Term 1 Week 7: Never Work Harder Than Your Students

Never Work Harder Than Your Students & Other Principles of Great Teaching

Jackson, Robyn R. (2009). Never Work Harder Than Your Students & Other Principles of Great Teaching. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Principle 1: Start where your students are

Principle 2: Know where your students are going

Principle 3: Expect your students to get there

Principle 4: Support your students

Principle 5: Use effective feedback

Principle 6: Focus on quality not quantity

Principle 7: Never Work Harder Than Your Students

(Chapter 7 – pp. 170-191) – This chapter is well worth reading in full.

• We need to be clear about what is our work and what is the students’ work, and make sure that we do our work and they do theirs. See this web link for a list which divides the classroom work.
• Our responsibility is to teach and support. Their responsibility is to learn. We must not solve problems for them but help them acquire the tools they need to solve the problems on their own.
• Set up systems so that students are able to do more on their own. E.g. If we want students to keep organised notes, then we need to set up a routine for note-making and the way to organise them.
• Students must be held accountable for doing their work by having logical consequences.

Try this idea:     

1.       Work with students to establish clear classroom routines for the following:

·         Homework – how it will be collected, how students find out what it is

·         Late Work – how students hand it in and what the consequences will be

·         Absences – how students will find out what work they missed, when and how they will need to hand it in

·         Assessment Grades – how students will track their performance

·         Beginning of Class – how will class begin, where should students be, what counts as late

·         End of Class – how will students be dismissed, how should students leave the classroom

·         Attendance – how you will track, what consequences will be in place for lateness/ unexcused absences

·         Note-making – what format should be used, how the notes will be stored and used

·         Tests – how the classroom will be arranged, what kind of student interaction is appropriate, how to ask questions, how to hand in the tests

·         Discussions – how will students participate, what type of participation is appropriate, who will facilitate, how will discussions be facilitated

·         Transitions – how will assignments be passed back, how will students move from one activity to the next

Rewards: What really works?

How do you balance your use of rewards and sanctions, and are the rewards you’re using really having a positive effect on student behaviour? Dave Stott provides some practical tips.

Educational Leadership Magazine

The February 2012 edition For Each to Excel is now in the library. The following articles focus on differentiation:

• Teaching to What Students Have in Common by Daniel Willingham and David Daniel. Why effective teachers pay attention to the ways in which all students are the same.
• Preparing Students to Learn Without Us by Will Richardson. Technology leverages students' curiosity to learn whatever whenever.
• Teach Up for Excellence by Carol Ann Tomlinson and Edwin Lou Javius. Seven principles for creating classrooms that give students equal access to excellence.
•  Helping Gifted Learners Soar by Susan Rakow. How to optimize the potential of those students who master material quickly. 
• Clustered for Success by Dina Brulles and Susan Winebrenner. Cluster groups allow students to work with peers as well as contribute to the whole class. 
• All Students Are Artists by Linda Nathan. Arts education provides a model for continual pursuit of improvement. 
• Planning for Personalization by William Powell and Ochan Kusuma-Powell. Here's how to shift from teaching facts to teaching concepts in a standards-based curriculum. 
• Data, Our GPS by Rich Smith, Marcus Johnson and Karen D. Thompson. A district needed to find out where their students were before it could get somewhere. 
• "Just How I Need to Learn It" by Cheryl Becker Dobbertin. Differentiating how students learn is easier when they know their learning targets. 
• The Right Fit for Henry by J. Christine Gould, Linda K. Staff and Heather M. Theiss. Did Henry belong in the gifted class even if he had a learning disability? 
• Special Topic / Senseless Extravagance, Shocking Gaps by Richard Weissbourd and Trevor Dodge. A race to opulence characterizes affluent schools even as other schools scramble to provide basic supplies.