the Best Policy!

Professor Howard Seeman, classroom management online, grade policy, new teacher tipsNo Comments


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In the NY TIMES, Feb. 16, 09, this important issue was discussed:

Reward students’ efforts with a higher grade?

But there was little help there for teachers.

Well, here is help, from Prof. Howard Seeman, our oft times contributor to the New Teacher Resource Center:

This an important issue for us educators that often comes up, and many feel in a muddle. Teachers sometimes do this, and sometimes they do not. If they do the latter, they feel badly. What to do?

I would like to try to sort out this muddle, if I can, for you. For the sake of consistency with grades and policy, you/we need to decide here what is best, digest it, and practice it.

First the short, I think the correct, answer - then I will argue why:

You should/can reward effort, but not with a higher grade.

Let’s first extrapolate: If a medical student studying to be a surgeon does poorly on both his cognitive and praxis hands-on examinations, but shows a lot of effort, do we pass him/her?

Do you want a very “trying” surgeon, but does not know his/her stuff operating on you?
Or in our hospitals? Easy here: NO!

The example is cogent. The only difference here, you say, is we are talking about a high level skill that affects lives.

Well, what about lower levels: pass trying incompetent lifeguards? dentists? teachers? plumbers? construction workers? tutors? doormen? mailmen? Who would you let slide if they just tried hard?

Answer: best, no one.

No one, not only to protect the standards of our society [without upholding standards societies disintegrate] but also to give rightful credit to those who not only try but meet the criterion for excellence.

We need to reward the latter. Do not tell the ones who meet excellence that you get the same rights/duties as just the try-ers.

If you do that, you de-motivate the ones who actually work to meet excellence.

Now, to help your guilt about not helping John for trying but not doing well:

Reward him, but just not with a higher grade that represents the product he can do or his level of competence.

Emotionally reward him with praise, give him symbolic rewards, e.g. in grade school: gold stars; in high school, e.g., “school money for the school bookstore.” Or give his greater effort class recognition, with his peers, on a bulletin board, etc.

You should/can reward effort, but not with a higher grade.

Digest the above.
If you can get congruent with it, integrate it into your value system, have it go into your practice, and practice it, you will counter your wrong-impulse habits [we tend to teach the way we were taught].

If you can do this, you will reward real competence, encourage trying to competence, instead of just trying, and keep our society safe from its own internal corruption and collapse.

Teaching is not easy: there should be statues of teachers in our parks, not just soldiers.

Regards,
Professor Howard Seeman

The next session of the confidential, online seminar [DONE IN ONLY SEVEN WEEKS] will start on Oct. 5.

This session of the course will focus on preparing teachers to PREVENT classroom management problems and discipline problems all school year.

The best time to solve a problem is before it starts!

An educator can sign up for his/her own individual tutorial.

AT:Pro-Ed Media: Classroom Management Online

See: Reviews from Educators who Took this Course and Reviews from Teacher Trainers

Sep 14

How Does Using Rubrics Increase Your Teacher Effectiveness?

assessment using rubricsNo Comments


517386_scanning_test
With standard assessment based practices, it’s not always easy for teachers to monitor the learning and growth of their students. When students are given a “C,” or a comment like “good work” - how is it possible for them to know what they did well versus what they didn’t? How can students improve their work and how can teachers improve their instruction?

Rubrics in this respect, gives the students relevant and timely feedback without diminishing their effort into preparing the assignment.

With rubrics, teachers can align their benchmarks/standards of proficiency based on the skill sets they have already taught. By aligning their instruction to match assessment criteria, students know in advance how they can get a good grade.

What I particularly like about using rubrics is that they can be customized to suit the content of a classroom. In the past, I’ve also had students evaluate their own and their peers’ performance using rubrics; in some classes, we decided together on the criteria for evaluation. Coming up with the criteria can be tricky but using them to evaluate students’ work becomes a breeze.

Students also know in advance what they need to strive for and how they can improve their grades. It’s also comforting for students to know they can get in-between grades.

Rubrics becomes somewhat of a learning tool or reference for the students in making sure their work meets the necessary requirements and standards.

Here are some other ways you enhance the process of using rubrics:

1. Add comments. Comments are invaluable and important and add that personal touch that caters to a more wholistic student-teacher learning approach.

2. If possible, have students self-evaluate their work and the work of their peers. In a tutorial, finalize the assessment grade should there be wide differences. This was especially helpful if the student thought s/he deserved an “A” either on an assignment or as a final grade but I saw his/her evaluation differently.

Sep 11

Writing Fun Authentic Tasks for Teachers

my new book for ESL and general education teachersNo Comments


1206626_note_pad

Last week I finished my last student page for my new book.

Finally!

I couldn’t believe it.

It sure felt good to finish with the hardest part — writing the book! It made me realize that writing for students is just as challenging as teaching them. Authentic instruction is my favorite way to teach. I enjoy thinking of real-life learning experiences that are connected to both learning in and out of the classroom.

I always seem to think of new games and activities at the beginning of the school year when students are new to their class and their friends. I want them to use their new skills to play fun games which is also a great way to motivate English language learners to learn English.

But right now, I’m taking a little bit of a much deserved break so I can get ready to polish the book so it will be ready for teachers. During this break, I’m evaluating some teaching products for Scholastic and writing an exercise for the new children’s writing ecourse created by children’s author, Suzanne Lieurance.

How’s it going for you?

Have you usd any fun authentic tasks in your classroom?

Just look at your students, what they know and like to do. There must be so many ways you can motivate them right now!

Work it!

Sep 09

Rosh Hashana Activities Using My Story, “The Gift” for Kids is Now Live!

"The Gift", Jewish holidays and activitiesNo Comments


193806_pomegranate_8
I’m pleased to share with the readers of the New Teacher Resource Center that my story, “The Gift,” is now available in Stories for Children online edition September 2009!

I just love the illustration for this story. You can use this story to teach the Jewish New Year.
Before reading the story to your students, you can start by asking the class:

Pre-Reading Questions

1. What do we typically do/eat/hear on Rosh Hashana? Allow students to brainstorm as many things. Remember the more time you give for brainstorming, the more responses students will give. So don’t rush through this stage.

2. Why do you think the Jewish new year of Rosh Hashana is like a gift?

While-Reading Questions

As students listen to the story, have them either stop you or underline areas of the story that indicate that Rosh Hashana is a gift for Chava, the main character.

Post-Reading Activities

1.Answer either in full class responses or individually: Did students like the ending to the story? Why or why not?

2.Students can complete a story web or write an additional ending to the story.

Click on the link below for the story. You have my permission to use it in your classroom. Please email me for other uses.

You’ll need to scroll down to page 42 where you’ll find my story, “The Gift.”

Click here for the link.

Enjoy! Have a sweet Jewish New Year!

Sep 04

Authentic Activities for ESL and General Education Teachers

Uncategorized, authentic activities, classroom community, integrating English language learners, my new bookNo Comments


587214_handsThere’s a lack of community in many U.S. schools today making it especially hard for teachers to integrate their students in the classroom. English language learners especially need to adjust to the cultural, linguistic, social and emotional newness of a school environment. Even so many schools do not give students that sense of belonging students initially need to feel connected with their classroom, teachers and school. And teachers are expected to figure out the best way to integrate their students. Students especially new(er) ones and English language learners can feel especially isolated culturally, socially and emotionally. And unfortunately, teachers have to work extra hard at preparing special activities and lessons that will help them with solving this problem.

There are many ways however that ESL and general education teachers can help their students including ELLs feel settled and comfortable in a new learning environment. In my new book, I’m providing ESL and general education teachers with a number of authentic activities to help them to do this successfully. Each of these activities is designed to promote the skills of word recognition, reading comprehension and oral fluency.By providing authentic instruction that is fun and also focuses on learning new words and asking questions, teacher can create a more positive learning environment and classroom community.

I’ve also prepared reading activities using authentic materials such as filling in a personal I.D. form and also around themes such as “My New School,” so teachers can help teach the themes of newness while creating a classroom community.

When it’s finally available, teachers will be able to use my book to supplement their instruction. I’ll also be providing a series of tips booklets to help ESL teachers and general education classroom teachers collaborate on creating a more positive learning environment for their ELLs.

Stay tuned for more details about how you can download an ebook with samples from my new book!

Sep 03

Why You Should NOT Include Everything You Know about Teaching Reading in Your Lessons

UncategorizedNo Comments


1013123_learn_2When planning a reading lesson for a text children have not yet seen, many new teachers think they need to start off teaching every skill and activity just as they are written in the textbook or workbook or as they were taqught in teacher’s college.

But actually, when planning a reading lesson, you DON’T want to lean too much on the textbook but rather let your students guide you. There are a few reasons for this.

Improving a child’s reading and vocabulary knowledge depends on many things: the level of instruction, your students, their motivation and your in-depth knowledge about reading and reading strategies.

Even if you’re unsure of your students’ reading abilities at first, and all new teachers learn from practice, you need to build your reading lesson on what your students already know about a subject and how well they can read, write and speak.

As you start planning your reading lesson, you’ll have a much better idea of what they already know in terms of world, vocabulary and reading knowledge and you can begin your starting point of instruction there. And since reading is an accrued skill, teachers need to constantly reassess what students have learned over time.

Another reason why you shouldn’t overstuff a reading lesson with everything you were previously about teaching reading is you’ll be frustrated because your lesson didn’t turn out as you had planned. The reality of classroom teaching is so different than college. Teacher’s courses are not always student centered leaving many new teacher to figure out how to still teach in an engaging three part way as they were taught and still have a strong handle on classroom management.

Think of your lessons as engaging as possible from the minute they enter the class. But they should also leave your students wanting to learn more from you.

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