Giving Feedback and Encouragement

Feedback is crucial to learning. It is an important part of learning....adults and students alike. For some students it is the only time they hear anything positive all day. Feedback is to inspire someone to create an action plan to solve a problem and act upon it. There are many types of positive feedback models. Choose one that best fits your desired outcome. Please remember: 

Four Principals of Positive Feedback and Encouragement:

1. Contingent on appropriate behavior

2. Descriptive

3. Conveyed with enthusiasm

4. Contingent on effort

My personal choice of feedback is based on appropriate behavior or on the child’s effort towards the appropriate behavior. To be most effective,  it must be descriptive of the child’s desired behavior that is desired. For example, “Rachel and Sarah, thank you for following directions and pushing in your chairs! Can you help the others? Maybe Mike needs some help with his chair.”

Just start small. Try to give a few more than the day before. Begin with a reminder system for you. Maybe place rubber bands on your wrist and remove one when you give positive feedback or encouragement. A little goes a long way in the eyes of a child.

Being Purposeful….

We all went to college…we are all are certified….we all heard the same information on what is best practices and what makes good teaching.  We get side-tracked by things other than teaching.Many times the world around us gets the better of our attention.

It is our responsibility as professional educators to use what we have learned to better the education of the students we teach. And sometimes we need to be reminded.

Since time on instruction is precious, we need “to get the most bang for our buck.” When we are intentional and purposeful in planning instruction, students benefit. When we look back at our educational career in college as well as our professional development as a teacher, we all learned there are items in instruction that make a bigger impact than others. 

Some of the most important parts of the plan are:

What do I want my kids to learn? Do the students know what they are learning? If you asked a group of students at any point in the lesson what they are learning, would they be able to answer that questions?

 

Are the students able to answer questions about their learning? Many times the students can give teachers back the low level information that has been given, but can they answer the deeper questions? Are they able to apply what they have learned to new situations?

How do I know my students have mastered the learning? What type of assessment am I giving? Is it appropriate for what I have taught?

If as teachers we can keep these few things in mind, we will see our students progress and become more successful in their learning. 

Designing Purposefuland CoherentLeadership PreparationCurriculum:A Curriculum MappingGuide 

The Glass Wall...

Often it happens...out of nowhere....you hit the "wall". 

An invisible seemly insurmountable blockage where it seems nothing is going your way, your kids just aren't getting it and you working twice as hard as usual but getting nothing accomplished. For many people, it is hard to get around this. As you can tell by my last blog posting (November 2015). I have hit that wall.

Try as we might, it takes a lot of reflection and hard work to get yourself out of that place. Remember:

1. Why did you being this journey in the beginning?

2. What makes you smile during the day?

3. What new thing can you learn from your kids this week

If you are able to remind yourself of these things you just might be able to break through this wall or at least step over it. Hang in there...this too shall pass...jen