GUFF

I have been using WBT for six years and this is the first year I have had to use the GUFF counter. It seems to be working well and I enjoy it. I have 3-4 students who like to back talk and moan and groan after an assignment is giving.

Super Improvers

Really excited about using The Super Improver Wall. I just have to figure out where to put it. I am in a portable and space is at a premium. I have so many things required to have up by the district. I was thinking about posting their cards in different spots in the room instead of all on one big long poster. What do you think?

Things

Well we have been in school for 10 days and off to a good start. I am forcing myself to do more Teach/Okay moments and the kids seem to really like it. I always have a few who do not want to follow directions quickly and I just use the scoreboard and give them a second chance. They usually respond after that.

I do have quite a few boys this year (15 out of 23). Most are well behaved and comply with the class procedures. I know I need to wait a few months before I introduce the white practice cards, but I still have a few students who are consistently not following the procedures especially procedure two. I believe they are so used to yelling out comments and answers they are not used to me and my whole brain teaching. We will get there.

I am going to start a new goal of NOT YELLING to/at the class. I believe I have a loud normal speaking voice and always try to not yell.

I need to treat each student special because I do not know what battles they are fighting.

Humble beginnings

I was just hired to teach 6th grade science way back when. Wow, my first teaching job. I was nervous, excited and SCARED. I spent the summer searching for things to do that first week. I kept hearing that you had to get them busy as soon as they entered the classroom. I was also nervous about not really having a discipline plan in place. I started searching on the the web and finally came across this site called Power Teaching. It looked and sounded amazing. I immediately starting reading all I could and began practicing. Well school finally started and I began using the techniques from the website. It was a little rocky at first but that was mostly me getting used to it. The kids LOVED it. Now I teach second grade and they really love it. I love the Teach/Okay, the five class procedures, the practice cards, the scoreboard, ALL of it. I have to really fight not talking so much in class, but I love to talk. I have to force myself to get the kids more involved. I did recently start using the teach/okay with our weekly vocabulary cards. I have seen a small increase in the test scores covering this material. My struggle now is getting the "shy" kids to turn and teach their neighbor. It also seems interesting that the kids who I see NOT doing the teach/okay do poorly on the tested material. Oh and I also love the YES/NO WAY and the QT. Both are excellent ways to do a quick check on understanding.