Student Contributor: E. Grant
This is a wall organizer that is used for students to place their phones in during the school day. They can put them there by choice but mostly it is used after students are caught on their phones several times then it’s kept in the wall holder until the end of the day. It’s helpful in keeping the kids focused on their learning and prevents further distractions.
This tool is helpful for students to have some choice and responsibility with using their phones as well as giving the teacher a tool for distractions. When using this, it’s important to tell students they may put their phones in their assigned number at the beginning of class but if they choose not to and it ends up consistently being a distraction then it will go into the storage area until the end of the day. Students are easily distracted by their phones and want to use them when free time or lunch comes around, so this system helps motivate them into acting first if they know it will be an issue. Recently, while my students had been testing, we’d been using our wall phone storage for students with the same policy we used in the classroom. Almost all students were responsible in putting their phones in the cubby first but for the few who didn’t in the first round of testing, they had to restart their entire state tests. I noticed during the next round those students put them in the phone storage first.
This tool is in the corrective phase when used as a punishment for students after they have had their phone cause a distraction which is the main way it was used in my placement. It has a small piece of the preventative phase when telling the kids that they can put their phones in storage beforehand but is mainly used in the corrective phase. It fits in the teacher-directed theory of influence because it is centered around creating the environment the teacher wants but also has a piece in collaboration by giving students some responsibility and choice to put their phones away or ask before using them.
More Information –
Tool Source: My Mentor/Placement
