3 minute read
Conclusion
from Classroom Dynamics
This approach should allow you to start a conversation about what the student needs to start doing in a noncombative way. Observation prompts take a bit of practice to master, as there are some potential traps to avoid. If you are trialing this technique, you need to be conscious of a couple of things: (1) keep it warm and (2) be descriptive.
Keep It Warm
As with progress checks, you need to ensure that your tone is warm and body language relaxed. The prompt should be a friendly inquiry, not a pointed accusation, and students will decide which of these it is—based as much on how you say it as what you say.
Be Descriptive
You do not want to come off as judgmental. Simply describe what you are seeing without including any sense of how you feel about this behavior. The technical term for feedback that withholds emotional judgment is nonattributive (Kegan & Lahey, 2001). The observation prompts described earlier are nonattributive. Here’s how they might sound if they were attributive:
I noticed you couldn’t be bothered with persisting and closed your book. I can see you still haven’t put your phone away. I noticed you were wandering around the class aimlessly.
By withholding emotional judgment, you make it more likely that students will not become defensive when you point out their off-task behavior and thus more likely that they will be open to altering what they are doing.
Given that in an open prompt, you directly address students and point out aspects of their off-task behavior, it is possible to argue that they are not reminders at all. (Indeed, I contemplated putting open prompts in the next chapter on directives.) However, they are more accurately characterized as a subtle form of reminder because, in the end, you are not telling the student what to do but merely flagging evidence of what they are currently doing. This subtlety—they are sometimes known as nondirectives or invisible commands—is the strength of this technique and why they are worth giving a shot before you move to explicitly telling students what they need to do to change their behavior.
In coaching sessions, I frequently play video excerpts of accomplished teachers nudging, refocusing, and reminding students of what they need to be doing to stay on task.
All rights reserved. Copyright © 2023 by Solution Tree Press and Hawker Brownlow Education.
Participants often remark at the range of techniques that expert teachers have to draw on. (“I wouldn’t have thought to do that; I would’ve just started yelling.”) The key to dealing with low-level off-task behavior is having this wide array of options from which to choose. Having multiple ways to address these behaviors means you can use this approach repeatedly without having to escalate your intervention so you can concentrate your energies on what matters most—student learning.
All rights reserved. Copyright © 2023 by Solution Tree Press and Hawker Brownlow Education.
CLASSROOM DYNAMICS
“Glen Pearsall has touched on the very essence of effective strategies educators need to become successful classroom teachers while getting to know their students. He provides the framework for observing students in action, differentiating instruction, and implementing the interventions needed to effectively and actively engage all students in a safe learning environment.” —Cheryl L. Burleigh, Contributing Faculty, Richard W. Riley College of Education and Human Sciences, Walden University, Minneapolis, Minnesota
“When I shared Glen’s ideas with my students in a teacher education program, they were thrilled to have advice they could implement right away. Glen offers more than vague ideas and gives beginning teachers straightforward advice on how they can keep students engaged and on task in the classroom. I felt fortunate to be able to share such a clear, practical resource with the beginning teachers in my program.” —Stefan Merchant, Faculty of Education, Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada
Off-task behavior in classrooms is a continual, many-faceted challenge for any teacher, especially as distractions multiply and many students struggle to focus. With Classroom Dynamics: Practical Strategies for Addressing Off-Task Behavior and Creating Positive Classrooms, author Glen Pearsall introduces a host of tools for developing and maintaining a healthy, well-functioning classroom environment. Teachers may spend years building up strategies to engage learners; this resource offers a research-based head start. K–12 teachers will: • Benefit from numerous strategies for dealing with and even avoiding off-task behavior • Receive concrete tips to try immediately in classrooms • Survey key research about student behavior and engagement • Learn how to quickly get to the heart of issues that might affect student learning • Understand the reasons behind disruptive behavior in order to differentiate strategies for individual students
