Anyone with a long history in the teaching field establishes tips and tricks they use to successfully accomplish tasks and assist students. Over the years these things become common practice that is given little thought. However, for someone newer in the career, these things have yet to be worked out, so it is always nice to glean from the experience of others. Therefore, we have looked and found some practical tips throughout the internet to share. Some of these are just cute ways to interact and stimulate the younger children in the classroom.
Work on coming up with a witty, yet reflective statement that the children can remember. One suggestion was along the lines of "If you didn't get the grade you wanted, I didn't get the work I wanted."
Help the children stay up with assignments that are due. You could have a separate section of the chalkboard where you list these assignments, or you could print up and pass out daily or weekly assignment calendars for them to have and check off their progress. For longer term projects, create, or assist the student in creating a step by step checklist breaking down the various sections and steps to perform.
If you have a class set up where you have the same group of children all day everyday, then you can establish a work folder to be posted at each desk (attach to the back or side of the desk), and they should use it to hold their daily work. At the end of the day they can bring up all of their work in one batch. For absent students, when they return they will have access to all missed work by checking their folder.
Here is one I thought was pretty ingenious for dealing with those kids who always seem to have to go to the bathroom, or elsewhere. At the beginning of each grading period, assign a certain number of hall passes to each student. At the end of the grading period, the unused passes can be turned into extra credit points.
To assist in decreasing the amount of tattling, have a "complain form" made up that each student needs to fill out when they wish to report a tattling experience, and maybe include a rating scale that they can use showing how important or urgent the case is each time.
If a child is disruptive or gets into trouble, have that student write a note telling their parents what has happened, and then go over it with them, both of you sign it, and have them give it to their parents to be signed and returned the next day.
Sometimes students, who finish assignments early, can become a distraction to the rest of the class. It is a good idea to have prepared, in advance, a set of additional "busy work" which can be just for fun or maybe even extra credit; something that an early finisher can pull from to have another activity to perform.
If you have teaching experience, and have developed a set of your own tips and tricks for classroom set up, feel free to share in the comment section below.
Jeff McCormack resides in Virginia Beach, VA. where he works as a web designer by day. In his off time he is a husband, father, mail order book store manager, and musician. Aside from being a freelance writer for this Education Jobsite blog, he also seeks to assist in career choices and information by contributing to other Nexxt blog sites.
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