I’ve published many posts on student goal-setting (see The Best Posts On Students Setting Goals), along with others on the benefits of having students share positive events that have happened in their lives (see My Best Posts On Why It’s Important To Be Positive In Class). And I have even more extensive information about both, including lesson plans, in my books.

Today, I shared with my class a simple reflection sheet hitting both those topics, and that I’ll be using periodically with them this semester. You can download it here, and I’ll also share the questions and sample responses in the body of this post. They wrote their responses in a few minutes and then shared with a partner, followed by a few sharing with the entire class.

It went very well.  I have students do a reflection every Friday, but this particular combination seemed to really be helpful — it was a reflective exercise for the students; it gives me a ton of information for follow-up conversations with them on Monday and beyond; and some of the responses that I didn’t include here are good info for our counselor to know.

If you’ve got any ideas on how to make it better, I’m all ears…..

1. Look at the goal sheet in your notebook for this semester. List two the things you did to HELP you achieve the goals you set for yourself:

I woke up on time in the morning.

I did follow directions and I did help others.

I caught up on my sleep and I paid attention.

I read more and worked hard.

I got a bit off track yesterday but Monday-Wednesday I was great. But I know that I can’t pay attention to anything else but what’s in front of me and that’s my goal for the remaining of the year.

I was more patient.

2. Again, look at the goal sheet. Did you do anything that HURT your efforts to achieve the goals you set for yourself? If so, what were they and what can you do to help avoid repeating it?

I talked too much, and I can help myself by just doing my work and not talking to anyone.

Yes, what I did was dicey and got a couple of students off-task. But now I know that I have to be serious.

No, I didn’t do anything that hurt my effort to achieve the goals I set for myself.

The thing that stopped me from my goal was watching too much TV and I need to watch TV less.

I wasn’t patient and I could avoid it by not getting mad.

Yes, I did. It was this week because I was being rude. Something I’ll do to avoid repeating it is to follow the rules.

I didn’t become a leader because I was playing too much. Next time, I’ll just help people when I finish early.

3. What are the two most fun and energizing things that happened in your life this week – in or out of school?

My aunties and cousins came to my house, we went to the park and played basketball against the grown-ups and the kids won because of me.

I got to see a friend that I haven’t seen in a year. It was fun to get caught up with each other.

I found $20 on the way to school.

I don’t got any fun and energizing things that happened in my life this week.

I went to my uncle’s house and played with his dogs.

Lifting weights and training for the next football season.

As usual, during the semester finals, I had my students provide anonymous evaluations of classes and me. I always tell them (and always follow-through) that I will be posting the results — warts and all — on my blog and also share it directly with colleagues. I doing that enhances the odds of their taking it seriously. I tell them that I put a lot of time into helping them become better learners, and now it’s their turn to help me become a better teacher.

Today, I’ll share the results from my International Baccalaureate Theory of Knowledge class. I’ll go through results from other classes later tonight and post about them during the weekend.

You might also be interested in The Best Posts On Students Evaluating Classes (And Teachers).

Here is the simple form I had my TOK students complete.

Here is each question, followed by representative answers, which are in turn followed by a short analysis by me:

1) What are the two or three most important things you have learned in this class so far?

How to ask Why all the time and how to improve my work ethic.

A different way of thinking — how emotion can relate to everything in some way.

The distinction between science and pseudo-science.

How to make presentations. (many wrote this)

Actually, many things we learned interest me. The way we’re influenced by perception, emotion, language and reason was the most striking.

I learned how to communicate better, write better and think better.

What we think we know may be tainted — keep and open mind.

How we need to question things to open our minds.

MY ANALYSIS: I was generally pleased with many of the responses to this question.  However, a number of students also just listed different Ways of Knowing or Areas of Knowledge.  I need to remember in the future to ask students to be more specific in their responses and give some examples — Model, Model, Model!

2) What have you liked about this class or how it was taught?

I liked how we presented our thoughts and the debating.

What I like about this class is that it very relaxing unlike my other classes that are stressing me out so much I’m going crazy.

I liked how it was taught because it was not boring desk work.

I liked how Mr. Ferlazzo kept the class fun and humorous while still learning.

I liked the pace of learning — it wasn’t too fast or too slow, it was just right.

I like how we give presentations because I’ve been able to improve my skills with presenting.

Working in groups and making posters.

I liked that we had weekly homework that we knew about ahead of time and that we learned through student presentations.

All the partner work.

We learned things that are different than normal classes.

I liked how the class was very organized and worked like clockwork.

I liked that it helped me get confidence in myself when presenting in front of the class.

I liked how this class is college level — I actually feel like a college level.

The class was fun. I never fell asleep in the class because your bald head is always too bright — it keeps me awake.

MY ANALYSIS Again, I’m pleased with these responses. I work hard at keeping the class engaging and it seems to pay-off. Also, just FYI, I love how document cameras enable students to quickly create simple “posters” on regular size paper for use as a presentation visual.

3) How do you think this class could be improved?

Less use of posters.

I didn’t like how the class worked like clockwork, because sometimes there are times when things were not finished in time.

More control over the class and less posters and presentations.

Give us less work.

You need to control the class more.

No boring readings.

We could have discussion circles. It can be disrupting when people argue during teaching lessons, so a way we can limit that is to have a discussion circle.

I think that this class is already one of the best classes that I have ever taken.

I do not think this class needs to be improved.

This class can be improved by students listening more, sometimes people talk too much and don’t listen to Mr. Ferlazzo.

Let us debate more.

MY ANALYSIS: Student comments echo the two areas where I have also been feeling a need to improve — a need to provide more structure to class debate/discussion and a need to rein in a few overly talkative students. Neither are huge problems, but clearly I need to do something about them both. Today, I had some individual discussions with students on classroom management, and I’m confident about handling that. I’m less clear on the best way to provide more structure to student discussion/debate, and am interested in hearing ideas from readers.

4) What grade would you give Mr. Ferlazzo as a teacher? What do you think he does well? What do you think he could improve?

Half the class gave me an A or A+; the other half gave me a B or B+

Here are a few comments:

You could be more creative in the work you do.

Your work is fun to do.

I think you do well at everything. I don’t know what you could improve on.

I think you could improve on not wasting a lot of paper.

You are very flexible and understanding. As for improvement, I believe you should be more strict and not take so much “bs” by some students.

You’re intelligent and you give recognition to students. You make me feel better about myself and my stance in your class. I think you should not take so much from students who disrespect you.

You speak a little slow, but you’re okay (I teach my Beginning ESL class before TOK)

You could improve on giving instructions.

I think you could improve by having more control over the class.

You’re bad at explaining what to do. But you’re funny and understanding.

MY ANALYSIS: My two takeaways on working a bit more classroom management and also on providing instructions. I need to be clearer, and put them down on paper.

5) Are there ways you think that what you learned in this class will help you in the future? If so, what are they?

The Ways of Knowing will help me in the future to get to know the truth instead of assuming.

I liked learning about doublespeak and manipulating language. I think I can use that in the future.

Yes, all the topics. Like the science stuff and presentation.

I think this class has helped me on my thinking skills.

Yes, the ways I look at things will be different.

I learned how to prepare presentations in a very short time and this will help in the future.

The way of how I view life.

Yes, especially ethics. Thinking more about right and wrong will help me think about the things I do.

MY ANALYSIS: The answers to this question are typically the ones I’m disappointed in the most.  I have tried regularly to highlight the practical aspects of what we’re learning, but, as usual, I need to explore ways of doing it better.  It’s not that the responses I share here are bad — it’s just that they’re less specific than I would like, and that many other students didn’t really write down anything.  All suggestions are welcome.

And, of course, I invite any and all feedback.  Look for summaries from my other classes soon….

I’ve written a lot about effective ways to give student feedback, and you can seem a collection of pieces about the topic at The Best Resources For Learning How To Best Give Feedback To Students.

An article entitled Choice Words by Doug Fisher and Nancy Frey has been published by the National Association of Secondary School Principals, and it’s an exceptional commentary with practical suggestions on giving effective feedback.

I especially like the framework they use — dividing helpful feedback into ones that emphasize student accomplishments, identity and agency.

It’s a definite addition to my previously mentioned “The Best…” list.

Photo Credit: Trey Ratcliff via Compfight

I wouldn’t want to teach at any other school than where I’m teaching now, and I think the same goes for the vast majority of our faculty. And I think the same percentage of our students wouldn’t want to be attending any other school either. Since we’re in Program Improvement, every year we need to provide forms to our students where they and their families can request an assignment to another school, and typically students look at me like I’m a bit crazy and many say something like, “Why would I want to go somewhere else?”

That being said, as the biggest inner-city school in Sacramento, we are not immune from the challenges facing our students, their families, and our neighborhood. They sometimes get brought to the surface by the pressures of holidays, and that was certainly the case this week.

Most of our counselors, administrators, and school monitors have been busy the past few days dealing with dispute resolutions. We’ve had a number of fights, and lunch was cut short one day in an effort to head-off the potential of escalating violence.

On that particular day when things were tough school-wide, student behavior in one of my “double-block” classes was the worst it’s ever been (it had been moving in that direction during the previous days). In retrospect, I should have quickly given up on my lesson plan and moved the class into a game, but I kept on believing I could recover.

I was wrong.

The next day, students came into class to a new seating chart and my announcement of a “points system” (you can see a more detailed explanation of how this works at Have You Ever Taught A Class That Got “Out Of Control”? and an even more detailed description in one of my books.

I told students why I was instituting it and how it would work, and also told them that any student who earns the full amount of points five days in a row would then be taken off of it and receive the points automatically. I said that I assumed most, if not all of them, would be off the system in a week.

You might be thinking, “Wait, you’re the intrinsic motivation guy. What are you doing with a points system?”

A reasonable question.

As I’ve said before in this blog and in my books, community organizers (and I) operate in the world “as it is,” not the world “as I would like it to be.” As long as extrinsic motivation is used in a very limited and temporary way, and there is a clear exit strategy, I think it’s fine to use it.

My students responded very, very positively to the change, and I’m sure in a few days we’ll be back to normal.

But I also want to mention one other element that I believe is a key to why it’s worked so well.

The same day I instituted the points system — the arm of discipline — during the twenty minutes of silent reading time that starts each class I had short private conversations with each student. In those conversations, I “touched” on each of my students’ individual self-interests (which I know because of the relationships I have built with them). I told one student that I had gotten a book I had known he wanted to read; another the positive things I planned to tell his mother at an upcoming parent conference; another that I would like him to start being the leader in his student small group, etc.

We teachers are human — it’s understandable that sometimes when students act so inappropriately, we want to come down on them like a ton of bricks.

I sure did.

But an “iron fist” won’t do the job of creating a community of responsible learners, though it might temporarily create a classroom of somewhat compliant bodies.

Usually, during my lunchtime, I am either with students in my classroom (our cafeteria isn’t large enough to accommodate all our students at lunch time) or am meeting with colleagues. However, one day a week during lunch I do my favorite activity of the school week.

I walk around campus spotting students — either ones I have now or have had in the past — and they are usually with some of their friends. I go up to the group, point out that student, and say something like, “Did you know that there is no harder worker in my class than _______?” or “Did you know that there are few other students who help their classmates more than _______?” or some other comment singling out that particular student for something that they do especially well.

Those students, though they may feign embarrassment, love it.

In fact, it’s not unusual that one of their friends — who I don’t know — will say, “What about me?” I quickly respond, “If you were in my class, I’m sure I could say the same thing about you.”

I have, and continue to have, many students who face lots of challenges, and it’s safe to say that many don’t get the kind of positive feedback they deserve.

A little public acknowledgment can go a long way.

(A quick aside: Before I learned about the importance of a growth mindset, I used to go around saying “Did you know that __________ is a star?” That got an equally pleased response, but clearly targeted reinforcement of a particular behavior is the better way to go)

I’ve written a lot about Marvin Marshall, my favorite advocate of positive classroom management strategies. As I’ve written before, I’d strongly recommend you subscribe to his blog.

I’d encourage you to read his latest post, which includes this great story. Check out his post for his helpful commentary on it:

A woman having lunch at a small café was seated next to a family celebrating their son’s basketball game. Their conversation was so lively that the woman joined in. “You must have been on the winning team,” she said.

The kid grinned from ear to ear, “No, we lost by 20 points. The other team had a killer defense. We were only able to make one basket.”

“Did you make the basket?” she asked.

With his mouth filled with cake and ice cream, the boy shook his head, “No.”

His father reached across the table to give him a high five. His mother hugged him and said, “You were awesome.”

The woman at the next table rubbed her chin.

The boy looked at the confused woman and said, “At last week’s game, I took nine shots but they all fell short of the basket. This week I took eight shots and three of them hit the rim! Dad says I’m making progress.”

We have three weeks left until our Winter Break, and last week I asked students to identify three school-related goals they wanted to accomplish by that time.

After they chose them, I handed out this form, where they copied each of their goals and made a specific action plan on what they had to do to achieve them.

The action plans were a bit mixed at first, but today I was able to highlight examples of good specific ones (an action plan for the goal of “improve my reading” could be something like “read ten minutes more each night” instead of “be better in class”) and students were able to re-write them.

Last Friday, and every Friday over the next three weeks, students will assess how they are doing accomplishing their goal and make adjustments (there is space in the form for that). They also share with a partner.

In addition, since we take a minute near the beginning of each class so students — if they choose — can visualize success in working towards goals, they can use these three goals as ones they focus on during that time.

It seems to be working well. And it certainly can’t hurt…

I’m adding this post to The Best Posts On Students Setting Goals.

Whenever New York Times columnist David Brooks writes explicitly about education issues, his sense of judgment and coherence appear to completely disappear.

However, sometimes when he writes about non-education issues, he has wise insights that can certainly be applied to the classroom and to education policy discussions. Today is one of those examples.

His column, How People Change, is an excellent critique of the now-famous father who sent an email to his children telling them he was disappointed in them and they shouldn’t contact him until they have a plan to change their behavior.

It’s worth reading his entire column, but here’s how he ends it:

It’s foolhardy to try to persuade people to see the profound errors of their ways in the hope that mental change will lead to behavioral change. Instead, try to change superficial behavior first and hope that, if they act differently, they’ll eventually think differently. Lure people toward success with the promise of admiration instead of trying to punish failure with criticism. Positive rewards are more powerful.

I happen to cover a field — politics — in which people are perpetually bellowing at each other to be better. They’re always issuing the political version of the Crews Missile.

It’s a lousy leadership model. Don’t try to bludgeon bad behavior. Change the underlying context. Change the behavior triggers. Displace bad behavior with different good behavior. Be oblique. Redirect.

Tomorrow, I’m doing a lesson on the importance of “grit” and a “growth mindset” (I have the full lesson plan in my book, Helping Students Motivate Themselves, and additional resources at The Best Resources For Learning About The Importance Of “Grit” and at The Best Resources On Helping Our Students Develop A “Growth Mindset” ).

One of the elements of the lesson plan has us reviewing the difference between a “fixed” and a “growth” mindset, and then students explore some of the challenges they face and how they might deal with them from a “growth mindset” perspective.

Before they start making their list, I’m going to share this short read aloud on boredom I’ve written based on several research studies that have come out over the past few days. I don’t know about you, but I periodically have a students shout-out “This is boring!” during a lesson (which is followed by this conversation: Me: Is it okay for you to think that? Student: Yes; Me: Is it okay for you to say that to your friends between classes? Student: Yes; Me: Is it okay for you to tell me that privately and respectfully? Student: Yes; Is it okay for you to shout it out in class? Student: No). I thought this Read Aloud might be useful.

I’m publishing it within this blog post, and you can also download it here.  Let me know if you have ideas on how I can improve it!

“This is Boring!”

We have all experienced times as a student when we have felt bored.  Sometimes, it’s because a teacher hasn’t done a very good job of preparing a lesson or teaching it.  Teachers can get make mistakes or get lazy.

Sometimes, though, there are other reasons why students can get bored.

Studies have shown that stress students might be feeling about their lives outside the classroom can make them more likely to feel bored by school.

Researchers have also found that we generally find the first time we do something or even hear something (a song, for example), we tend to find it pretty interesting.  However, as time goes on, and we do the same thing (or hear the same thing) often, it’s easy to get bored by it.

They call it “satiation.”

Scientists suggest that, in addition to teachers working hard at creating and teaching more interesting lessons, students can also take responsibility for slowing their “rate of satiation.”

They suggest that students can acknowledge their negative feelings as they start to get bored (though they don’t necessarily have to say it out loud in class   ).  At the same time, they can try to focus on positive learning opportunities.

Researchers had people listen to a boring piece of music.  Participants who learned the importance of distinguishing details of the music, and how to look for them, enjoyed the music much more than others.

In other words, when they started feeling bored by just the “surface” of what they were listening to, they were able to become more interested in it by looking at it in a deeper level.

In our class, for example, if you started feeling bored by doing one of our projects, you could remember that learning makes your brain grow stronger, or about how focusing can help you develop more self-control, or how you are strengthening your “grit.”

None of this research means that it’s not the teacher’s responsibility to create a positive learning environment.  However, the next time students begin to feel bored, they might want to take a moment to consider what they could do about it, too.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/art-markman-phd/boredom_b_2000662.html?utm_hp_ref=tw

http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2012/10/10/07boredom_ep.h32.html

By Larry Ferlazzo, http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/

In my upcoming sequel to Helping Students Motivate Themselves, I have an extensive lesson on the effect of reading on the brain.

A study just came out of Stanford last week, though, and I quickly used it to put together a short Read Aloud that my colleagues and I are using in class. It’s short and sweet, and I thought readers might find it helpful, too. Here’s the downloadable version, and here’s what it says:

This Is Your Brain On Reading

Stanford researchers have found a “dramatic and unexpected increase in blood flow” to the brain when we read.  Stanford researcher Natalie Phillips said “the global increase in blood flow during close reading [if you were reading a text for a class] suggests that ‘paying attention to literary texts requires the coordination of multiple complex cognitive functions.’  Blood flow also increased during pleasure reading, but in different areas of the brain.”

As brain researcher Eric Jensen writes: “Oxygen is essential for brain function, and enhanced blood flow increases the amount of oxygen transported to the brain.”

The more blood flow we have to the brain, the better we learn.

Reading is one way to increase that blood flow, and movement is another.  That’s one reason we read, and one reason we physically move to get into small groups.

I had students copy the last three sentences in their notebooks, and then had them draw an image that would remind them of what it said.

It builds on the “brain as a muscle” lesson we did last week, which is in the Helping Students Motivate Themselves book and which is available for free on the publisher’s website.

I’m adding this post to The Best Resources For Showing Students That They Make Their Brain Stronger By Learning.

In light of our dramatically reduced custodial staff (from five to less than two), I was wondering in August how to reduce the amount of debris on the fall resulting from hole-punching papers for the class binders I’ve had students keep. Then, Lara Hoekstra and Cary Zerenberg, two extraordinary teachers (who, by the way, are contributing to my next book) mentioned to my friend and colleague Katie Hull about a notebook system they used last year that worked well.

Katie told me about it and we both decided to implement it this year. It’s been working great and is far superior to my binder system — both for cleanliness and for just plain student organization.

We bought a bunch of old-fashioned composition notebooks you can find anywhere. The front cover (Side A), is “Who You Are Now.” Students decorated the front with images representing their interests, etc, and the front page is the table of contents. In subsequent pages they keep track of the books they finish and different writing assignments. They flip the book upside down and go to the back cover (Side B), which is “Where They Want To Be.” On those pages they will be taking notes and gluing/stapling/taping materials from our life skill lessons (the brain, self-control, etc — things we want them to keep and not lose so they can refer back to them), info on reading strategies, website addresses, etc.

Here are set-up instructions we gave students and that Katie wrote up.

Then, students get a manila folder for each thematic unit we cover. In ninth-grade English, for example, we’ll be studying Natural Disasters for the next two months. In ESL English, they’re working on an auto-biographical incident essay for the next month. At the end of each thematic unit, students identify three examples of their best work, which they will give to us to keep for a final semester project, and they throw out the rest.

We have a milk crate by the door with hanging folders that have each student’s name. When they come in, they grab their notebook and manila folder out of the crate. Near the end of the class, someone collects them all to return them there.

So far, it’s been working like a charm, and we expect it to continue.

What organizational system works well for you and your students?

I originally published a version of this post two years ago, but I thought that readers might find a “re-issue” helpful, especially since it’s football season:

Some students in my high school face many challenges beyond academic ones. On occasion, an athlete is among them. Since my classes are structured in a way that if students show up each day and try their best, they will pass, I seldom use an academic grade as leverage to gain work from students who want to play on sports teams. However,  I have made arrangements with our coaches to give weekly unofficial grades to athletes in areas that are equally important in class, life, and in athletics (we worked together to identify these areas): leadership, cooperation, respect, perseverance, and preparation.

Coaches have decided to take these grades as seriously, if not more seriously, than the academic grade athletes will receive in my class. Any teacher who has ever taught a student highly invested in an extracurricular activity knows you can’t top that sort of leverage!

Here’s the sheet that I use (it has two copies on the same page and we’ll cut it in half). Student athletes give it to their coach each Friday.

Several other teachers use this same sheet and process.   And it works very well….

As an introductory activity, I have students in all of my classes create “Who Am I?” posters which they then share “speed-dating” style (linking up in rows, show and share, and then one row moves to the right — or left — and does it again and so on). It seems to go well, and I thought readers might find it useful to see the model I use for them (as you can see, I hold few artistic aspirations ):