As teachers, we often assume that doodling in class is “bad,” indicating that students aren’t listening to the material being taught. However, for visual learners, doodling can be that extra nudge that helps them in memorizing the material. Doodling as a memory strategy is not only effective, it helps some students focus, calm themselves, and turn verbal-linguistic information into non-linguistic information. In order to make that transfer from text to visual, students must understand the content. Given that one can’t doodle about what’s learned unless one understands it, doodling as a memory strategy can also be an effective formative assessment.

Even if they make up their answer on the spot, it STILL is effective in supporting recall of the information that was taught.

By taking what can be seen as a negative and turning it around into a positive, by encouraging doodling as a memory strategy, you gain the trust of your students, especially those that learn differently. By working with the student’s strengths, you enhance learning and memory on multiple levels. Create a win-win situation!

This video tutorial for Sketchnotes explains the concept well.

Related resources:

• What are Sketchnotes?
• What to Do to Help Students Improve Focus
• A Dozen Commonsense Strategies to Maintain Focus, Attention, And Enhance Learning in the Classroom!

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The culture of blame is demotivating

We live in a culture of blame. Everything is someone else’s fault. This idea is reinforced by television, media, and what we see in the news. Frivolous lawsuits, high insurance rates; everything is someone else’s fault. One of the things that kids struggle with is taking ownership for their own behavior.

Why is this a problem? Because if I don’t believe that I am responsible for my own behavior, then I can’t change it. If I believe that you did something to me and that made me do something else: You made me mad; you made me do it – then I have given you the power and control.

Motivation means finding our personal power

If I don’t feel like I have any control, then I can’t be motivated. Why would I be motivated if I don’t have a choice? I can’t do anything because you have the control; it’s your fault. I’m powerless. We’re seeing this attitude become more and more prevalent in schools. Not every student displays this mindset, but it’s definitely an issue that I’ve seen and experienced as I work in classrooms across the country.

You can motivate your students by helping them to understand the power of owning their behavior. If motivation is about personal power, then when we blame, and give away our power, it affects our motivation level. But, when we own our behavior and say, “Okay, I own my reaction; I own what I do about it; I own how I take charge, then I own it.” We are motivated because we have the power to affect our circumstances.

Ownership and personal power equals Motivation

When I was younger, before I understood my own personal power, I would say, “You made me mad,” because, back then, that’s what I knew. But as I learned more about these concepts, luckily before my kids were born, I started changing the language in my house, then I changed it in my classroom: “No, I didn’t make you mad, I may have triggered your anger, I may have pushed your buttons, but you’re the one in control of you. I didn’t make you do anything.”

Ownership. Because if I own it, then I have control, I have personal power. If I have personal power I’m going to be more motivated.

For more on how to motivate students, take a look at How to Motivate Students and Increase Personal Power!

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1. Students do not believe they can succeed even if they try.
2. Students do not feel they have any control over their life choices.
3. Students have a need to avoid failure.

Change Negative Mindsets: Be a Mind Detective

I was teaching high school and working with struggling learners. Many of my students were unmotivated, felt defeated, or believed they were stupid. So, I tried some teaching strategies I learned from a book titled Freeing Your Child from Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder by Tamar E. Chansky, Ph.D. It is, by far, the most practical, common-sense solutions book available written in lay person’s language on the topic of OCD. The author uses analogies, both verbal and visual, to help the reader understand how to approach the issue successfully.

For example, one analogy compares OCD thoughts to junk mail. Chansky suggests teaching youth to examine their thoughts. If their thoughts are negative, then they should label the thoughts as junk mail, or as something else the child could relate to. Having taught bullying prevention for several years at that point in time, I taught youth to label negative self-talk as “bullying thoughts.” I encouraged them to look at their thoughts by suggesting that they “Be a mind detective.”

I explained, “You’ve got thoughts going through your head. As a detective, determine: Are those thoughts negative? Are they positive? Are they telling you good things about yourself or bad things about yourself? What are they telling you? If they’re telling you bad things about yourself, tell them to stop it. You are the one in control of your thoughts. You’re the detective. When the detective tells you, ‘They’re saying these bad things,’ you tell those thoughts, ‘No! No more.’ Instead, choose thinking that is positive, that helps you to feel smart and powerful.”

Use positive self-talk.

Positive thinking is significantly related to youths’ engagement, self-confidence, imagination, and optimism in the learning process. (Hong, Lin, & Lawrenz, 2012) It is not very different from visualizing success. You are changing your thinking. You think it; you feel it; you do it. I have done a lot of research on this type of reprogramming our thoughts, gaining much from the works of Dr. Albert Ellis (Ellis, 2007).

Not everybody subscribes to that psychology, but I do because it works. There’s a significant body of research behind it as well as hundreds of years of spiritual teaching out of the Eastern philosophies. I realize that it is controversial in some religious circles and respect people’s right to differ. I, however, cannot remain silent on something that has yielded concrete, positive results and thus freed people from emotional pain.

The best way to combat these negative beliefs and behaviors is to use teaching strategies that engage learners and support their experience of success in the classroom. That said, these strategies will work with most of your students, yet may not work with all of them.

Teach Students to Learn How They Learn to Find the Road to Success

Students who feel they are not capable of more need to get their power back. Yes, maybe the teacher gave a hard test. Maybe they did not study, or did not study enough. Or, maybe they need to think about how they learn, and not always try to do things the way somebody else says they should do them. Maybe they do their homework, but maybe they also do a little extra the way they like to do it.

That is a hard sell for some children. My son used to say, “My teacher says write it out three times in cursive, so that’s what I have to do,” even though he did not learn that way.

Why should he write it out three times in cursive and fail the test every week? By the fifth week, do you think my son was motivated to write it out three times in cursive? Do you think homework was something he looked forward to? No, not spelling or vocabulary homework. Was it helping him? No!

So, I came up with a compromise.

“Okay, how about you write it two times in cursive, just as the teacher wants, and I’ll negotiate with your teacher to allow you to draw the word the third time.” So, the third time, we printed the word on a flashcard, added a picture that represented the word and color-coded the word. We practiced five cards a day for the week before the test, just five of them at a time.

Every single time he made flashcards, color-coded with a visual image, and practiced a little bit every day, he aced the test. Finally, I stopped getting involved because he was doing it on his own.

And then one week I saw an ‘F’ on his test. I asked, “Honey, what happened?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did you do your flashcards?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Well, I was doing so good. I thought it was easy, I did not think I needed to do it anymore.”

Every single time he chose not to use the strategy, he failed the test. Eventually, he figured out that he needed to honor the way he learned.

My son was one of those children who did not want any strategies that were different from what the teachers required and the other children were doing. In college, he still did not want to stand out as a different learner; however, he knew that to succeed, he would have to sort out a way to use his strategies discreetly. He knew how he learned, and he used it sometimes, but he would not tell anyone he was using a different strategy. That was fine. “I don’t learn from the teacher,” he said. “I go to class and I sit there to look good. I’m just in the chair so they count me when they take attendance, then, after class I get together with other kids in my class, or with the teacher’s assistant.”

In high school honors classes, he did not learn anything from his teachers. He will tell you that straight out, because they all lectured, except for his chemistry class. That lady let them blow things up – he loved that chemistry teacher! So, how did he succeed in honors and Advanced Placement classes? He went to a local coffee shop with his friends, or to somebody’s house, and they taught each other.

My son learns best by peer tutoring, watching tutorial videos, and hands-on experiences. My daughter uses a variety of visual study strategies and loves to teach her friends as well. She would broadcast what she was doing to succeed; but my son is private. They are different children.

Tell students, “Choose how you learn. Learn how you learn, and choose to learn how you learn!” So many children know how they learn and won’t do it because they don’t want to look different.

Teaching Strategies that Foster Empowerment and Motivation

In a study by J. Nichols titled Empowerment and Relationships: A classroom model to enhance student motivation, the initial findings indicate that a classroom environment which is based on positive social relationships, while encouraging student empowerment, may be the first step toward improving student motivation and achievement. She describes a classroom environment that not only attends to the social and emotional needs of students, but also to learner-centered teaching as a critical factor (Nichols, 2006).

Learner-centered instruction is differentiated instruction. It is instruction that honors how students learn, utilizes teaching models that increase student engagement and thereby increases motivation and success.

Following are some simple, effective, easy-to-implement teaching strategies for engaging learners and differentiating instruction. Again, if you choose to teach using these strategies, teach students that the strategies that work for them are their strategies to use the rest of their lives. This is the essence of personalized learning.

Strategies That Support Success:

1. Chunking – Chunk tasks for students so that they approach their learning challenges a piece at a time. Students who struggle in the classroom are best served by breaking assignments into manageable parts, with manageable deadlines, that focus on success. Chunking does not require teachers to reduce rigor. Imagine that you must clean a very messy, seven-room house. If you were to chunk the task of cleaning the house, you might tackle one room at a time, or first declutter, one room at a time, and then dust on another day. On the third day, you might wash and polish floors, then wash and clean the rugs. Eventually, if these tasks are spread out over a period of time, the house will be impeccably clean. Essentially, this is the same approach as chunking assignments in the classroom. Each chunk, completed well, is a success to be celebrated.
2. Offer choices in academic assignments – Can our students and schools make the grade but still offer students some choices? No matter how strict your school-district mandates are, we must ask: Are there choices we can offer? Because choices empower, motivate, and foster critical thinking (Brooks & Young, 2011; Flowerday & Schraw, 2000; Simmons & Page, 2010). Offer students choices as often as possible to allow them to exercise control in their lives. Too often, students feel they have no control over their success or their emotions. They blame others for their failure, or attribute their success to good luck rather than their hard work and ability, or they blame themselves, using the excuse that they are stupid. When students have choices, they must exercise control to make decisions. Once they make a decision, it is critical that they accept the consequences of those decisions. They own it, for good or for bad.
3. Ask students what went right – Focus on what the student has learned from an exercise or an assignment as opposed to what went wrong. Most importantly, encourage students to think beyond the grade and to understand that mistakes are an opportunity for learning. Recently, I observed a teacher handing back assignments and highlighting how many points the student had improved from the previous assignment. Students cheered for each other, acknowledging everyone who made gains. If there were students who did not make gains, that was handled discreetly because I never heard a negative number called out. It was exciting to see students and teachers celebrating even small successes. I used to think positive thinking was “fluff.” I am not a touchy-feely kind of person, so I pooh-poohed it. But the research shows that, biologically, positive thinking literally builds neural connections in your brain. You are actually firing off neurons and dendrites that are releasing dopamine (Shohamy & Adcock, 2010), noradrenaline and other brain chemicals which, in fact, support successful learning. Negative self-talk releases too much cortisol, which is a stress hormone, and increased levels of cortisol impair working memory (Oei, Everaerd, Elzinga, Van Well, & Bermond, 2006). This is not psychological. It is biological.
4. Create opportunities for students to exhibit their strengths – When assigning students to groups in a high school biology class, the teachers asked for five volunteers who could draw well. Three students quickly stood up. The teachers announced again that they needed five and asked for the rest of the class to share who they felt was good at art. Students quickly named two additional students. Each of those students was then assigned to a separate group. Now, each group had an artist to work with on the project. The teachers then went on to ask for excellent internet researchers. Five students quickly stood up. Those five students were assigned to five separate groups. Now each group had an artist and a researcher. Student individual strengths were celebrated so even students who may not have been outstanding biologists had an opportunity to focus on their success and how it contributed to the team.
5. Students need personal goals – Ask students about their goals and frequently show the connection between what they are learning in the classroom to their personal goals. Be ready to answer the question, “Why do I need this?” rather than share careers that may be meaningless to specific students, try to find examples from a wide spectrum of interests and career paths so that students might see the possibilities and the light that is meaningful to them. (Hallenbeck & Fleming, 2011)
6. Energize your class – Infuse your classroom with short musical energy breaks once or twice during a class period. Set a timer for 90 seconds, and crank up some Vivaldi, Mozart, or other Baroque period pieces that play at about 60 beats per minute. Then, have students stand, stretch, move, clap, stomp, or dance to the music. If you want to take that up a level, create an “I can do it!” chant to the beat of the music. (Brewer, 1995)
7. Teach students how to learn – Allow students opportunities to study the way that they learn instead of the way you learn or way the teacher’s manual dictates. Some students learn by writing what they hear. Some students learn by drawing pictures and labeling what they hear. Some write best from a traditional outline. Some write best if they start with a graphic organizer. Some work best standing or sitting on a Pilates ball. Some prefer the traditional desk and chair. Some memorize better by singing their notes. Some need to repeat what they have learned over and over again in a chant. Avoid forcing all students to learn the same way at the same time and at the same pace. There’s no faster way to demotivate students than to fail to recognize their individuality.

Walk Your Talk: Do not Feel Like a Failure If You Cannot Reach One Child

It is important to understand that, as teachers, we should not give up on using engaging strategies because there might be a few students on our roster who, no matter what we do to reach them, we cannot reach. Just as we need to help students focus on their success, we as educators, also need to focus on our successes and not give up because our efforts are not 100% successful. As a teacher mentor, I see, all too often, that teachers will give up because they focused on the one or two students in the classroom that they cannot reach. Do not fall into that trap.

References:

Brewer, C. B. (1995). Music and learning: Integrating music in the classroom. Retrieved April 1, 2013, from http://education.jhu.edu/PD/newhorizons/strategies/topics/Arts in Education/brewer.htm

Brooks, C. F., & Young, S. L. (2011). Are Choice-Making Opportunities Needed in the Classroom ? Using Self- Determination Theory to Consider Student Motivation and Learner Empowerment. International Journal of Teaching & Learning in Higher Education, 23(1), 48–59.

Ellis, A. (2007). Overcoming Resistance: A Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy Integrated Approach (2nd ed.). New York, N.Y.: Springer Publishing Company.

Flowerday, T., & Schraw, G. (2000). Teacher beliefs about instructional choice: A phenomenological study. Journal of Educational Psychology, 92(4), 634–645. http://doi.org/10.1037//0022-0663.92.4.634

Hallenbeck, A., & Fleming, D. (2011). Don’t you want to do better?: Implementing a goal-setting intervention in an afterschool program. Afterschool Matters, 38–48.

Hong, Z. R., Lin, H.-S., & Lawrenz, F. P. (2012). Effects of an Integrated Science and Societal Implication Intervention on Promoting Adolescents’ Positive Thinking and Emotional Perceptions in Learning Science. International Journal of Science Education. http://doi.org/10.1080/09500693.2011.623727

Nichols, J. D. (2006). Empowerment and relationships: A classroom model to enhance student motivation. Learning Environments Research, 9(2), 149–161. http://doi.org/10.1007/s10984-006-9006-8

Oei, N. Y. L., Everaerd, W. T. A. M., Elzinga, B. M., Van Well, S., & Bermond, B. (2006). Psychosocial stress impairs working memory at high loads: An association with cortisol levels and memory retrieval. Stress (Amsterdam, Netherlands), 9(3), 133–141. http://doi.org/10.1080/10253890600965773

Shohamy, D., & Adcock, R. A. (2010). Dopamine and adaptive memory. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 14(10), 464–472. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2010.08.002

Simmons, A. M., & Page, M. (2010). Motivating Students through Power and Choice. English Journal, 100(1), 65–69.

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I’ve worked with several students with autism spectrum disorder who seem impossible to motivate. No matter how hard I try, no matter how much research I do, and no matter how many plans we come up with, I have still been unable to help these students make progress.   Are there any uncommon or outside-the-box strategies that could help me motivate students?

Answer:  Because each ASD student is unique, it’s difficult to provide a specific answer without knowing each student’s specific situation. However, there are resources and general advice out there.

I also reached out to other teachers of students with ASD to get their thoughts and advice, and they offered compelling answers, which I’ve lightly edited for clarity.

Sue Izeman, Behavioral Psychologist:

Students with ASD are less likely than typically-developing students (or students with other disabilities) to “buy in” to the social dynamic of school. It’s not that they “don’t care” what other people think, it’s just that other people’s interests are not enough to motivate them. They are motivated by the things that interest them and sometimes motivated by “rules.”

I know one student who knows that the goal of school is to “learn everything about everything” and another who wants the good grades, but neither of them, as far as I can tell, has made the connection between HS grades and college, for example, or the connection between HS study and long-term goals. A third boy I know is very hard to motivate. He likes what he likes and cannot be pushed to do more than minimum in things he doesn’t like.

I don’t know what strategies have already been tried in the situation you describe, but the best strategies are ones that either tie into a student’s interests or that are built on “rules” rather than rewards.

Anne Salerno, M.A., Special Education Teacher:

There are many layers to this question in order for it to be answered appropriately:

• What type of classes are the students in? General education classes or self-contained?
• What are you trying to teach?
• What is the goal for each student: HS grad, college bound, CDOS, vocational?
• How much support do they have – aides, teaching assistants, etc.?
• What are the students’ interests? Can you use those interests as a reward? For example, “If you complete your work, you can use your phone.”

As Sue mentioned, students with autism are not motivated in the same way as students without autism. You need to find the “hook” that gets them motivated and interested.

Kathy Wheeler Wright, Educational Consultant:

Using the terms “what’s important to” and “what’s important for” is often helpful.  (See Person Centered Assessment and Planning, http://cdd.unm.edu/pfe/a-to-z/person-centered-assessment-tools.html)

• Example: Watching YouTube videos is important to the student … so it’s important for student to complete a, b and c tasks.
• Example: Having quiet time is important to the student … so it’s important for student to spend 15 minutes in group.
• Example: Working at a job site is important to the student … so it’s important that the student demonstrates appropriate behavior.

Karolina Przewloka LaBreque, PhD, Behavioral Consultant:

Do an assessment to find out what the student is like. Find out:

• What is the level of work? It could be way above their current level. Remember that they’ve experienced failure multiple times since high school.
• Have the students consulted a behavior analyst?
• What’s in their IEP?
• Get guidance from someone certified in Child Centered Applied Behavioral Analysis.

And as hard as it is to accept, there are some kids that just can’t be motivated to do school work no matter what you do. They are motivated, just not motivated for what the school wants them to do.

Resources:

In addition to the above suggestions from teachers and consultants, there are resources available to help you research your students’ specific situation and try new strategies to catch their interest and motivate them to work toward a goal, whether short- or long-term. Here are a few:

Person Centered Assessment Tools listed by the University of New Mexico Center for Development and Disability (mentioned above by Kathy Wheeler Wright)

Motivating Students Who Have Autism Spectrum Disorders, at the Indiana Resource Center for Autism

Strategies to Increase Engagement and Motivation, by Autism Spectrum Australia (Word document download)

Using Special Interests to Motivate and Engage Students by Sue Larkey (PDF)

Which Behavior Therapy Works Best for Children With Autism? by Christine O’Rourke-Lang and Mark Bertin, M.D.

CLICK HERE to discover a wealth of teaching strategies and resources for maximizing student success!.

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There are some very common scenarios that make changing a classroom setup difficult:

• Class scheduling, such as a different teacher coming in to use the room immediately after the period ends, can make it tough to shift desks out of position with time left to actually teach.
• Actual size of the classroom is too small or too strangely shaped to regroup the desks.
• Technology in the classroom – especially if it has been installed a little at a time, over several years – can get in the way of shifting the desks around effectively.
• Science lab tables are often fixed firmly to the floor and can’t be moved.
• Classrooms are absolutely crowded with desks to accommodate large numbers of students, making it difficult to move anything around.

So, what can co-teachers do in these situations to change the classroom setup so that they can try a new co-teaching implementation?

First, don’t let a classroom’s odd geography get you down. Collaborate with your co-teacher to plan out ways to work with the space as best as you can. Can you stack extra chairs and tables safely out of the way? Can you leave the desks in place and instead shift the students around the room? Is there an unused classroom nearby where you can take half the class for the co-teaching implementation? Can you incorporate standing stations so that more students can collaborate around a table Bed risers can raise any four-legged table. To ensure safety, be sure that the table is steady.

1. Draw out a desk grouping on graph paper*, taking into account the dimensions of the classroom and the number of desks in it.
2. Come up with 2 to 3 versions of possible desk arrangements. Compare them with your co-teacher’s ideas until you both agree on 2 to 3 designs for alternate seating charts.
3. Put each seating chart/arrangement on a separate piece of paper and color-code each diagram.

Now, you can quickly decide on which seating arrangement to use on a particular day and share that with your co-teacher, who has the same color-coded arrangement to refer to. Depending on the class, you can even hang a copy of the day’s desk arrangement next to the door and then you can ask students to help rearrange the desks according to the visual reference chart. Something like, “Hey, look at the charts by the door. We’re going to be using the blue chart setup today. Would you help us out by arranging the desks in that pattern?”

This doesn’t work for all classes, of course. It may be best for grades 5 thru 12, and that also can vary depending on the abilities of the students in your class. Still, having a few “set” classroom configurations and asking students to help with setup not only saves co-teachers time and effort but also can increase the enthusiasm and engagement of students, too. Kinesthetic learners may show up early for class just so they have the chance to help move desks around.

Try out a few different desk configurations. If a setup doesn’t work or is too complicated and time-consuming, throw it out and try another one. Keep experimenting until you find an implementation and class setup that works best for you. Good luck!

* Can’t draw, or having trouble getting the classroom dimensions right? IKEA has a free online Room Planner tool that allows you to put in a room’s length, width and height, door and window locations, and custom “objects” that can be scaled to the size of the classroom desks. Jordan’s, another furniture store, offers a similar tool. While these were developed to sell furniture to people, they can be really useful in translating the real dimensions of a classroom to an 8.5×11-inch sheet of paper.

After you try these ideas, I’d LOVE IT if you’d post photos of your classroom configurations in the comments section or email them to me so I can add them to this post!

Here’s Susan with more insights about dealing with Over-crowded classrooms:

Explore even more tips, tools, and resources for collaboration at TheHowofCo-teaching.com!

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Dear Susan: I’m a special education teacher in Illinois, and I’m reaching out to you to ask a few questions. I have been co-teaching kindergarten for four years. Our co-teaching model has been to blend the special education students with a developmental kindergarten—a smaller class of regular education students that were just “slow learners.” We always had no more than 20 students in our room.

Now, the school is restructuring our setup. The classroom will still be blended, but now my co-teacher is not going to teach the “developmental” students anymore; instead, it will be a general education classroom. The other teachers were excited to hear this because it means lower student numbers for them. But I am panicking at the thought of having a class of 30 kindergarteners—10 of them with cognitive impairments or behavioral issues.

Is this a ratio that is “best practice” in a co-taught kindergarten classroom?—Carrie White

Dear Carrie: A ratio of 30 to 1 is definitely not the best practice. However, through reading several articles, I can tell you that it happens a lot (depending on a school’s budget and teacher availability).

Some states, such as Florida, have passed “small class” laws where a class size of no more than 18 students is allowed, but many states still struggle with large class sizes.

A 2007 study titled “The Wisdom of Class Size Reduction” by Elizabeth Graue, Kelly Hatch, Kalpana Rao and Denise Oen looked at different implementations of class sizes at several high schools. “Requiring changes in space allocation, class-size reduction was accomplished through attention to pupil:teacher ratio, with classes ranging from 15:1 to 30:2 team taught.”

A ratio of 30:2 is a better scenario than a ratio of 30:1, with co-teachers working together. Indeed, the study noted that “Most partner classes used tag-team teaching, with one teacher leading and the other doing clerical work.”

That type of co-teaching, of course, falls under the “One teach, one observe” co-teaching model that co-teachers often rely upon.

For the immediate future, talk with your co-teacher about how best to work together so that all the students get the support they need. “One teach, one support,” where one co-teacher—often the special education teacher—takes a more proactive role than observing, such as taking notes, can work. “Teach half, then switch” is also a way to effectively teach the kindergarten class, and it can be a great way to make sure all of the students participate regardless of their ability.

Longer term, the large class size for kindergarten may still need to be addressed at a higher level. “Class-size reduction is both a programmatic and instructional reform,” according to the study, “and as such, it requires specific professional development to promote change.”

Explore even more tips, tools, and resources for collaboration at TheHowofCo-teaching.com!

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After years of teaching, I knew that simply taking the mini-skateboard away would do very little good because that same student would find something else to fidget with a few minutes later. If they weren’t flipping a mini-skateboard they would be flipping a pencil, or a ruler, or poking the student in front of them with a pencil.

I had attended a conference the week before and did what most teachers do in the exhibit hall; I got myself a tote bag then went around to all the tables and filled my bag with as many freebies as I could snag. In my tote bag, I managed to collect some squishy balls and rubber bendables, wiki sticks and some other things that would be great to focus fidgeters. At that time, there was minimal research available to validate that focus tools were a great idea. However, I had witnessed the positive effects that the right focus tools could have on those students who needed them.

I ran what I call the win-win classroom based on the work of William Glasser.

During the first two days of school, I ran my students through an exercise called the win-win classroom. The essential point was to help them understand that when students behaved appropriately in the classroom, we all won. But rather than tell the students what the rules were, we brainstormed the rules together. This meant that students had ownership of the class rules from the first week of school. This class culture allowed me the framework to pull the class together and discuss how mini-skateboards, and the distraction they created, broke the rules we had agreed upon in the classroom.

We agreed that to be a win-win classroom, students who needed focus tools to concentrate and work well in the classroom would be allowed tools for that purpose. We also agreed that the tools we were using were not toys and needed to be “teacher approved” focus tools. We also agreed on rules for how these focus tools would be used.

Here’s what I told the students when they were inappropriately using a focus tool:

“My job is to teach. I cannot do my job when there is a distraction in the room that is preventing you or other students from learning. Your job is to learn. You cannot do your job if the focus tool you are using is hindering your learning. We need a win-win solution. That means, if a tool is not working for you and helping you focus and learn, we need to use a different tool.”

Teaching Strategies: What to do about spinners

I didn’t make it a punishment. I didn’t take away a focus tool without an explanation. And I offered the student the opportunity to come up with an alternative that would respect the class rules that everyone agreed upon and still support that student’s learning.

Examples of focus tools can be found in several of my articles that you can find here.

So, what has this got to do with the current spinner craze? Use the same technique. If spinners are to be used, there needs to be a rule in place, preferably agreed upon by students and the teacher, that create a win-win learning environment. It may also be necessary to teach students appropriate use of a spinner, just like any other focus tool. For example, flipping a focus tool in the air or throwing it would be inappropriate. Although that may seem obvious to a teacher, it may not be obvious to your students.

If the rules are broken, then the student is reminded that the teacher’s job is to teach and the students’ job is to learn and, unfortunately, the spinner is preventing both the teacher and the student from doing their jobs. Consequently, the spinner must be put away and the student may choose a teacher-approved focus tool.

I would give a student two chances to make a good choice on how they use the spinner. I would say, “The rule is respect. Using the spinner in a distracting way is disrespectful. Can you make a better choice and use the tool with respect to the rules we’ve agreed upon?” If the student responds with yes, I’d walk away and move on. If the student responds negatively, they will have to choose an alternative to the spinner. Sometimes, I might give a student one more chance, if appropriate. However, three times and they’re out. At that point, the student must put the spinner away.

This option eliminates issues raised by parents who feel their child needs a focus tool. You are not taking away the opportunity for the student to focus using a fidget item. Rather, you are providing an alternative that respects the agreed-upon rules of a win-win classroom.

Another really good read (with links to research on the efficacy of using focus tools) that you might enjoy on this topic is Five reasons to ban fidget spinners from every classroom in America.

To browse a variety of different fidget options, visit Tammy Jeralds’ Pinterest page on Fidgets

Disclaimer: Susan Fitzell has an affiliate relationship with Oriental Trading Company.

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I started using this problem-solving strategy with students to help them see that there were positive and negative consequences to any solution they presented to a problem they were experiencing. Originally, it was used to help students who were dealing with anger towards another adult or student, and who were gravitating towards poor choices.

I discovered, over time, that this tool is a great way to help students with any decision making process. Here’s how it works…

Who: Student with a problem.
What: The use of the flowchart as a way to brainstorm, analyze, and choose solutions to problems.
When:  Teacher and student are experiencing a conflict or discipline issue.

The student must make a decision and is having difficulty doing so. For example, a student must choose courses to take next semester or must decide what after-school activity to do; how to handle a difficult situation; or how to choose between any two options.
Why: All too often, students make decisions without thinking through the positive and negative consequences of those decisions. This flowchart allows students to work with an adult to come up with the best solution for the student.

Critical factor: Adults are encouraged to guide the student through this process without passing judgment, or trying to convince the youth that certain pros and cons are better than others, or certain decisions need to be made. It is imperative that the adult help the students come up with pros and cons, but not make the decision for the child or pressure the child to think of things in any one way.

Accommodation: Students may fill this chart out on their own, or an adult may scribe for the student.

For example, a student would come to me upset because another student bullied him. The first solution students would often choose was fighting. So, I would sit down with the student, list the problem on a piece of paper, create a T-chart, and start asking questions. If the first possible solution for that student was to beat up the antagonizer, I would simply write that down at the top of the first T-chart.

Next, I would ask the student to list the advantages of beating up the student they were angry with. Usually, they came up with this list quite easily. I happily wrote these solutions down without passing judgment or discouraging their choices. I have learned through years of working with angry adolescents that the last thing they were willing to hear was my lecture on how they should behave and what better choices they might have available.

The next step was to write down the disadvantages of that solution. This is the part where students usually ran into trouble. Oftentimes, they could not think of any disadvantages, or they did not want to admit or list them.

If students could not come up with potential consequences to their solution, I would ask if they would like me to offer possible consequences. Typically, a student would allow me to suggest negative consequences for discussion. Again, I was careful not to get into parental lecture mode. Instead, I would simply list real consequences. And unless the student could provide evidence that that consequence was not a likely threat, they were written down.

Then, without further ado, we went on to another solution and repeated the process. This tool in the teaching strategies tool-kit led students through the process successfully. The key to success: I typically found that having three viable solutions was all that was needed to start discussing which of the solutions provided the student with the best possible outcome.

Excerpted from Special Needs in the General Classroom, 500+ Teaching Strategies for Differentiating Instruction

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Although a few students might be stressed by the use of a timer, the majority of students seem to enjoy the challenge, especially when a stopwatch timer is being used. If we think about it, it is really not that odd that today’s generation would enjoy the race. Most of our students have grown up playing video games, many of which incorporate a “beat the clock” function. So this game is a game they have been playing all their lives.

Timers for Every Platform

Timer+ Touch HD
This is my favorite iPad timer app. It’s so easy to use. Touch the app and move your fingers in a clockwise direction to set the time. The timer is shown in different colors for:

• Minutes in RED
• Hours in BLUE
• Seconds in GREEN

PC Chrono
PC Chrono is a very good, basic, free program for Windows users with a timer, alarm, stopwatch, and countdown timer. It’s timer is capable of resuming your PC from sleep mode and, according to the website, voice synthesis is used to remind you about timer/stopwatch progress or hourly chime. Mp3, ogg or wav sounds can be played to notify you that the time is up.

Online-Stopwatch.com
A Simple, fast, flash-based online stopwatch and countdown timer with more than 15 different timer functions and a variety of different timer options. You will need to be online to use this browser app and your computer must be flash-enabled in order for you to use it.

Hybrid Stopwatch and Timer
The Google Play store says that Hybrid Stopwatch and Timer is “a simple, easy and accurate app for Android that will help you to measure the time of any situation, like sports, cooking, games, education, etc.”
 
The use, and value, of timers is something that I talk about in every program I present. They are that important, useful, and powerful. Try these great tools, find the one that works best for you, and see for yourself how using timers in your classrooms can motivate your students!

Excerpted from 100+ Tech Ideas for Teaching English and Language Arts

For more information about using technology to strengthen instruction, see Susan Fitzell’s book, Using iPads and Other Cutting Edge Technology to Strengthen Your Instruction.

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