Innovative solutions for disruptive student behaviour in classrooms | 7.30

Summary

In the video, a seasoned educator shares their experience with tackling disruptive student behavior in the classroom. Following the return from COVID-19, students struggle with concentration and appropriate classroom behavior. Innovative strategies like structured routines, cue cards, and explicitly teaching voice modulation are implemented to regain attention, participation, and enhance the learning environment. These approaches aim to foster learning, respect, and engagement, and teach students valuable social norms for different environments.

Highlights

• Strategies involve teaching students three core routines for entering, exiting, and starting classes. 📏
• Teachers use cues like "Marco Polo" to signal attention and maintain focus. 🛎️
• Implementing voice modulation techniques helps manage classroom noise levels. 🔊
• Use of cue cards ensures all students stay engaged and prepared to participate. 🎟️
• Routine and consistency improve student respect, engagement, and learning stamina. 📈

Key Takeaways

• Teaching strategies have evolved to address post-COVID classroom challenges. 🎓
• Reinforcing structured routines helps manage classroom behavior effectively. ✔️
• Clear communication about expectations increases student engagement. 🗣️
• Cue systems like "Marco Polo" focus attention and establish control. 🎯
• Consistency and whole-school approaches benefit student involvement and respect. 📚

Overview

Returning from the pandemic, many students struggled to adapt back to traditional classroom settings. Teachers noticed a drop in attention spans and the ability to interact appropriately within the classroom environment. As a solution, schools implemented specific routines to help students reacclimate, like lining up and waiting for cues before starting lessons. This structure provided a crucial sense of stability and safety necessary for effective learning.

Another key innovation included introducing a range of techniques to manage classroom dynamics. Teachers adopted unique cue systems to gain students' attention efficiently, such as the "Marco Polo" call-and-response method. This approach minimized time lost in gaining attention, thereby maximizing teaching and learning time. Voice modulation strategies, such as different 'voice levels,' provided a clear framework for expected behavior, ensuring students understood how to communicate effectively in various scenarios.

The overarching theme is that consistent and whole-school engagement leads to more effective learning environments. By maintaining these routines consistently across classes, students quickly adapted, leading to improved engagement and respect. The methods employed aimed not only to control behavior but also to teach students how to navigate social norms and expectations in diverse environments, ultimately preparing them for successful interactions beyond the classroom.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 01:00: Introduction and Challenges The chapter "Introduction and Challenges" discusses the experiences of a seasoned educator with 26 years of teaching experience, who has been in a principal position since 2010. The school has around 900 students. The transcript highlights challenges faced by both students and teachers upon returning to school, such as decreased concentration and altered perceptions of the value of learning.
• 01:00 - 02:30: Implementing Structured Routines The chapter "Implementing Structured Routines" discusses the challenges faced by educators as they transition back to in-person teaching after a long period of remote learning due to COVID-19. Teachers found themselves readjusting to managing a classroom without the convenience of muting disruptive students, as they could in virtual settings. The return to physical classrooms brought various behaviors from students; some were extreme and disruptive, while others shut down or forgot how to engage in a classroom environment. This required teachers to focus on re-establishing structured routines to facilitate effective teaching and learning.
• 02:30 - 04:30: Classroom Management Techniques The chapter discusses the challenges of maintaining focus and order in a classroom setting due to minor but disruptive behaviors such as inappropriate tone and volume of voice. It emphasizes that while these behaviors may not be extreme, they nonetheless distract from the core mission of schools, which is to provide an environment conducive to learning. The importance of effective classroom management techniques to help students focus on learning is underscored, reinforcing the idea that schools are fundamentally places for education.
• 04:30 - 06:30: Student Engagement and Reactions In the first chapter of "Student Engagement and Reactions," the focus is on the initial day of school. Students were introduced to three fundamental routines by every teacher in each class. These routines included how to enter the classroom, how to exit, and recognizing the cue to start the lesson, which teachers would use. These routines were repetitively practiced by the students, emphasizing consistency and routine establishment in the school environment from day one.
• 06:30 - 07:30: Reflection on Teaching Methods The chapter titled 'Reflection on Teaching Methods' discusses the structured and scripted nature of teaching routines in schools, emphasizing the stability and safety they provide for students to learn effectively. Despite initial skepticism, students appreciate how these structured methods prevent chaotic classroom environments and contribute positively to their learning experiences.

Innovative solutions for disruptive student behaviour in classrooms | 7.30 Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 I've been teaching about 26 years and I've been in the principal class since 2010. we've got just on 900 students when the students came back last year they'd lost the capacity to concentrate for periods of time they didn't necessarily value learning in the same way teachers are also coming back from
• 00:30 - 01:00 having toured on screens for a really long time too so just getting back into the craft of being in a room with that many people we always joke that you know during covert you could put the disruptive student on mute there's no mute in a classroom a lot more Mayhem like kids didn't listen as much students forgot how to behave they forgot how to be in a classroom their behavior in some cases was extreme in other cases it was shutting down people
• 01:00 - 01:30 were always distracting me it was just hard to focus on what I was doing [Music] their actual tone of voice and volume of voice was not appropriate to what the classroom was those types of behaviors that not particularly extreme but disruptive and not focused on learning ultimately schools are places of learning and that's our Core Business and we need our young people to be able to come here and focus on learning for those periods of time
• 01:30 - 02:00 [Music] day one for the students meant that in every single class with every single teacher they were taught the three routines initially so they were taught this is how we're going to enter the classroom great lines before we go in please this is how we're going to exit the classroom and this is what the cue to start is that the teacher's going to use so they did that on repeat five six
• 02:00 - 02:30 times with every teacher entirely scripted here's the routine he's the stability of school step into this space be safe know you can learn [Music] firstly I thought it was kind of strange but as we got to like use it more I think it was like really good because now we're not like hurtling into the classroom and like banging over stuff
• 02:30 - 03:00 lining up into walking and standing behind your chairs it sets the tone for the lesson so previously they might have been grouped outside chatting away so when we come into the classroom that energy is reflected last year was really hard for me to get everyone's attention at once actually having a cue to start mine's Marco Polo pretty simple so you will need a pen out in front of you please
• 03:00 - 03:30 immediately they know that I am wanting their attention they repeat it and they're focused on me so yeah for me that's the most powerful it's increased the teaching and learning time because I'm not waiting that fourth or fifth time to get their attention if you don't control or take responsibility for the space somebody else will the staff are the people that are actually facilitating and in control of that space because they're the professionals and they're the Educators and I think young people feel safe because they know
• 03:30 - 04:00 that the teachers got the space under control school has to be a space that's that's an equalizer as much as it can be so that everybody's got the opportunity to access learning you need to work in silent voices we have four different voices sound voice partner voice class voice and then a group voice as well it sends a clear message to the students if it's silent voice how you guys need to be really quiet for this or if it's part of voice it means that you can bounce ideas off each other so it just helps me have more control of the classroom and
• 04:00 - 04:30 the noise level in the classroom what voice do you think we're going to use when we're doing the education perfect task silent voice perfect some students are invariably going to be chatterboxes but for them to know really clearly about what is expected of them in terms of how they are speaking and how they are working has been quite powerful I'm just going to pull one more name out and just the other thing we're doing in class is questioning so a bunch of cue cards and I get them to choose one out and that's how they
• 04:30 - 05:00 answer a question who is our current prime minister in a partner Voice who is going to answer our lucky last question every student who walks into every classroom knows that they could be called on multiple times in any lesson I'm going to pull out a name and you guys are going to help me with the pronunciation of this sentence Coop's first character the teacher can
• 05:00 - 05:30 like pick out anyone's name so it gives us a chance to be more switched on because you never know when you're going to get picked and it just gives everyone a better opportunity to learn second character play is Maya when we first started I think they were as teenagers are you know kind of bucking the trends a little bit or rolling their eyes and also thinking that this was something that would most people would just do for a couple of weeks and then it'll disappear but very quickly they realized
• 05:30 - 06:00 that it was a whole school approach and they could see the benefits we talked to them about Karma more settled classrooms about more focused learning environments about what that meant for the whole school community so the main benefits we've seen for students so far is an increase in learning stamina and increased engagement in their learning and greater confidence in understanding how their brains work and what learning processes are I actually quite like it because to me it's all about the the kids respecting
• 06:00 - 06:30 their teachers a lot of kids these days are very disrespectful and I just think it's a great thing there's nothing wrong with that it's very old school and maybe we need that nowadays I appreciate and recognize that it might be seen as old-fashioned I I can see that I I think about that when I wander around perhaps the difference too is that this is about teaching young people about how to understand and engage in social norms in different organizations so if we can teach them the skill of when I go into all these different spaces these are the ways I've expected
• 06:30 - 07:00 to behave then I think we've done them a really good service education is the one thing that can get young people into the space they want to be in rather than maybe the space they've been put in and that's all we have to focus on