One good thinker and more!

After reading the post about one good thinker, I was reminded of that skill. As I was teaching yesterday, I decided to try it (I had done it sporadically in the past). "One good thinker, two good thinkers...." and I was just amazed at how well this skill worked! All of a sudden, hands were going up in the air and the majority of students were more engaged! Later after I left the class, my co-teacher commented on how much she liked "one good thinker." Success with students while influencing others!

Another success I want to share is when a new student joined our class. The student was complaining that he did not have a pencil or paper. So I said, "so what's a question you could ask to work toward a solution?" and he thought for a few seconds and looked at a classmate who supported him with, "you ask a question like...can I have a pencil?" So the new student asked a for a pencil. The student who had supported him told the new student, "you'll get used to that - she does it all the time." I was so excited that my students were recognizing that they were the ones who needed to do the thinking and how we can learn from one another! My focus is using a light tone with students with my eyebrows up - in my experience it takes a while for the students to learn how to ask questions and support one another! I strive to be patient with students and with myself!

I'm glad you told me the truth

In class on Friday, students were taking a quiz. One student was told by the teacher to move his seat so he would stop talking. He was punished through isolation. I was in the back of the room and the student came to sit down a few desks and a row away from me to finish his quiz. I asked him, "would you like to sit next to me?" "No," was his immediate reply as he took the seat he aimed for. "I'm glad you told me the truth," I responded. "What?" He asked. I repeated it, he looked down for a second, and then moved back a row to the desk next to me.

It was clear that day and in previous classes that this student was not ready for this quiz. Many of his responses we incorrect and he will probably receive a failing grade from his teacher. This student and I thought through the quiz together - he struggled with adding and multiplying one and two digit numbers and was lost with the Order of Operations and Exponents Quiz. Through great struggle, we has able to answer one or two questions correctly. Even though his teacher will likely grade his quiz as failing, he left class for the weekend feeling successful: he focused for at least 25 minutes on math and actually did answer two problems on his own.