Eastern Washington University
To help divide the students into groups of 4 or 5 in a more culturally responsive and inclusive way, have students select a color-coded stick at random. Then randomly draw a colored block or paper to let students know where their group will be working.
Using a cue to grab the students’ attention can be helpful especially when it reinforces math vocabulary. After saying a positive or negative number, students will say the inverse or opposite number. This is a helpful tool for moving groups to the next station in a timely matter.
Giving students the time to have meaningful discussions with sentence frames will teach them how to share their opinions with others. The sentence frames will help guide the conversation when there is a difference in opinions,
The “Ask, Don’t Tell” approach is helpful to students because they are constantly being told what to do. Students are also often told how they are feeling or how to fix it. This method causes the teacher to ask the students questions about how they are feeling rather than relying on their body language.
The tell me can is a way for students to be able to talk about what’s going on in their life or ask for support. This tool is great because it gives the student the opportunity to talk about something they may not want their peers to hear or have anxiety about saying it in person.
With this tool it’s something that you would be using at the start of the year. Taking time through out the first week to get to know your students and getting your students to get used to talking and sharing their ideas with each other. Getting them used to how it is you are hoping to be running a discussion based classroom. This will be helpful on trying to get the students to be used to sharing their ideas and listening to those ideas from all of their classmates.
Music for volume is helpful for classes of all ages and I think can help productivity. When using this tool it is best to use instrumental music at a quieter volume but audible to the class. When the class gets too loud, you can refer to the music and if they can’t hear it that means it’s too loud in the classroom.
When students have a minor disagreement on the playground or in class, instead of getting the teacher involved they are able to play rock-paper-scissors to solve the dilemma. This is good for things like who gets the ball in tetherball, who gets the spot in line, and minor disagreements they might come upon
This tool is a great activity that can be used in the classroom to encourage students to work as a team. For this activity, students will attempt to pass a fork in one direction, and a spoon in the other, keeping the chain going in each direction. This activity helps build positive relationships in the classroom, which benefits their overall learning.
Each day, there is a different student of the day. The student of the day is the person the teacher will go to for errands, or any type of special tasks. This prevents any types of disagreements about who is going to do that specific task.
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