Imagine next year is completed. Using the system described in Chapter 4, you've faithfully charted your own behavior, as an instructor and your students’ progress. Looking back, what did you learn?
Pages 14-17
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The year is completed. I've faithfully charted my own behavior as an instructor and my students’ progress. Looking back, this is what I learned?
ReplyDeleteMy goals were to control my emotions by controlling my tone of voice and to consistently follow my classroom management plan. For the children, my goals were to improve their overall behavior by the end of the year. Those behaviors were: follow directions quickly, raise hand for permission to speak, make good choices and turn in neat work.
After reviewing my notes, weekly scores and averages, I found that I and my students had good weeks and some not so good weeks. Overall, we improved with time, practice and frequent review of classroom rules. I also noted that if I had a particularly bad week the children seemed to show more challenging behavior, leading me to conclude, we are all in this together.
Yes, we are all in this together! Our behavior determines the students' behavior. Your last paragraph touches on something great - it would have been good to hear more on that. You earned 10 WBT Certification Points! Save and date this post in a word processing file. In August, we'll post directions for turning it in to redeem your points.
DeleteAt the beginning of this year, I wanted to focus on charting my progress with my classroom management plan and controlling my emotions. After a year of successfully charting my progress, I have noticed that it is easier for me to control my tone of voice when I think about removing the option of my challenging students to act inappropriately. This year felt like a roller coaster. Many weeks I was very successful with my classroom management plan and controlling my emotions whereas other weeks, mainly weeks with lots of outside events, were a bit more difficult. I constantly had to remind myself that I am not perfect but I need to take what I have observed and change my actions. Each week, I really enjoyed determining my score and comparing this score to my previous week’s scores. I was able to see what events caused my emotions to show which allowed me to think of ways to improve my actions for the future.
ReplyDeleteIn the Fall, I set a second goal to improve my student’s behaviors. By placing students in secret groups, they were unaware of which group they belonged to. All the students needed to know was that I would let them know when their actions were improving and I would recognize them! I focused on controlling this behavior with constant reminds of the classroom rules. With these simple reminders, students were able to self-correct their actions and focus more on acting like they were expected to act instead of misbehaving.
After an entire year of charting my progress and my student’s progress, I feel that I have improved my teaching style. Over time, I was more successful with my scores and my students were able to behave more appropriately for longer amounts of time. I will definitely continue to chart my progress in the future. This allows me to continue to focus on self-improvement instead of getting stuck in a rut and having nowhere to progress to.
Laken, nice job! You're right, when we are preoccupied with outside things, our preparation and organization suffer and our students pick up on that! It's a balancing act to keep it all together. You earned 25 WBT Certification Points! Save and date this post in a word processing file. In August, we'll post directions for turning it in to redeem your points.
DeleteGoing into this year, I set several goals for myself and my class. Being consistent in my management and students remaining on task were my areas of concentration, though I set out looking for improvement in all areas. Weekly charting of our progress has provided feedback for not only me, but also my parents.
ReplyDeleteWhat initially jumped out at me was my inconsistency in management. While the year started off great, I began to slip after a few weeks. Grading my weekly progress helped me put the brakes on that slide. My ability to follow the road map improved and stayed higher as the year advanced.
Charting the student’s progress proved more beneficial than I could have imagined not only for myself, but also my parents. I could see which students were making progress to becoming Alphas, or Go-Alongs and those who I needed to have small one-on-one discussions with. When meeting with parents who had concerns about their child’s classroom performance, the weekly grading allowed me to present illustrated improvements or areas that needed more work.
Next year, I will definitely take advantage of weekly charting. My classroom grew to include more Alphas and less Challenging and Fence-Sitter students. Those parents with concerns about in class performance also were provided with more pointed advice and assessment in that area.
Great job, Julie!
DeleteI love the feedback I get from this tool! You're so right about how effective this is in giving parents detailed information about their child's progress. You earned 25 WBT Certification Points! Save and date this post in a word processing file. In August, we'll post directions for turning it in to redeem your points.
At the beginning of the year, my administrator asked me to come up with two professional goals as part of the new evaluation process. Since this is my first year using WBT, my first goal was to chart every time I used a WBT technique in my lesson. My second goal was to chart my reaction every time there was a disruptive behavior in my class and my third was to keep track of warnings, discussions or referrals I had with my students.
ReplyDeleteAs I look back at my charts, the use of WBT techniques increased as the year progressed. I started the year full of energy and remembering all my learning from the summer therefore, always pulling a student aside during or after class to have a discussion about the incident. I focused the conversation on reviewing the classroom expectations as opposed to telling the student what he/she did wrong. In addition, I reminded him/her of rule #5. My behaviors changed late November, early December and I caught myself redirecting a student during class time in front of the whole class. My “spectacle” left me very frustrated as I ended up writing my first referral of the year because I wasn’t able to remember the first two common mistakes. During the winter break, I read Whole Brain teaching for challenging kids (Chris Biffle, 2013) again and started the second half of the year more prepared. I was able to incorporate more WBT techniques and keep my temper under control.
My students’ progress was fantastic. They were engaged in lessons most of the time and the disruptive behaviors diminished as they year progressed. In the past, disruptive behaviors have increased in the last few months of the year. From this year, I learned that there is a direct correlation between an increased use of WBT techniques in my lessons and a lower amount of disruptive behaviors in my classroom? I also learned that the less I had to address disruptive behaviors, the more likely I was to address them in a way where both parties were respected and the behavior was corrected. However, the most important lesson came when I looked back at my charts after four months of school and realized I needed to revisit the book and my notes from summer of 2013. Next year is a new beginning, I will work hard this summer and make next year great.
Congratulations, Patrick on your willingness to use your reflections throughout the year to better the qualty of your students' instruction and increase their level of learning! WBT is amazing! You earned 25 WBT Certification Points! Save and date this post in a word processing file. In August, we'll post directions for turning it in to redeem your points.
DeleteWow! Another year has come and gone and it is time to take a look back. This year I decided to chart my progress as an instructor and my students’ progress in classroom behavior.
ReplyDeleteFirst, I wanted this to be the year that I controlled my response to challenging students. I followed Mrs. Maestra’s example in evaluating my ability to control my emotions and tone of voice. I gave myself a number between 1-10 (10 being the highest) each week based on my success or failure in using a good tone of voice and whether I kept my emotions in check. I naturally have a snarky tone of voice (as I have been told), so this was a great challenge for me. Some weeks were great and others more stressful. I, like Mrs. Maestra, focused on managing my own behavior. I also scored myself on how consistent I was in classroom management. I followed through with the rules and handed out practice cards when necessary. When I was consistent with the classroom rules, the students’ behavior improved and the classroom was much more manageable.
Next, I wanted to chart my students’ progress in behavior. Again, I used Mrs. Maestra’s strategy of charting the students’ progress by placing them secretly in the following groups: Alphas, Go-Alongs, Fence Sitters, Challenging Students and Leaders. As the year moved along, keeping track of my students’ progress was like finding the pot at the end of the rainbow. Throughout the year, I had one on one meetings with each student and could inform them of specific progress they had made. To see their beaming faces of pride makes the little extra work worthwhile.
Since this has been a spectacular year, I will continue to chart my own personal progress and my students’ progress.
Awesome, Kathy! Your post illustrates how importantant teacher self-evaluation is in relation to individual student progress during the year! Your efforts to hold one on one meetings with students is to be commended! You earned 25 WBT Certification Points! Save and date this post in a word processing file. In August, we'll post directions for turning it in to redeem your points.
DeleteKnowing that I needed to improve my classroom management, I decided this year to chart my personal progress in this area. I also charted my students' progress on their behavior.
ReplyDeleteFirst, my personal goals were to control my emotions by controlling my tone of voice and to consistently follow through with my classroom management plan. Controlling my emotions and tone of voice was the hardest task for me. I tend to let students get under my skin, especially if I'm having a rough day or didn't get enough sleep the night before. By keeping a chart on how I was doing, my goal was always in my thoughts. Figuring out the score and reviewing how the week went really helped to keep me thinking about how I was doing. I had a few rough weeks when the school schedule was nuts (just before Christmas break, Spring break, bad weather days), but the score sheet kept me focused. In the long run, over the year I improved. I improved in being more consistent with my classroom plan, too. However, in this area I was already doing better than with my tone of voice. My downfall in being consistent in my classroom management plan is getting too involved in the lesson or distracted and then letting things slip by me. Again, the weekly score sheet really helped by keeping me focused on what I wanting to accomplish.
Second, I had a goal of improving my students' classroom behavior. This was really important to me because I had been told that this was a tough class, and it was! Each week I evaluated the students on the following four areas: following directions quickly, raising their hands for permission to speak, staying on task, and turning in neat work. I secretly divided the class into four groups: the Alphas (model students), the Go-Alongs (usually good but sometimes fall short), the Fence Sitters (ones that could go either way), and the Challenging Students (rarely followed classroom rules). Every week I totaled the points for the students and then divided by my total number of students to get an average. In this way, I could see if I was making any progress with them. I let the students know what I was doing (but not which group they were in). Then I let them know if and when they improved and/or moved up to the next level. This gave the students something to work towards also, and when they heard they had improved, their faces would beam!
Overall, I think it was a successful year. This is something I will definitely do year after year to keep myself and my students on task!
Congratulations, Cheryl, on hanging in there, even during those trying periods of the school year! I appreciate how you kept your students involved in the process, so they also could work toward team goals and celebrate along the way! You earned 25 WBT Certification Points! Save and date this post in a word processing file. In August, we'll post directions for turning it in to redeem your points.
ReplyDeleteThis was my first full year implementing Whole Brain Teaching and what a fantastic year it was! This year I charted my progress with two goals set before me which were: controlling my emotions by controlling the tone of my voice and confronting challenging students when they do not have an audience. I also charted my students’ progress which became valuable data for me, parents and students.
ReplyDeleteAs the year began, I kept mindful of what Chris Biffle writes about: “not being able to manage challenging students if one can’t control ones reaction to them.” I was mindful of my tone of voice and body language when students would become challenging. As I monitored my scores I saw them fluctuate, or go down slightly in weeks when I was asked to handle more responsibilities outside of the classroom. Presentation weeks, when I was required to miss a day of teaching then present the same week were the most challenging. Because I noticed this trend early, I was able to monitor other stressors the weeks that were presentation weeks. I spent more time building relationships during lunch time with my kids, especially my challenging students. All of a sudden, the scores in presentation weeks no longer went down, but remained consistent.
Monitoring my reactions to my challenging students became so beneficial to me as well. As I became better at finding time in my teaching day to talk one on one with my biggest challenge JG, my score went up, but more importantly so did his! He moved from a challenging student to a fence sitter then eventually at the end of the year, a go-along! During conferences, I shared the data I collected with his parents; they too were able to see that he was steadily making progress in the area of his behavior.
Next year I will definitely chart my progress as I did this year. It is a valuable tool for me, but also invaluable to my parents. We all can see student’s progression from challenging to fence sitters, from go-alongs to alphas. It is my goal to create more leaders in my classroom by allowing them to review the Five Rules, call the Class-Yes or Mirror with Words!
Great post, Gina! I love hearing stories about students like JG! Rolling Ten Finger Woooo to you!! You earned 25 WBT Certification Points! Save and date this post in a word processing file. In August, we'll post directions for turning it in to redeem your points.
ReplyDeleteIt is June, as I sit and reflect on a fairly good school year, and what I as a teacher did differently this year.
ReplyDeleteI had read about Mrs. Maestra and her weekly self-evaluations. Immediately, I made the decision to implement this new method basing it in part on the knowledge that I was appointed to get some of the more difficult behavior issues in the grade level.
The first thing I did was to devise a “positive” behavior chart based on Whole Brain rules and introduce it to the class right from the start. The purpose of the chart was to allow the students to self correct their behavior. I told the class that each student would start every day on green-“Ready To Learn.” Their goal was to progress up to “Good Choices;” “Great Choices;” and finally “Outstanding Choices.” Then I pointed out the bottom choices-“Think About It.” “Teacher’s Choice,” and “Call Home.”
In the past, my experience has been that once a student made it to the “red zone” the remainder of the day was a washout, because there was nothing to lose from being disruptive. With a positive chart, a student has a chance within 30-40 minutes to self-correct their behavior, get back on track, and continue and finish the day on a more positive note. This method served me well in controlling my tone, demeanor, and my interaction with a disruptive student.
The class was divided into four groups-A,B,C,and D- with only myself knowing where they were placed. All behavior issues were handled with a one-on-one conference in a neutral place, such as the playground, where we could walk and talk without an audience. These conferences were a big asset to the implementation of a new classroom management method. As I conference with the student they became aware that they were responsible for their behavior, but at the same time they were being given guidance to correct their behavior making the conferences a win-win situation.
Changing my ways helped me to realize that my mood, tone and reactions were reflected in my students. What an eye opener! I am not saying my year was all “sunshine and roses” everyday, we had a lot of ups and downs at the beginning and around the holidays, but my weekly evaluations on what had occurred allowed me to make adjustments.
Many of the staff were astounded at the changes that were taking place in some of the toughest kids on this grade level. The final confirmation of the method came at the end of the school year when a fellow teammate told me on the day we exchanged homerooms for a “Fun Day” that my students were the best behaved and most responsible on the grade level.
Peg,
DeleteIt sounds like you learned a lot from changing the way you interact with your students which is really a major goal of WBT. That's a great thing! In chapter 4, Mrs. Maestra charts her own progress by categorizing her students into Alphas, Go Alongs, Fence Sitters, and Challenging Students. Throughout the year, she revisits these groups to see if students have moved between groups. Her goal is to have students move up and this will tell her if her techniques are working. What could you learn by using this sort of charting method? Here are 10 certification points for a good attempt at this question. Save and date this post in a word processing file. In August, we'll post directions for turning it in to redeem your points.
Last Year I began tracking my own behavior as well as my students. I tracked my own behavior with regard to my emotional control and I tracked my students behavior with respect to where they were on the continuum of becoming a leader in the class.
ReplyDeleteI was surprised at what I learned because I was a bit skeptical at the thought of spending time reflecting, analyzing, recording, number crunching and reflecting even more. I thought it would be too much to keep up with and would only put me further behind in my work. However, in the end, it became one of my best practices.
The most significant result was that the kids and I found that getting feedback was motivating. Once I started to post the scores, the students started looking for ways to improve the score. The Alphas volunteered for more leadership. The Fence Sitters started "going along" more, and the "go alongs" went along even more! To my surprise, the challenging students, who at first got WORSE, started seeing where worse was going! (No fun) After they got worse, they started getting better. My BF told me that's called "extinction." (get it? BF Skinner.)
Knowing that I had an affect on my own score, I started to look for chances to improve. I became more vigilant with the Super Improver Wall because it was a significant part of my classroom management system. And the better I became at the SIW, the higher I scored. So, it became my own Super Improver Wall!
Even my principal noticed that my class was working with more "rigor." And when she saw the success I was having, she gave me a promotion! (true story) Next year I have e dream job of teach a writing special to over 500 kids.
Even though it required a little faith to buy in to the idea of adding some more work to play this charting “game,” in the end, it was a big win-win.
Andy,
DeleteYou are right! This is your very own super improver wall. Isn't it amazing how motivating that wall is? Here are 25 certification points just for you! Save and date this post in a word processing file. In August, we'll post directions for turning it in to redeem your points.
Charting my own progress was one of my goals for the year. I knew it was going to be tough, but I knew it would be worth it in the long run, not only for me, but my students. First, I started charting how I controlled my emotions by controlling my voice tone. I naturally have a loud voice due to my cheerleading days and it can offend many students, especially the shy ones. They can perceive me as a mean teacher who yells all day long. So I began to assess my tone of voice daily and gave myself a score from one to ten, with ten being the highest. I created an Excel document to chart my weekly growth for six weeks. At the end of the six weeks grading period, I reflected on my growth and set a new goal for the next six weeks grading period. I was faithful with my charting and reflecting all year. Each six weeks, I saw a vast improvement in my tone of voice. I have to admit, I felt better too. I was less tired and my voice became much softer. Without WBT, I would have never created such a goal for myself. I am thankful I did.
ReplyDeleteEvery year I look for ways to chart student progress. Academic success is easy to chart with all grades computerized and testing sites that disaggregates the data for you. Plus, my principal had each teacher to complete a progress sheet to be handed in to her each six weeks. It was easy to see which students needed remediation and which ones needed more challenging assignments. This is only a small part of students’ success.
I also wanted to know more about each of my students to be able to tailor specific tasks for them based on needs as well as interest. I wanted my students to actively participate in classroom discussions and be an active participant in group activities. I began to identify students as leaders, alphas, fence sitters, go-alongs, and challenging students. I gave each group a number, 5 being the highest (leader) and 1 being the lowest (challenging students). At the end of the week, I totaled students’ points and divided it by the number of students in the class. This gave me a class average for students’ performance. My goal was for each student to move up at least one level. This proved more difficult to manage with all the other paperwork that was required. By the end of the year, I was seeing improvements in all my students’ performances. I know the more I require myself to chart growth, the easier it will become to manage. The first year is always the hardest.
Debora,
DeleteReflecting on our own "style" is such a helpful tool and tracking it helps us see the actual improvement rather than just guessing how much or how little growth was made. Here are 25 certification points for you! Save and date this post in a word processing file. In August, we'll post directions for turning it in to redeem your points.
The year has come to an end. It is always a time for a feeling of joy, accomplishment, relief and maybe after a few days of thinking about nothing....reflection! I was bound and determined to chart my own progress this year as well as the “progress” of levels among my students. I know that if I had done so last year I would have been disappointed with the lack of movement up the levels.
ReplyDeleteI began with being very consistent with evaluating myself and my students. The simple action of pausing to make evaluations forced me to constantly be looking at myself and my student behaviors. It was exciting to see students moving up levels and helped me stay focused on those that were not wanting to budge. It helped me see that their were positives going on in my classroom. Without looking at that data I may not have seen anything to hold onto.
Ultimately, this focus on evaluation led to many less challenging students than I have had in the last couple of years. Whew! What a great feeling! Wasn’t sure if I’d have that type of feeling ever again!
Goal for next year: To get ALL students out of the challenging students category!
Jason, you have the beginnings of a great post, but it needs more. In your future posts, try to give more specific examples to fulfill the requirements of the prompt. You did touch on some great ideas, however. For example, pausing to evaluate is a wonderful way to reflect on what is working and what isn't working. You've earned 10 Certification Points for you attempt! Save and date this post in a word processing file. In August, we'll post directions for turning it in to redeem your points.
DeleteEnd of year reflection:
ReplyDeleteNow that I am able to look back and reflect upon my charting progress for managing my behavior, I can make the most appropriate decision based upon the collected data. There were two crucial areas for managing my behavior:
• Controlling my emotions by controlling my tone of voice.
• Consistently following through with my classroom management plan.
Creating a point system was very helpful in analyzing my behavior and in creating solutions to improve my behavior. I was able to analyze the weekly scores and compare them to previous weekly scores. From evaluating my increase or decrease in points, I realized how my reaction contributed to students’ behavior. Therefore, I realized that controlling my emotions greatly contributed to the change in students’ overall behavior. I am the role model in the classroom and therefore I must set the example of displaying desired and appropriate classroom behavior.
Also, charting my progress in consistently following with my classroom management plan highly contributed in settings classroom routines and procedures where all students were treated equally. Sometimes, strategies are only used when necessary but it is important to constantly follow them without any bias. Evaluating each student in following the classroom rules also provided an insight into the task which is most difficult for students to follow. Thus, I was able to create solutions to improve upon our behavior.
I look forward to next year and applying all the new techniques and strategies that I’ve found would be helpful in the classroom. I am able to make a reliable decision because I have based them upon previous experiences and data.
Nancy, data is important to help you see where you can improve! Comparing scores from week to week can be very helpful. Great job! In your future posts, please be careful of your sentence structure. For example, the first sentence in your third paragraph needed a bit of final editing. Here are 25 certification points for you! Save and date this post in a word processing file. In August, we'll post directions for turning it in to redeem your points.
DeleteWhat an interesting year it was in my classroom. Through charting my own growth as well as my students was an eye opening experience. Teachers are typically more worried about charting student growth in terms of academics, how they performed on a test, or if they passed their yearly state test. To get to that point however, the teacher needs to have self-control as well as a controlled classroom environment in order for students to perform well academically.
ReplyDeleteThe two areas for self growth; controlling emotions through tone, and following through with a solid classroom management system were fantastic ideas for the beginning steps to build a well-established learning environment. A teacher cannot expect her students to be model students without having a positive teacher as a role model. Tone of voice is a very powerful tool in so many ways. For example, when a student does something wonderful, the tone of my voice will obviously be happy, energetic, and pleased. When a student is throwing paper across the room to gain attention, my tone of voice may become annoyed or angered which means I am the one losing the power. Keeping a calm tone with challenging students is a huge obstacle to overcome in a year's time. This was a wonderful tool to track on a weekly basis. I can see at the beginning of the year my tone stayed at a level point. Then as those challenging students started arising more frequently my tone of annoyance was also on the rise. After reflecting at the end of the week, I could check my score and knew I would need to get myself back on track. Monitoring my emotions as well as my management was key to have that learning environment I strived for. I could not use the Scoreboard for a month then forget about it the following month and expect my students to stay focused in their learning. Emotions and consistency truly go hand and hand to develop a positive learning environment.
I was truly impressed with my student's growth for the year. I knew from the get go I could not expect my challenging students to jump to leaders by the end of the year. This was a wonderful goal to have, however not a realistic one. Knowing that most of my students moved up at least one level by charting their growth was a very fulfilling moment for me as a teacher. One part of charting that I enjoyed the most was watching the alphas strive to become leaders. Many times the alphas typically found school to be less of a challenge because so many things came natural for them. However, watching those students strive to become leaders was also a great feeling because they too grew to higher levels from where they started. We often overlook the alphas because they are already great students. This system, however, pushes them to become ever better.
Overall, I was very pleased with the progress of myself as a teacher and the progress of my wonderful students. I know each new year will bring new faces and more challenging students to my classroom door. The one thing I know is that I am always up for the challenge.
Lindsey, you made some really great points in your post. You are up for the challenge with WBT at your side! Here are 25 certification points for you! Save and date this post in a word processing file. In August, we'll post directions for turning it in to redeem your points.
DeleteThis year I charted my progress as a Whole Brain Teacher. My primary goal was not to focus on managing my students behavior but my own behavior. I realized that was a crucial piece of the puzzle to have a successful WBT Classroom! At the end of each week, I took a few minutes to reflect on MY classroom behavior. I asked myself two questions and gave myself a score from 1 - 10. Did I control my emotions by controlling my tone of voice? Was I consistent in following my classroom management plan? It was sometimes hard to be honest with myself. I tried to rationalize my behavior based on the behavior of a particular student or the situation. But in the end here is what hit me dead on! The more prepared I was, the better my score was. When I deviated from the plan and flew the seat of my pants because I wanted to be a little creative or throw in a new little incentive because a teacher gave me 30 cool pencils that I wanted to give my class, it failed. No, I failed. since I was measuring my behavior and set time aside to reflect, it didn't take long to see the patterns as to what derailed a perfectly good train.
ReplyDeleteI also scored my students. After the first week of class I was able to put my students into one of six categories.
Alphas; my model students.
Go-alongs; my kids who usually did followed along but sometimes forgot to raise his/her hand or had trouble staying on task.
The Fence Sitters; These students were inconsistent in following the rules but overall had a good attitude when redirected. They became side-tracked easily.
Challenging Students; These students rarely ever raised their hands to speak. I call them "blurters", they seemed to take no pride their work and really didn't care about the rules and acted as if the rules didn't apply to them.
New Students: When I get a new student I put them in my Fence group to evaluate later.
Leaders: These students I considered my best students. They were above my Alphas. My goal was to get every students in this group. I didn't quite succeed in that this year but I know WBT made a huge difference for my challenging students.
I made a quick spreadsheet with all my students names on it and each day of the week. At the end of each day I put each student in one of these categories and gave them the appropriate points. My students were aware of their scores. At the end of each week I totaled each student's points and divided it by 5. This number was the score of my students. Then I took that score and divided by the number of students in my class. That was my score for the average behavior of my students.
I could easily see how my behavior score reflected in my students behavior score! That was the most interesting.
The reason I kept an individual tally of my students score was for my Super Improvers Wall. When My students get 10 points or "stars" they get to move up the Super Improvers Wall. Every Monday I make a big deal of putting stars on the student's cards. We celebrate the students who change colors with an "oh yeah, sizzle sizzle whoo" with jazz fingers and a little spin! Great fun!
Overall, my students did great. I was worried as this was my first year teaching Kinder in an "at-risk" school. We have little to no parent involvement and many of my students suffer from illness, poor living conditions, sleep deprivation and abuse. It is common to walk the halls and hear teacher screaming at students. I was told that this was the ONLY way to get them to listen. I was told that WBT would not work with "these" kids. The staff had little to no administrative support. Our overall STAAR scores were below 70. But my students thrived! They learned how to read by Christmas break, when they didn't even now their letters at the beginning of school. They followed directions. If I did my homework and was consistent, so were they! Thank you Chris Biffle!
Chelsea, tracking both your behavior ans student behavior is critical to continuing to make improvements! Good for you! I'm sure as you reflect back on your first full year of teaching you are so glad that you took advantage of the grade level Facebook pages! I'm sure all of the questions you posted and discussions you held with other teachers was very beneficial to helping your first year be successful as well! :)
DeleteHere are 25 certification points for you. Save and date this post in a word processing file. In August, we'll post directions for turning it in to redeem your points.
Well, the year is over, and I succeeded in your goal to chart behavior throughout the course of the year. What did I learn? First, I learned that the keeping of the data helped immensely to catch the trends in the behavior of myself and my students before they became too intense to handle effectively. Second, I learned that I know my students much better than I have in the past. Because I knew I had to put each student in a category, I found myself watching them much more closely – there were no invisible students! I began to think in terms of “that is fence-sitter behavior” and “I see a leader emerging” or even “that is challenging behavior.” Instead of focusing on the students, this approach helped me focus on their behavior. This also made it much easier to hand out super-improver stars, as I was able to tell students that I had noticed their efforts to improve their behavior (even though I didn’t tell them their levels!) Third, I saw that there is a strong correlation between my mental attitude about school and my own behavior and students’ behavior during class. If I was sick, tired, or unprepared, my class scores suffered accordingly. Finally, I learned that overall, through my challenges with my class, we improved. There was a stronger emphasis on desiring to achieve the best throughout the year, both from the students and myself. This helped me to see the progress, rather than the behavior. What felt like an extremely challenging week at the end of the year still scored higher behaviorally than at the beginning of the year; as expectations rose, there were some challenges, and yet an increasingly larger portion of students rose to the level expected. Overall, fantastic year; way to go!
ReplyDelete*I succeeded in my goal* Sorry, I reread it 5 times, still missed this pronoun.
DeleteDustjen, you have earned a ten finder rolling woo! You are absolutely right that you get to know your students better when you monitor behavior so closely. Building relationships is critical to changing challenging behavior! Here are 25 certification points for you. Save and date this post in a word processing file. In August, we'll post directions for turning it in to redeem your points.
DeleteCharting and reflecting on my instruction as well as my students' growth taught me so much! As I became more confident in using WBT strategies I noticed I was more frequently using them and seeing great success. It was my goal to consistently follow through with the WBT techniques I have learned. My kids loved using new WBT strategies and their enthusiasm motivated me to learn and teach them more! What worked well for me was watching one of Chris Biffle's videos, taking notes, and trying it in class the very next day, when it was fresh in my mind. I gave myself permission to not have to implement the techniques perfectly the first time, but that I could also be a "long term project".
ReplyDeleteEach week I evaluated my students on the following four areas: following directions quickly, raising their hands before they speak, staying on task, and turning in neat work. I secretly divided the class into four groups: the Alphas (model students), the Go-Alongs (usually good but sometimes fall short), the Fence Sitters (ones that could go either way), and the Challenging Students (rarely followed classroom rules). Every week I totaled the points for the students and then divided by my total number of students to get an average. This allowed me to see if I was making progress with them.
I am proud of my students’ progress. Comparing where my students were at the beginning of the year to where they completed the year opened my eyes to how much growth actual occurred! I tried to write down little notes and examples of specific instances that proved they had grown, which was powerful and meaningful to look back and reread. I shared these examples with my students and made sure I praised with the Super Improvers' Wall.
I see a direct correlation between how frequently and consistently I used WBT strategies and my students' behavior. This personally motivates me to read, view, and learn more about WBT techniques so that I can have a WBT classroom that is bursting with engaged, curious, passionate learners all day long!
Ms Viola, you are right! There is a direct correlation between WBT strategies and student behavior! Here are 25 certification points for you. Save and date this post in a word processing file. In August, we'll post directions for turning it in to redeem your points.
DeleteMaintaining good classroom management has always been a weakness of mine. It wasn't until I took a class through Walsh University this spring that I discovered many unique, successful ways to help me monitor my progress and help manage and chart student behavior. When charting myself, I focused on controlling my emotions, keeping my tone of voice in check, and confronting challening students individually. I kept a simple binder with each class roster printed with student names and columns for days of the week. The last thing I did before leaving for the day was pick up the binder at the door and reflect. After several weeks of use, it became very routine for me to rate myself and give myself a weekly score. I have definitely learned that, "I cannot manage student behavior if I cannot manage my own."
ReplyDeleteI was also very successful with monitoring student behavior. Very much like my own personal rating system, I used a Behavior Rating System for charting student progress. Now, I will say I was apprehensive about using this system because it is not like me to stop and reflect. Good teachers reflect though, and I discovered wonderful things about my students. First, I was forced (yes, the class forced me to try the rating system) to think about my students as individuals. I thought about their assignment completion, their classroom behavior, their attitude, their on/off task tendencies, and whether or not they followed classroom rules. My consistent use of this rating system allowed me to know my students better. I categorized them by placing them into groups including the Go-Alongs, Fence Sitters, Challenging Students, Leaders, and Model students. Each week, I picked up my binder and rated each student. The rating scale included: 5 points for model, 4 points for leader, 3 points for go-along, 2 points for fence sitter, and 1 point for challenging. After totaling the points, I always divided the number by the total students in the class, and this became my average score. The whole concept of points and 'moving my students' to new levels challenged me to do more. As Coach B. always says, "Who doesn't like a good game with levels?" I know I love to play a good game on my iPhone, and the progress chart challenged me to do more. I found myself looking for ways to help my students advance on the chart. I, in fact, became a better teacher! I used this system on a weekly basis. Sometimes there was very little progress, and other times, I thought I would cry. When you teach a student for months and you move them from 'Challenging' to 'Fence Sitter,' you truly want to cry with excitement. Sometimes, growth is small, but consistent charting over time, the small becomes enourmous and noticable.
The Behavioral Rating System allowed me to know my students on a personal level. It allowed me to see students that sometimes go unnoticed. The chart also caused me to have conversations with students that I would not have had otherwise. I want my students to know I care, and charting the progress of myself and my students definitely allowed me to 'know my students and their needs' more than I have in all of my teaching years. I can't wait to use it next year!
Behavior Progress Chart Rating Score: Two Thumbs Up and a Mighty Ten Finger Woo
Melinda, small changing can be the stepping stones to dramatic changes in behavior. Charting progress does make you more connected with your students, and it will make you a better teacher. You are so right! Here are 25 certification points for you. Save and date this post in a word processing file. In August, we'll post directions for turning it in to redeem your points.
DeleteEvery year I try to improve my classroom management. I find something that works, keep it up for the first month of school, and then I begin slacking. I am not consistent and my students pick up on that. This year I tried something different. I charted my behavior as a teacher as well as my students’ progress. It was a saving grace and really opened my eyes.
ReplyDelete“You cannot manage student behavior if you cannot manage your own behavior.” This was definitely the truth. My first goal as the school year started was to control my tone of voice. This has been a problem for me in the past. I used a scale similar to Mrs. Maestra to monitor my tone of voice. At the end of each week when I looked at how I did, I was able to see patterns. This helped me know at what times I was having difficulty controlling my tone of voice. As the weeks went by, I learned how to control the tone of my voice. I also charted my students’ behavior on a weekly basis. I noticed that when I had success with my goal, my students’ behavior was right on target. This paved the path to better instruction.
By charting my own behavior, it made me more accountable and consistent. I found that when I was more consistent with my classroom management plan, more of my students were on task for longer periods of time. This was heaven! I used Mrs. Maestra’s idea of charting students’ progress by placing them into secret groups. I tracked these groups all year long. I noticed how my “Challenging Students” group was getting smaller as time passed. My “Fence Sitters” were moving up and I had quite a lot of “Alphas.” My ultimate goal as I monitored my students’ behavior was to have a class of “Leaders.” As difficult as this seemed to me at the beginning of the year, I learned that this was a reachable goal. I am very proud of my students for their hard work and effort this school year. I am also proud of how well I did with consistency of classroom management. This is something I am going to do again in the upcoming school year.
Elissa, starting with a goal for tone of voice is a wonderful place to start. Good for you! Here are 25 certification points for you. Save and date this post in a word processing file. In August, we'll post directions for turning it in to redeem your points.
DeleteWell, the year has come to an end and I have met my goal in managing my own emotions and my student’s behavior. What did I learn from charting my own emotions and my student’s actions? I learned that the more I keep my emotions under control the better the class worked. When I was having an off morning, I found that my emotions were out of control and this affected my students. I needed to practice more on watching my tone of voice towards the end of the year. My patience was short at times and it affected my tone of voice. This was not good for my student’s or me. I know that next year I need to make sure I take time to really think about what I want to say and the tone of my voice.
ReplyDeleteMy goals for my class were to follow the 5 class rules consistently, fill each other’s buckets consistently, and turn in quality work. I found that by keeping track of these 3 behaviors my students were progressing wonderfully. Now mind you some of them slipped at times and they had to be reminded in a gentle way. Those that slipped had to practice the class rules during recess with me for two minutes, fix their work during recess to make sure it was quality work, or do something nice for a classmate to fill their buckets instead of dipping into them. I found that these consequences worked wonderfully in helping my student’s gain the knowledge in what it is to be a leader. My whole class moved up to being a leader according to my tracking and the notes left me by guest teachers that said the class ran itself. I was very proud of each and every one of my students. As a teacher I know that I am the one that sets the tone for my class and that I need to set goals to control my own emotions and goals that will help my student’s to become leaders instead of challenges.
Tab, you have three great goals for charting student behavior, nice job. In your future posts please be careful of word choice (students/students'/student's). Here are 25 Certification Points for you. Save and date this post in a word processing file. In August, we'll post directions for turning it in to redeem your points.
DeleteAs I reflect back after a year of charting my progress, this is what I learned. First, I realized that I needed to focus on specific classroom management features when dealing with student behavior. One would be not trying to have the last word with disruptive students, and the second with controlling my tone of voice. Throughout the year, I charted my progress giving myself a grade of 1-10, (with 10 being the highest) if I was able to manage my two features. I quickly realized because I was consciously thinking of the points I could earn and a goal to reach, that charting my progress was making an impact on my mood. I found myself each morning to be smiling and more welcoming because now it made instruction “ a little more entertaining.” I was playing a game with myself and I enjoyed earning my points.
ReplyDeleteI also charted my student’s classroom behavior. I began with secretly putting them into groups to measure their behavior and to set goals for each group. I constantly reminded “all” students of the expected behaviors each day and kept a weekly record of how they were performing.
I realized that charting my progress and my student’s progress made a significant impact on my teaching and the student’s behavior. We all had attainable goals to reach and I finally had real data to share with myself and colleagues on how I was making progress with my classroom management.
Mrs. Shepherd,
DeleteYour post is a true testament to the power of games! Game play works to motivate both for teachers and students. In future posts, please take a second look at your sentence structure (One would be/One example of a classroom management feature would be) and give a bit more detail to specifically answer the prompt. Here are your 10 Certification Points for this post. Save and date this post in a word processing file. In August, we'll post directions for turning it in to redeem your points.
What a year! Using the Whole Brain Teaching system has truly impacted student achievement. As always, I like to reflect and improve for next year's class. Here are some lessons I've learned...
ReplyDelete1) Schedule a specific time to grade yourself and your students. It's easy to say you are going to chart your progress. However, life gets busy. If you don't set aside a specific time, it will be tempting to skip this analysis when your to-do list gets overwhelming. In those instances, many of us focus on just the essentials. Consider this an essential!
2) Another practical issue is to set up a chart or spreadsheet to manage the data. You're probably familiar with the adage, "A place for everything and everything in its place." Well, the same is true for data. In order for it to be useful as a change agent, you need a methodical way to collect it. Whatever that is for you, set it up and use it consistently.
3) Find a colleague and share your reflections. Sometimes having a partner to share ideas with helps you better understand why you assigned the scores you did and what you can learn for continuous improvement. It doesn't have to be very long - just 10 or 15 minutes of focused reflection and feedback has a cumulative effect over the course of an entire school year.
4) Think proactively about which student behaviors really "push your buttons." Rehearse how you will calmly handle the situation, not if, but when it occurs. This might be a great topic to discuss with your colleague during your collaborative sessions. Understanding your own personality well enough to know what are "triggers" for you can help you plan for those situations in the classroom and not have to handle volatile scenes "on the fly."
5) Finally, reward yourself for improvement. Choose something special and hold yourself accountable. Treat this just like your would the Super Improver wall with your students...only it's for you! Think about the sense of accomplishment you will feel at the end of a school year when you can literally see your growth as a teacher as shown in your weekly scores. That would be deserving of a 'Mighty Oh Yeah', at the very least.
Get into the habit of reflecting on your teaching and charting your progress. You can't manage your classroom until you first manage your own behavior! Take responsibility for your class and become the educator your students deserve.
Sally, ten finger woo with sizzles to you! I especially loved #3. Collaboration is a great way to reflect on the data. Here are your 25 Certification Points! Save and date this post in a word processing file. In August, we'll post directions for turning it in to redeem your points.
DeleteWow, I can't believe another year has come and gone! I enjoyed working with my students while charter their progress and my own. I learned a lot about myself and my students.
ReplyDeleteMrs. Maestra taught me that "you cannot manage student behavior if you cannot manage your own behavior." Pg. 14 I graded myself on a scale of 1 to 10 on my ability to stay consistent with my classroom management plan and my self control. I learned that I follow through with consistency, but I need to work on controlling my emotions. My students tended to behavior worse when they saw that they were agitating me. I have to keep a calm voice and work on my facial expressions.
I also divided my students into four groups: Alphas (model students), Go-Alongs (fell just short of being model students), Fence Sitters (could go either way), Challenging Students (rarely made good choices). After scoring my students on a weekly basis I noticed that when my own scores went up my students behavior was much better, especially my Go-Alongs and Fence Sitters. They didn't go along with my most challenging students when I didn't show emotion in my voice or body language. When I used my teacher voice or showed poor body language they got off task more, raised their hands less, took forever to follow directions, and played off the challenging students.
By working on consistency with my emotions and body language I will get all my students making better progress in their behavior. When others are not playing off of the challenging students, they too will improve. I look forward to working on this in the upcoming year.
Brian
Hopkins' Hoppin' Happenings
Brian, your goals of consistency and self control are great! In your future posts, be careful of word choice (behavior/behave). Here are your 25 Certification Points! Save and date this post in a word processing file. In August, we'll post directions for turning it in to redeem your points.
DeleteDear Cindy,
ReplyDeleteThis year has flown by! I’ve never been so proud of myself because I’ve actually been able to see my own progress. I used a tool I learned about during last summer’s Whole Brain teaching book club. I evaluated myself each week and kept track of my points all year so I could see how I grew and how my students grew during the year.
For myself, I really examined how I kept myself calm and collected. For this I used one of the “Great Truths of Whole Brain Teaching”: You cannot manage student behavior if you cannot manage your own behavior.” I put this on a little sign right on my computer so I looked at it everyday, more than once a day. That way I knew that I was responsible for setting the tone in the classroom. I did that by controlling my tone of voice and sticking to my classroom management plan. In previous years I might have changed things but I realize that is confusing to the students. So, every week I scored myself on these two measures, from 1-10, combining them to give myself a teaching score. I recorded this in my notebook so I could see how I was doing with my own behavior. I have taken accountability for my contribution to the behavior in the room. I’m proud of myself for taking this step.
Next, I wanted to see how student behavior improved. I used another technique from Whole Brain. My students were grouped into four categories: Alphas, Go-Alongs, Fence-Sitters, and Challenging Students. The Alphas are students who follow my whole brain rules. The Go-Alongs are students who usually go along, but sometimes fall short of the rules. The Fence-Sitters are students who can go either way, one day they might follow the rules the next they might not. Finally the Challenging Students seldom follow my rules. If I had a new student enter the classroom they were initially put in the Fence-Sitter category until they had time to learn the rules and acclimate to our classroom.
So, every week, I counted the number of each group, divided it by the total number of students to obtain an average behavior score for my class. Not only was this a great way to keep me motivated, but it helped me to see how the system was working. I was thrilled to see how well the children were doing. I thought about moving some of the student up to a Leader designation, however I only had been in the classroom since December and didn’t want to push it too much with them since I had changed their behavior plan so much already. They successfully embraced the plan but it did take a bit of time to teach it to them.
This year was the best year I’ve ever had, because I controlled myself, stayed consistent, and measured my progress! Yes, it was a bit more work, but it was awesome!
Keep up the great work!
Cindy
Cindy, good idea to post a note to yourself so that you see it each day! What a wonderful reminder! You have a good explanation of what you did, but what did you learn from it? How did you use the data each week to improve student behavior? In your future posts, please try and give more specific detail to completely answer the prompt. Here are 10 Certification Points for you. Save and date this post in a word processing file. In August, we'll post directions for turning it in to redeem your points.
DeleteGoing into this year I was hopeful. Following the Whole Brain Teaching method of charting not only my students’ improvements, but my own as far as controlling my emotions and consistently following my classroom management plan, amazing things happened. This is what I did and this is what I learned.
ReplyDeleteIt was slow at first, as to be expected. As I worked harder controlling my emotions and facial expressions towards my most obstreperous students, I really started to see a change. Like the Super Improvers Wall for the students, I decided on certain rewards I would reap when I reached different milestones in growth. We are not that unlike our students in that we, too, enjoy a good game with a great end result. I would rate myself on a scale of 1-10 for each area of improvement: controlling my emotions and consistently following my classroom management plan. At the end of each week on Friday after the last bus had ‘left the building,’ I would total up my score. If I didn’t do it before I left for the weekend, I either wouldn’t do it or it wouldn’t be fresh in my mind anymore, so I set this time and stuck with it. I charted it on an Excel worksheet in my laptop (because the last thing I did before leaving for the weekend was to shut down my laptop and pack it up). I did think about it over the weekend though. I reflected upon the highlights of the week and the low points. I wanted to know and track the circumstances of my emotional outbursts so I could recognize what lead to it and stop or control myself before it happened. It really was like a game, but it made the second part of my goal easier.
Of course, as I controlled my behavior, student behavior improved as well. After a while, students give up on trying to push your buttons when they know it doesn’t work anymore. To chart my students’ progress, I divided them into four groups: Alphas, who followed my four measures all the time, Go-alongs, who did really well, but sometimes faltered, Fence Sitters, who were inconsistent daily with these measures, and Challenging Students, who rarely followed any of these measures. The measures were: follow directions quickly, raise their hands for permission to speak, stay on task, and turn in neat work. Students received scores for each group they were in, but this was only for my knowledge. Their scores were totaled at the end of each week as well, and divided by the total number of students in the room. My goal was for them to all move up a level concerning their classroom behavior. Who would have guessed about the other perk – academic success! Not only did my students’ behavior improve, but so did their academic levels!
Now that I know this great revelation from Whole Brain Teaching, all I have to say for next year is “Bring it on!”
Lisa, you made a great point in your second paragraph. Teachers love games too! Here are 25 Certification Points for you. Save and date this post in a word processing file. In August, we'll post directions for turning it in to redeem your points.
DeleteLooking back on a year of charting my own behavior, and those of my students, I am pleased that I have been faithful to complete these charts weekly. Usually as the year goes on I become less consistent to keep these records, but this year has been different. My records kept me “in the loop” concerning my own behavior and my students’ behavior.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, I learned how much I, as their teacher, set the tone or atmosphere in the classroom. If I had a week in which I struggled with consistency or controlling my emotions, my students’ behavior was also poor. On the other hand if I was on my “A game” by controlling my emotions, using that even tone, staying calm, and if I had enough sleep; my class also had a much better week of following the behavior plan. This was probably the most important lesson I have learned. I had to first control myself before I could even think about controlling my students.
Concerning the students’ behavior, each week’s records gave me a great visual of their behavior as well as the “atmosphere” in the classroom. It helped me identify students who needed more guidance to improve their behavior. Students, who scored points in the challenger or fence sitter categories, were given specific daily goals to work on to improve their behavior. It encouraged to them to have their behavioral improvement broken down into specific daily goals. This also helped me rearrange my seating chart, a challenger did much better if he or she sat next to a leader or alpha, who could help them out; rather than another fence sitter or challenger, who could be swayed by their ways. I learned this year that completing my records consistently was an invaluable tool to classroom behavior and management.
WBT Pioneer, this is a great reflection with specific examples! Here are 25 Certification Points for you!Save and date this post in a word processing file. In August, we'll post directions for turning it in to redeem your points.
DeleteAs teachers, we are good about taking anecdotal notes. In guided reading, I jot down a notes about Keahi’s fluency and about Gregory’s comprehension. Throughout the day, I document Madison’s behavior and make sure to update Jonas’ behavior chart. I put stickers up for when Evelyn moves onto the next Mad Minute number and jot down that Joe needs to work on large motor skills in PE. Teachers are good at taking notes. But chapter four of Whole Brain Teaching for Challenging Kids, Chris Biffle tells us “You cannot manage student behavior if you cannot manage your own behavior.” This year, I made a goal to document my behavior as a teacher. Here is what I learned:
ReplyDeleteI made a goal to control my tone of voice. In chapter three we learned not to yell at the kids. In order to resist the urge to yell, I decided to employ a Love and Logic method, the sing-song “Uh oh!” Every time a child was doing something they should not, instead of yelling “Jeff, sit down!” I would say in a sing-song voice “Uh oh! Jeff needs to sit down.” Singing “Uh oh” before saying the child’s name helps me control my tone and control my anger. Just like Ms. Maestra in the book, this helps me control my reaction to my students.
I also took on the job of organizing my students into groups. I really like how Ms. Maestra categorized her students. This helped her focus on certain groups of children instead of the whole class all the time. It also helped make sure children didn’t go “under the radar” as they say. Having a big class of 28, it can be daunting to look at the behavior of my whole class. But when I divided them up into behavior categories, it was much easier! I knew who my leaders were. I knew who my challenging students were. But the ones in the middle would get lost in my mind. Not only did this make everyday instruction and behavior management easier, it also helped when writing report cards or Special Education referrals or IEPs.
Even though tracking my own behavior sounded crazy at first, I can honestly say it helped me become a better teacher. I am more prepared to face my students and every curve ball they throw in my direction. Tracking has held me accountable for my reaction and I know I am a better teacher because of it.
Nicole
Teaching With Style
Nicole, you have made a great point that good teachers constantly monitor student progress. But great teachers monitor their own progress too! Here are 25 Certification Points for you.Save and date this post in a word processing file. In August, we'll post directions for turning it in to redeem your points.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteOver the last year, I have sought to chart growth, in terms of not only assessments and academic growth but also the growth of behaviors. This year, my goal was to chart my students’ behaviors in four key areas and then chart my growth as well.
ReplyDeleteMy first goal was to control my own emotions, including my vocal tone, as well as, following through with my WBT management plan. We know that a classroom where the teacher is not in control of their own behaviors fosters a classroom where the students are not in control of their behaviors. I worked to minimize the sarcasm to which I may have at times, as well as how I engage conversation with challenging students. I took the audience away from my challenges and praised those who are exemplary students. I measured our progress with weekly check-ins on my own behaviors. I have also used these check-ins to compare how my students behaved each week. Not to my surprise, there was a strong correlation to my students’ behaviors, the lower my score the lower the students’ score were. This was disappointing to me but it shows how important it is to reflect on what I am modeling for my students. They will mirror my actions.
As for how I assessed student behaviors, I utilized the categories suggested by Biffle’s book: Leaders, Alphas, Go-Alongs, Fence Sitters, and Challenging Students. My goal for these groupings of students was to support their growth by measuring the following categories: Following directions quickly, raised hands for permission to speak, staying on task, and turning in completed/neat work. Each week, with the help of a rubric, I looked at these categories and rated my students. I focused on the categories of Fence Sitters and Challenging students. I had hoped to move each student up to the next level, and was successful. Not all of my Challenges will make it to Alphas but to make it to a Fence Sitter was a great feat for them. I am so proud.
Krystal, weekly check-ins and reflections are a great way to monitor progress and see improvement! Praising all students for improvement is very important, not just praise for exemplary students. Sometimes the "lower" students show the most improvement, and would receive the most praise! Just make sure praise is real and leaves room for even more growth. You don't want to say something is fantastic when you know it could be better! There's always room for improvement! I can't wait for you to read the chapter on the Super Improvers Team! Here are your 25 Certification Points. Save and date this post in a word processing file. In August, we'll post directions for turning it in to redeem your points.
DeleteAs this school year comes to a close, I reflect on my own behavior and progress as a teacher, as well as my student's behavior and progress. I must admit, it was a challenge to get in the habit of charting each of my students and my own progress each week, but the reward that I saw at the end of the year outweighed any negativity that I may have initially had.
ReplyDeleteThe first step was to check my own behavior and responses as a teacher, grading myself on my classroom management, including my tone of voice and consistency. This was very reflective and sometimes difficult, as I realized I was bringing too much sarcasm in the classroom. I wanted to maintain a classroom setting of acceptance and belonging and my sarcasm was getting in the way.
The next step was to evaluate my student's behavior in a more measurable and analytical way than I had in the past. I focused on the student's ability to follow directions quickly, raising their hand for permission to speak, staying on task, and turning in neat, acceptable work. Using this as guidelines, I then sorted my students into groups: the Alphas, the Go-Alongs, the Fence Sitters, the Challenging Students and the Leaders. This was difficult at first, because I teach over 80 students each year, but making the process organized and forcing it to become a habit, I quickly found I enjoyed and even looked forward to this time of reflection and became excited when a student moved up a level! This time of reflection forced me to get to know my students on a more personal level, and gave me momentum when I saw measurable proof of growth! I find that as teachers we spend much time reflecting over Benchmark scores, reading levels and Standards of Learning, while sorting them into categories based on race and economic status. Making time to reflect on personal behavioral achievement was refreshing and allowed me to see my student's on another level.
I have learned that it is first important for me to examine my own behavior as a teacher and a mentor before I can evaluate and judge my students. It makes me more accountable for my actions, while raising the rigor of my students. When my students know what is expected and they see me rising to my own expectations, it creates a more cohesive, inviting, safe classroom setting.
Amanda, you are right about the "reward" we get from monitoring our own behavior. The reward is to have a class that doesn't have to waste time on classroom management, and can focus on learning and having fun! Monitoring student behavior does help us get to know them better, which can be a difficult task with so many students. That just makes it even more necessary! Here are your 25 Certification Points. Save and date this post in a word processing file. In August, we'll post directions for turning it in to redeem your points.
DeleteAs a teacher, I am always concerned how my students are improving with their behavior. However, after fully implementing WBT this past year, I knew it was time to be concerned with improving my own behavior. In the past, I have raised my voice and was not consistent with my classroom management. It did nothing for me but make matters worse. All I would do is get frustrated and cry. Well, not anymore because I created an evaluation form to track my own behavior. I set a scale of 1-10 (with 10 being the highest) on my ability to control my voice level and following through on classroom management consistently. I was very apprehensive at first because I was worried I would not be consistent. However, it ended up being one of the best tools I could have in my teacher tool box. Tracking my behavior really opened my eyes to see how I was treating my students. At the end of every two weeks I would look at my scores and see where I needed to improve. Some days were better than others but overall worked!
ReplyDeleteI knew this approach would definitely work for my students as well. After dividing them into groups, I tracked their behavior. I could see who is improving and who still needs to improve. I would conference with the students on managing their behavior and saw tremendous progress with the challenging students because they wanted to improve and strived to become Alphas and Leaders. The students would also encourage each other. The atmosphere was positive. We all knew we were striving to be the best we could with our behavior, we became encouraging, helpful and calm. They had goals to work towards as well as I to become a calm teacher with great classroom management.
I will continue tracking my behavior as well as my students' behavior throughout my teaching. It's one of the best tools I've used and hope other teachers will decide to pick up this tool to use in their classroom,too.
Stephanie, when you keep your focus on improvement instead of perfection, your goals become more manageable! You have set a great goal for yourself and your students. Everyone can improve, even your "highest" students! Here are 25 Certification points for you. In your future posts, please try and include more specific detail to fully respond to the prompt. Save and date this post in a word processing file. In August, we'll post directions for turning it in to redeem your points.
DeleteJune 19, 2013
ReplyDeleteWow, can you believe the year is over already feels like it’s just starting! (wink, wink!) One tool I am so glad that I used this year was charting for myself. I have to admit I was reticent to do this. I know daily tracking of things is not my forte. But it was the year for big improvements. I had a lot to show and prove. What I learned from this was the more I was consistent in all things, including my self-tracking, the more consistent my students were in following the rules and procedures for the classroom. I was able to really see how what I do, say feel, is reflected in my students. I know when my “bad” days were as you can’t have a good day every day and I can go to my journal/tracking and see that it was a day where I wasn’t on the mark. Therefore, my students weren’t on the mark either.
Besides the need for consistency, the other thing I learned is how my students reflect me. So, if I am happy they’ll be happy and we’ll all be happier! If I’m miserable they will not be happy and in turn neither will I. Tracking really helped me to see patterns of behavior and how I could change things by tightening up my behaviors. When I was consistent on the scoreboard they were more consistent in their behavior.
These were really things I knew and/or heard before but tracking my behavior made it become real for me. This is an eye opener and I am so glad to see it for myself. This is a valuable tool.
Dina
D. Francisco, charting can be a daunting task if you don't set clear expectations for yourself. The same holds true for student goals. The key is to keep focused on improving! You can do it! In your future posts, try and focus on sentence structure and detail. For example, instead of "charting for myself" give a more clear explanation of what you are doing. Here are 10 Certification points for you. Save and date this post in a word processing file. In August, we'll post directions for turning it in to redeem your points.
DeleteThe school year is over and looking back at the charts I made on my behavior as an instructor and my students' progress, I realized one of the greatest truth of Whole Brain Teaching is, I cannot manage my students' behavior if I cannot manage my own. Through this realization, I found two crucial features of my behavior that are key to successful classroom management.
ReplyDeleteFirstly, I need to control my emotions by controlling the tone of my voice. One of the common teaching mistakes is when one loses their temper with difficult children and yells at them. Therefore, control of my voice was detrimental to effective management. A picture of Clint Eastwood comes to mind in his Dirty Harry movies. He was a tough guy, but never once raises his voice. His quiet but tough demeanor was his strength. Every week I evaluated myself on this. I used a scale of 1-10, with 1 being the lowest and 10 the highest. I gave myself a number on how successful I was with meeting the goal of controlling my emotions by controlling my voice.
Secondly, another feature of my behavior, was being consistent with following through on my classroom behavior plan. Why have the five classroom rules on the wall and practice them frequently though out the day, if you don't enforce them? It is important to post a set of rules that clearly states classroom behavior expectations. It is my job as the teacher to follow through consistently. Again I evaluated myself on this using the same scale of 1-10. Next, I added up my scores of the two self evaluations. I considered the week a success if the score was 16 or over.
After getting to know my students' behavior at the beginning of the year, I evaluated them based on these four criteria: follows directions quickly, raises hand for permission to speak, stays on task and turns in neat work. Next, I secretly divided them into four groups and gave them points for their association. Alphas (model students who consistently follows the above criteria),4 points, Go-Alongs (usually goes along with me but sometimes falls short), 3 points, Fence Sitters (students that can go either way), 2 points, and Challenging Students (rarely or never follows the 4 criteria) 1 point for these students. Each week I added up the points for each child and then divided that number by the number of students in my class. This was my average score for the behavior of my students. My ultimate goal was to make as many “Leaders” (students who were above the Alphas and strives to become leaders of the classroom) out of my students as possible. Those that met this goal, I gave myself 5 points. Realistically, one move up to the next group was an attainable goal. These evaluations were a great record to see where to go, because “you can't tell where you're going, without a chart of where you've been.”
Reflecting back, it was a great year. The self evaluation directed me in a path of successful classroom management. By having the numbers weekly, I could self critique and focus on weaknesses. The student data was valuable to me so that I could challenge them to improve. I had a clear plan of action and thereby, we ALL were triumphant.
Marianne, I love your Clint Eastwood example! You can be tough without yelling. I can't wait until you read the chapter on the rules! You can actually have more effective classroom management than you ever dreamed by uniting the class behind the five rules! The students become the rule enforcers, not you! There is no yelling required and no need to Dirty Harry! Here are 20 certification points for you! In your future posts, be careful of your sentence structure.
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ReplyDeleteAnother year has come and gone - I'm no longer a BT - Oh Yeah! This has been a great year; yes, it had its ups and downs, but overall it turned out great. I began the year reflecting on my first two years - identifying my strengths and weaknesses. The two areas I planned to work on and chart my progress in we're controlling my emotions and tone of voice, in addition to consistently following through with my behavior management plan equally for all students.
ReplyDeleteAs I look at my data laid before me, I see that I started out strong the first few weeks of school as inlaid the framework for our classroom and set the standards that I expected my students to meet. After that, as I began to really get to know the students, I began to slack off a little with following through on behavior management equally for ALL students. I was harder on some students than others and that was beginning to create chaos in the classroom. By charting my progress each week and giving myself a score, I was able to see this trend occurring and after this realization, I made corrections to my teaching and my students and I began to score better each week.
Not only did charting my behavior help me, charting my students behavior helped them as well. Using the website, Class Dojo, students and parents could get immediate feedback on student behaviors - good and bad. Students loved to see the class percentage at the end of the day and set a goal for the next day. Parents loved checking on their children throughout the day and getting weekly reports. I loved it all - immediate student feedback, daily and weekly percentages and more. It helped me to see where students were excelling and falling short and that helped me score myself each week and improve for the next week.
Charting progress for myself was like creating my own little SIW! Every week I tried to improve upon the week before and move up "the levels". Can't wait to continue this next year!
Allyson, what's a BT? You have set two great goals for yourself. Consistency is key! I can't wait until you read the chapter on the scoreboard! It's an amazing behavior management tool! Here are 20 certification points for you. In future posts, be careful of your compound/complex sentences.
DeleteThe school year is complete. Now it is time to evaluate my progress. My goals were to control my emotions by specifically controlling the tone of my voice and to be consistent with my classroom management plan. My charting shows that I have done fairly well in controlling my emotions. I see a pattern. If I am stressed due to the events of the week, I tend to regress and have lower scores. By charting my goals directly on the calendar, I see that I have some lower scores on weeks that coincide with big transitions or activities. In those weeks, I tended to focus on making sure the class was caught up and ready for the move. I can recall that I may not have spent as much time on preparation as I should have. I have made so much progress compared to last year! With this chart in hand, I will be able to avoid these problem areas next year and become a better teacher for my students and myself.
ReplyDeleteI am so happy when I look at the chart of my classroom management plan! My scores here are level across the board. I have comments from parents praising my consistent and fair actions in the classroom.
Next year will be one of growth for my students and me. I can’t wait to begin!
Hi Norma-Gene! Thanks for your patience! It's so true that when we are stressed it's easier to revert back into old habits. Consistent and fair actions are a great goal! In your future posts, please try and be a bit more specific. Give examples to explain the prompt more fully. Here are 10 certification points!
DeleteHow is it possible that I have failed to use this amazing process before this year! I have been a very outspoken advocate for the Super Improver Wall. I know the success that comes with students reflecting on their own progress. Why wouldn’t I want to do this for myself!
ReplyDeleteIn my third full year of third grade and WBT, I decided to chart my progress and that of my students using Mrs. Maestra’s process. This is the hard truth that I learned. So many times in the past 10 years of teaching, I would feel frustration over a student’s behavior and I had no one to blame but myself! How was I supposed to manage my challenging students, if I couldn’t control my reaction to them? Over and over again this year, when I found myself frustrated by behaviors in my classroom I would find that I was the problem.
Whole Brain Teaching has provided me with the tools I need to stay consistent in my classroom management plan. My consistency score has been solid all year long. My score for controlling my tone of voice has been my challenge. As I improved on my tone of voice, I realized another aspect of my behavior influencing students. My body language can have the same effect if not MORE on how my students respond to me. I remember a group of former student once told me they knew when I was upset even if my voice sounded nice. They told me I would take a deep breath, clasp my hands in front of me and smile REALLY big. This year I have really learned to mask my frustration, thanks to this weekly evaluation of my OWN behavior.
Charting the progress of my students through the four main groups (Alphas, go-alongs, fence sitters, and challenging students) has been remarkably valuable. There were weeks when I didn’t see much growth, but when I look at my results from the beginning of the year compared to the last month of school, I can’t help but beam with pride. I have always strived to cultivate leaders in my classroom. In the past, I have managed to cultivate 2-3 classroom leaders per year. By the end of the 2013-2014 school year, I had 10 students who were consistently a positive influence in my class. I cannot truly express my joy at seeing five students that were challenging at the beginning of the year, now consistently being rated as a go-alongs!
The data I have gathered thanks to Chapter 4 in Chris Biffle’s “Whole Brain Teaching for Challenging Kids”, has been more valuable than all of the academic data by far. When I have more alphas and go-alongs than fence sitters and challenging students, the academics seem to take care of themselves!
Deanna, how is it possible that you have never charted your progress? I'm so glad that you are going to use it this year! You are so right that both tone of voice and body language tell tell a lot about our emotions. Here are your 25 certification points!
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ReplyDeleteThis year, I decided to focus on my own behavior rather than the kids. Since I see the same children year after year, I know where my problems are going to be. I can't change the child but I can change my reaction to the child. This year, I marked on my seating chart when I had a problem with a particular student. When I noticed that I had a few marks by the same child, I was more conscious about reactions when they arrived the following week. In several cases, I videotaped a class session or two. I was able to see that some of the issues would have been avoided if I had controlled my voice. Although I'm not a yeller, it was easy to see when I was irritated and I noticed that the incidents increased after that point. There's something to work on for next year.
ReplyDeleteI also noticed problems with my own consistency when it came to implementing my classroom plan. It seems that there were some weeks when the classroom environment was effected by the calendar or weather but there were also weeks when I couldn't point to anything other than me and my reactions.
It's hard to take responsibility for student's actions but the fact is that some of it's them and some of it's me. We all have to be together 40 minutes a week for 6 years so we had best learn how to react to one another. I can't change change the child, but I can change my reactions to the child.
Gwenn, you've touched on something very near and dear to my heart. My mom used to always tell me, "You can't change someone's actions, but you can change your reaction to them." So amazingly true. She was a teacher too! Great idea of marking interactions with particular kids. Here are 25 certification points!
DeleteWOW, I did it! When I set the two goals of working harder outside of the classroom and being open to change, I have to admit I was nervous.
ReplyDeleteI worried that I would not stick with the schedule I laid out for myself last summer in preparation for this school year. Putting the time and objectives on my calendar was extremely helpful. There are always excuses why it isn’t a good time, etc. but scheduling the time and making it happen worked for me. My school year went so much smoother than any other I’ve experienced. The scheduling calendar is definitely something I will continue to use.
My second goal was to be open to change. Again, this worried me. At this point in my career, it would have been so much easier to have continued to do what I have always done. Again, I used my calendar to help with this goal. I set mini goals in this area and was able to make small steady changes throughout the year. Each small change added up to huge progress and I am truly proud of myself.
Sandy, you have set two amazing goals for yourself. Being open to change is vital to be successful year after year. Great! Your post, however, does not fully explain the prompt, so you haven't earned any certification points for this one. Keep up the energy, and continue to post!
DeleteI have learned making goals for myself and charting my progress made me more effective in my classroom management skills. I had a goal of making all of my students Alphas. I strongly believe the self-fulfilling prophecy helped me to be successful. I believed my students and I would be successful from the very beginning thanks to Whole Brain Teaching and charting my progress. Whenever I felt my determination start to diminish, I would reread chapter 4. Each week, I charted my progress. In the beginning, I had many Go-Alongs with a few Fence Sitters. I was elated to have a self-sufficient classroom with many Leaders by the end of the year.
ReplyDeleteIn the past, I did not set goals for myself. I certainly did not track my own behavior. I was able to be more consistent and on task by evaluating my own classroom behavior. I made goals for myself and my students that were attainable. If I got lazy, it showed in my score at the end of the week. This reminded me to stay on course and to remain focused on my goal to make every student an Alpha. The 5 classroom rules, the Super Improvers Wall, and the Scoreboard helped me attain my goal. I learned planning ahead, being prepared, and consistency is imperative in managing classroom behavior and teaching.
Faten, you included many specific examples of how you reflected on your data and made adjustments. Great! Here are 25 Certification Points!
DeleteSelf-evaluation and recording my personal progress on controlling my emotions along with tone of voice and how consistent I am in classroom management is one of the best things I could have done this past year. Each week I reviewed if I was being the best I teacher I could be by achieving my classroom goal of managing my own behavior and how much better an emotionally controlled teacher can lead her students to higher levels of thinking and learning. The times during the year that I did not reach a score of 16 for the week, it gave me the opportunity to check myself and review if I was being consistent in my actions and expectations or if I was too often speaking in an emotional tone that was not geared to my goals. When my score was not acceptable, I increased the scoring frequency of 2-3 days instead of 5, thereby being more alert and focused on what I expected of myself and what I was actually accomplishing.
ReplyDeleteBesides using the student measures of following directions quickly, raising their hands for permission to speak, staying on task, and turning in neat work, I added the requirement of working cooperatively since most of the class day is spent working with partners, in small groups, or in centers instead of individually. Just as I record reading and math levels and a student’s progress, it was equally important to chart behavioral progress as well to be able to monitor if a student moved from being a challenging student to a fence sitter, or from being just a fence sitter to a go along. This helped me have a more visual and accurate record of who the alpha students were and which students might be moved more easily into good leaders. By grouping my students I was able to create more heterogonous groups for centers and at the same time placing my challenging students in position to see desired model behaviors that were expected not only by me but also by their peers. By using the tool of grouping and charting my students’ behavior, I was able to make adjustments in centers, small group tasks and overall classroom environment to help my challenging students focus on the current task.
I learned to adjust scoring goals and evaluation frequency of myself and my students along with recognizing and grouping students according to current and desired behaviors, and to have specific goals for each group of students to create an optimal learning environment for all students.
Peggy, you have included some really good examples of how to use the data to make adjustments to your teaching. I love the idea of adding cooperative skills to the student progress chart. Good! Here are 25 Certification Points for you!
DeleteAs this year comes to a close, I sit back and reflect on the past year. I had charted my own behavior in regards to my emotions by controlling the attitude in my voice. I also knew I needed to pay close attention to my classroom management plan, by continuously following through and not let it fade or decline over the year.
ReplyDeleteAs the year started I knew I was given a “special” group of students. I was ready to make this a great year for them and also myself. As the school year progressed, my reaction to my most difficult students proved to be stressful. So I challenged myself to control the tone in my voice and concentrate on using extremely positive phrases. At the end of each day, I would record who I did this with and what was said. My goal was at least 80% of my students and the next day make sure to seek out the other 20%, first! As I look over my data I saw a huge change in the climate of my classroom. I noticed that by ME changing this seemed to trigger a more successful classroom environment.
In addition to my emotions I knew a great classroom management plan is crucial to active learning. My plan was pretty good, and always was in the beginning. However, when procedures are in place, the learning starts, and it is academics all the way. I knew I would get so caught up in my teaching the curriculum that classroom behavior became secondary. This year I knew that had to change so it did. Looking out over the students I could see the different personalities. Some were very quiet to just talking out. They were also very bright to struggling. So looking over my data I was pleased to see that most of these students no longer had such a huge gap between them. When led by example, my bright students followed the expectations of the classroom, they in turn, become leaders. As the others watched they too noticed that by following the classroom procedures, their success was greatly enhanced.
Since keeping track of this data, it has really shown me that students really do want to become leaders even if they show just a bit of success. Watching them grow has even made me grow! Collecting that data is a powerful piece of information needed to make a better teacher.
Mrs. C., I love how you reflected on your 0% goal each day and challenged yourself to seek out the other 20% first thing the next day. What a wonderful idea! Here are 25 Certification Points for you!
DeleteWell the school year is done and do I have some data. Prior to this year I charted daily behavior for the students. I found it helpful to look at patterns and to show the parents. This year I started charting my behavior as well as the kids' behavior. Wow, what a difference this year has been.
ReplyDeleteIn the past, when I charted students' behavior, I was charting the negative side to their behavior. I could tell you how many warnings a student received and what color they were on when they left for the day. So obviously I could tell you my green students as well. With the old plan though, I could not tell who was consistently trying to improve their behavior.
This year I started a rating system for the students' behavior. At the end of each day I gave the students a number from 5 to 1 based on if they followed directions quickly, raised their hands to ask for permission to speak, stayed on task, and turned in neat work. I tried waiting for the end of the week to review behavior but I found that if I took 5 minutes and the end of each day that I had a better memory of their behavior. Alphas received a 4 for being consistent with rules, Go-Alongs a 3 sometimes fell short, Fence Sitters a 2 sometimes modeled positive behavior sometimes not, and the Challenging kids received a 1 but hardly followed the rules. The 5 was reserved for students for the leaders. These were students that followed the rules and were also self managing themselves. At the end of the week I averaged the students scores for the week then gave myself a score based on the class average. My goal each week was for students to show upward movement within the ratings. My goal for the year was to have my students moving into the leaders group.
As for myself, I received a daily score for how well I kept my cool. On my outstanding days I received a 10 which was the highest rating. If I raised my voice or handled a situation with confrontation then I lost a point or two. I did have days that were lower than I am proud of, but having this system helped to remind me of using calm strategies. Whenever I'm being evaluated I always try a little harder even if I'm the one doing the evaluating. By keeping a daily accountability of my own behavior. I felt that I had more control of my own behavior. I took the daily scores and averaged them for the week. This was my teaching score.
At the end of each week I combined my teaching score and the students' behavior score. Good weeks had an average of 16 or higher. As the year progressed the scores became more consistent and improved. It was interesting to see the correlation between my teaching score and the behavior score. On the days/weeks when I had a lower score so did my kids. Wow, did that give me incentive to act better! How could I expect my kids to follow good behavior if I wasn't?
The cool thing I found about tracking my behavior and the students was that I had something to show others. I shared my findings with my teammates and they embraced the strategy as well. By mid-year we had a smooth running grade level.
This is an easy strategy that I will continue to use and share.
Bethany Patel
spazzzmommie (love your name), you are so right when you talk about trying harder when you are being evaluated. That's a great lesson to teach your kids too! Self-evaluation is the key to encouraging leadership skills! Don't be stressed, though, if all of your kids aren't at "Leader" level by the end of the year. It's not about attainment, it's about improvement! Here are 25 Certification Points for you.
DeleteAt the start of this year, I set the overall goal of submerging my classroom, thoroughly, in the whole brain teaching classroom techniques. I had dabbled in the past with the different strategies but felt it was time to fully commit to the WBT system and develop my classroom. To show improvements made by me and my students, I created charts and reflected regularly. Throughout the year, I focused on evaluating whether I controlled my emotions and to what degree I consistently followed the management system. I was then able to chart my students’ progress to become more successful in their behavioral choices during class. After secretly dividing my students into behavior categories similar to those mentioned in Mrs. Maestra’s class, I was able to set a baseline behavior, establish short term goals, and even establish long term goals for each of my students. At the end of each week, I charted where I felt each student performed behaviorally and compared it to their goals. Each month I suspected that each student would be able to raise the average score 0.1 so that the class would result in an average of one whole level by the end of the school year. This data collection lended itself beautifully to regular self reflection. It allowed me to see correlations between my behaviors and the students’ behavioral success rate. I noticed that the more consistent I was in my whole brain teaching, the better my class responded to lessons. The overall sense of community in the classroom grew leaps and bounds as the year progressed. I shared behavior successes with my students on their Super Improvers Wall and by means of small discussions. These positive motivators only increased their sense of achievement and self efficacy. My parents even stopped me in the hallway to gloat about their child’s experiences in the classroom. Interestingly enough, I found that I no longer went home feeling tired and defeated. Documenting my gains, reflections, and each of my students’ gains allowed me to share my wonderful experience with my administration by means of the required IPDP. I was able to see where we all ended at the conclusion of the school year in comparison the where we all started at the beginning of the year. There were weeks where we may not have all individually met our short term goals, but that only made us try harder in the following weeks. I relish in the thought of always being a work in progress and I look forward to learning even more in the comforts of my WBT classroom next year.
ReplyDeleteJennifer, that's awesome that you are sharing your data and reflections with your admin through your IPDP! What great professional development. Here are 25 certification points for you!
ReplyDeleteThe end of the year has come! Wow, what a difference a year makes especially when you are able to track yourself and your students. Until this year I had not really given much thought to tracking myself. I have always tracked the children to see where they had grown and changed. Tracking myself and documenting events occurring throughout a week I was able to get a clearer picture of how we had grown. One of my goals was to bring back the spark to my class and give the children my total self. In doing this the children opened up more and became more actively involved in the classroom activities. This also alleviated time for problems to arise. It was exciting watching the children come out of their shells and feel comfortable knowing what was expected of them and rising to meet the challenge.
ReplyDeleteThe other goal I was tracking was not only me preparing the lessons and class, but involving the children in the process. This was a total success. The children were eager to come up with ideas and problem solve together. We didn't have any of the bickering or misbehavior, because they were all working on a common goal. The children felt comfortable stating their ideas. This was also a great asset to the smoothness of the classroom, as everyone was aware of how, what, and why decisions were made. There were times when there was a disruption to our normal day that we had to come back in and re-group. I am looking forward to using more of the strategies from WBT next year.
Comptonhouse,
ReplyDeleteYour post is a good reflection on the correlation between our personal goals as teachers and the goals we set for our students. I like your statement, "This was also a great asset to the smoothness of the classroom, as everyone was aware of how, what, and why decisions were made." Here are 25 Certification Points for you.
My biggest challenge is the same as Mrs. Maestra’s…controlling my emotions by controlling my tone of voice and being able to consistently follow my WBT plan of classroom management including the Scoreboard. Of course, some days it’s easier to accomplish than others. One thing that is always true is that I regret the times that I give away my emotions because that action has a domino affect on my students’ behaviors. I did not do any charting of my behavior last year but will for the 2013-14 year. In “imagining next year is completed” I will find that using Mrs. Maestra’s system of charting both tone of voice and consistency in classroom management helped me stay on target with all of my classes. It provided accountability for myself and gave me a goal of improving doing my very best each day.
ReplyDeleteMrs. Maestra is a wise teacher and dividing her students into Alphas, Go-Alongs, Fence Sitters, Challenging Students and Leaders was brilliant. By having a goal to move my Alphas to Leaders and my Go-Alongs to Alphas, my Fence Sitters to Go-Alongs and my Challenging Students to Fence Sitters during the year, I had a more concrete plan of how I was going to be able to change my students’ behaviors and move them up at least a level in classroom behavior. I “imagine” that each of my students were able to accomplish this goal because I had a baseline of their behavior (their level) and I knew what was necessary to change their behavior (move them up at least one level). One of my favorite quotes is… “Without data it’s just another opinion.” Charting my behaviors and that of my students will provide data to back up the behavior changes that result from WBT strategies!
Kathy,
ReplyDeleteYou are so right about the need for data to support decision making! Here are 25 certification points for you!
Another year is over and as I look back over the year it has been a great one! I attribute this to my decision to track both my own and my students behavior progress through out the year.
ReplyDeleteAt the end of the first week, I divided my students into the four types of students described in Whole Brain Teaching for Challenging Kids, chapter four. In my classroom, I expected my model students to follow directions quickly, raise their hand for permission to speak, complete quality work, and support one another. Starting the second week of classes, I gave points for the students that fell into each group. Model students, the Alphas, earned four points. The Go-Alongs, students who just fell shy of model behavior, earned three points each. The students who could go either way depending on the day, Fence Sitters, earned two points per student. That left the most difficult group of students, Challenging Students, at the bottom earning one point per student. At the end of the week, I added the points and divided by the number of students in my class. This was the class's weekly behavior score. With the student progress system in place, it was time to put a system in place to track my progress.
As a veteran teacher, I knew it was important to control my reaction to my students' behavior. I decided to give myself a score of one to ten with, ten being the highest score, for controlling my reaction to student behaviors. In addition, I gave myself an additional score for consistently using the behavior management system in my class. This system includes procedures for both positive and negative behaviors. I added these two scores together to get my weekly progress score.
The additional effort to track our progress was more than worth the time it took each week. By controlling on my own reactions to students' behavior and consistently implementing the behavior system, the students' behavior also became more positive. Through this experience, I was able to see when I was making progress and when I was not. It was highly motivating to see students move up the groups and to see my progress as well. Watching the scores rise for both myself and the students, made this classroom environment one of the most positive I have experienced in years!
Karen,
DeleteGreat description of the charting procedures in your classroom. I especially appreciate your detailed comments on scoring yourself through the week! Here are 25 Certification Points for you.
As I reflect back on this year, I am incredibly grateful for faithfully charting my own behavior and my students’ progress. This year, my primary goal was managing my own behavior. I learned that by controlling my emotions and my tone of voice I was able to manage my challenging students on a whole new level. I especially learned the tremendous importance of keeping a weekly record of my rebel pupils. By carefully tracking their behavior, and my own, I was able to see clearly if I was getting anywhere with them and the rest of my class.
ReplyDeleteIn addition to charting my behavior, I also charted my mood and anything that was going on in my life that would have an impact on my behavior in the classroom. This was a real eye opener for me. As the year progressed, as a result of my tracking, it was quite clear to me that how I was personally feeling had a tremendous impact to how I controlled my emotions in the classroom.
I worked hard all year long to leave any “personal baggage” at the door and I saw real growth in myself and in my students on their journey upward. The greatest benefit of this charting system is that it takes the guesswork out of where I’ve been and where I am going; are my students showing improvement or not? I thoroughly enjoyed using this charting system and I will most certainly continue to use it to benefit myself and my dear students.
Rivky,
DeleteNice job! Can you picture our classroom doors with all the luggage next to them each day? I know how hard it can be on some days to "just let it go" for a few hours! But, as you shared, we need to keep the journey moving upward! Here are 25 certification points for you! Save and date this post in a word processing file. In August, we'll post directions for turning it in to redeem your points.
Heading into any new school year, goals and progress charting are on the front burner. We have our data meetings each week and make program changes as needed in response to this data. This school year I added goals for myself, which were monitored throughout the year.
ReplyDeleteThe first goal was to control my tone of voice. I found in past years, despite knowing better, if stresses were high I would raise my voice. I monitored this as the new school year began. After the first few weeks I thought this goal could be dropped. The school year was off to a good start with the implementation of the 5 Rules, and the students were responding superbly. As the year progressed however, there were times that I raised my voice. After reviewing my anecdotal records, it was clear it happened most often at the end of the day when we were rushed to get through curriculum, especially struggling to fit in interventions. I made a schedule change, which isn’t easy when our grade level has blocked times for reading, math, and interventions. I found that if I made time during morning activities and language arts, I could fit in 20 minutes of interventions. These 20 minutes illuminated the stresses at the end of the day.
The second goal I set for myself was to keep transition time to a minimum. After observation and data collection (tally marks of off task behavior) the first few weeks of school, I found that transition time was often when attention was lost and the door was open for off task behavior. As I result of this off task behavior, I realized that behavior issues increased when transition time increased. Reinforcement of Rule 1, Follow Directions Quickly, was what I addressed immediately. We practiced the rule, reinforced it when it wasn’t being followed by stating it, and used The Scoreboard to give immediate feedback as to how we were doing. We also used Teach-Okay and The Scoreboard to practice broken down transitional behaviors. Some examples of these behaviors are silently taking a book out of our desk, moving into different groupings quickly/ respectfully, and “hands & eyes” to show readiness.
Charting my students’ progress also proved successful. The three behaviors I measured were staying on task, turning in completed work, and raising their hand for permission to speak. I then divided my students into four secret groups, as Mrs. Maestra did in Chapter 4. The groups were the Alphas, the Go-Alongs, the Fence Sitters, and the Challenging Students. That first week I totaled up points for each group giving the Alphas 4 points, the Go-Alongs 3 points, the Fence Sitters 2 points, and the Challenging students 1 point and then divided by my number of students to get an average. Each new week I would consistently put my students into groups and again get an average score. A group called the Leaders was added above the Alphas so that they would have something to strive for. This method showed growth of the whole class, and each individual child. I had real behavioral data to share with my administration, parents, and the students privately when they moved groups. My most difficult students, had clear knowledge of what I was expected of them and how they were meeting those expectations. I added on last component, and that was a self-rating scale, strongly encouraged by our administration and a large component of our teacher evaluations. At the end of each week the students would rate themselves on a scale. The scale was kept in their communication binders so parents were able to see how they were rating themselves and any additional notes we added post-rating after conferencing.
Catherine,
DeleteI appreciate the specific goals you set for yourself, and then for your students. Being able to narrow down the times of the day that were most challenging for you is a definite step forward in management. In future posts watch out for mistakes like, "As I result of this..." and, "...had clear knowledge of what I was expected of them..." Here are 10 Certification points for you. Save and date this post in a word processing file. In August, we'll post directions for turning it in to redeem your points.
This is my first year of Whole Brain Teaching and the measure of improvement for my skill in managing my class rests in these two charts. One chart for my progress and one chart for my students’ progress show how far we’ve come together.
ReplyDeleteStarting the year I began tracking my success in keeping calm in the face of opposition and sticking with my classroom management plan. I scored my self each week and from here, it seems like I was a completely different person on day one of this school year. I’m glad I learned to give myself a grade each week and work toward improving every week. The graph of my scores is really a proof of the training I received and put into action.
My students made amazing progress, too. The changes in their attitudes, successes and personal pride are obvious to me, but born out in the charts I kept for each one. The measures I chose showed me success in classwork, behavior, and attention. Everyone raised at least one level and finishing this year, I have four solid leaders moving on with the class.
It’s been a good year, but without the data of the charts, I wouldn’t know that I impacted every single student in the class this year. That’s a fact. The charts are here to stay.
Russ,
DeleteCharting may seem like one more chore to do at the end of the day, but your post shows why the extra effort is so important! Here are 25 certification points for you! Save and date this post in a word processing file. In August, we'll post directions for turning it in to redeem your points.
At the beginning of the year, I decided I would chart my students’ growth along with my own progress. My goal was to do a weekly evaluation using a scale of 1-10 (10 being the highest). At first it seemed daunting to spend so much time evaluating behavior. I turned it into more of a game, so I could challenge myself weekly. I kept it on my desk, so I could read it every day and be mindful of my actions. I really believe that “you can’t manage student behavior if you can’t manage your own”. I found I became consistent, which the children pick up on right away. I found it very helpful in gauging my performance.
ReplyDeleteOnce I started charting my students' behavior, I arranged it much like a peer mentoring program; I grouped my “fence sitters” with the “Alphas” or “leaders” of the class. I charted the children’s behavior on the same scale I used for myself, starting with two areas of focus. One was the 5 powerful classroom rules; the other was working together without being loud and disruptive to others. Right away, I witnessed that the “leader and alpha” children were seriously influencing the “fence sitter” children to stay on task longer. I could now see the progress in my classroom management plan and how the chart was working.
By the end of the year, I really was proud of how much progress the class and I had made. This was the best year by far, being able to see the progress I was making in the classroom. Next year, I can fine tune it even more and watch the magic happen. I can’t wait!
Julie,
DeleteI like the game element you brought to the charting process! Having students eager to encourage each other to reach higher goals shows the power of your plan! Here are 25 certification points for you! Save and date this post in a word processing file. In August, we'll post directions for turning it in to redeem your points.
If a picture is worth a thousand words, then these charts are should be a best-selling novel. As good of memory as I may have, nothing can compare to writing down data and analyzing it. When I sit back at the end of the day, there is no denying what is in black and white. If I was an artist, I could keep adding details until my masterpiece was perfect, but data does not always present itself in a masterpiece format.
ReplyDeleteHaving taught special needs students for many years and now having them in my general education classroom, I have tracked behaviors of students in so many ways and formats that I could not count them all. However, it was not until I started tracking my own behaviors that I realized that maybe, just maybe, it was not all the students behavior that was the problem, but sometimes it is just my own. As much as I want a community atmosphere in my classrooms, I also have to keep in mind that I am the one who is really in charge. I alone can make my day a really good one or a really bad one. I have blamed my bad days on student X,Y, or Z, but in hind sight, it is me and how I react to those students that determines my kind of day. Charting different behaviors that I did or did not exhibit during the day was a true eye-opener to my mood when I got home each day. My own children were not in my classroom so I vow to take a good, long, hard look at ME at the end of the day and be happy or be mad at ME, not my students, not my children, and not my husband.
So, after looking back, I guess I am somewhat of an artist. I can add a few little details to my day or change a few little details in my day, so that when the bell rings at 3:15, I can step back and see the beautiful masterpiece of learning that I created that day.
newlyenergizedteacher,
DeleteYour class is a beautiful work of art! Which behaviors did you focus on for yourself, and for your students? How did you score your observations? In future posts, be careful of errors in mechanics and sentence structure. ("...then these charts are should be a best-selling novel." "...students behavior...") Here are 10 Certification points for you. Save and date this post in a word processing file. In August, we'll post directions for turning it in to redeem your points.
Yay Yay Yay! I completed a WHOLE year of faithfully charting my own behavior as an instructor AND my students’ progress. Kudos on outstanding effort and growth! Looking back on a challenging but highly successful year, I have learned…
ReplyDelete1. My primary goal in the classroom is not to “control” students. We use the term “manage” student behavior, but before I could be successful with managing others I had to learn to manage myself. By maintaining composure and consistently following my classroom management plan, I was able to make rational decisions all day about instruction AND how to handle each and every classroom behavior thrown my way.
2. By tracking my students’ individual behavior patterns, and analyzing classroom trends, I was able to see a correlation between my score as a teacher and their score as a citizen of our classroom. As my consistency increased, their misbehavior decreased, optimizing time on task and overall instructional time. Coach B has actually found the most precious gift any teacher can possibly have… more TIME!
3. Consequences, both positive and negative, are as natural in our world as Newton’s Laws of Motion, or Supply and Demand. “For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.” As I tracked my behaviors and compared with the students’ behaviors, I began to realize that the students were learning, from my calm, consistent adherence to the management plan, that for every action they make, there is a reaction. When smart choices are made, rewards are given. When poor choices are made, they are provided the opportunity to practice a more acceptable behavior. During these “practices” (of only about 2 minutes) I was given an opportunity as well - - the opportunity to prepare my thoughts and respectfully approach each situation rationally. I had enough time to remind myself of the 7 common teaching mistakes so that I could avoid them during this interaction and prepare my body language and tone to communicate that the consequences were not personal, just the reaction caused by the student’s actions.
4. Finally, and most importantly, I came to realize that “grow or die” applies to our students as well. Based on my behavior in the classroom and my consistency, passion, and preparation I am encouraging, inspiring, and ultimately leading growth in my students, OR sadly, contributing slowly to their academic death. Which would I rather do? Grow my students through example and instruction. Or, kill them with inconsistent, ineffective teaching and management techniques that breed chaos. It is a choice that I must make with each decision, every day. Although it is seemingly a very daunting task, it is one that WBT helped me accomplish!
Addie,
ReplyDeleteNice reflection on the results of your charting project. Your comments underline the value of your efforts during the past year. Here are 25 Certification points for you. Save and date this post in a word processing file. In August, we'll post directions for turning it in to redeem your points.
As I look back over my behavior charts, I am struck by the strong correlation between my behavior and that of the students. As I consistently control my responses to students and the implementation of my classroom management plan, my students’ behavior becomes more positive.
ReplyDeleteIn previous years, I would be frustrated by the few students who remained challenging, despite what I felt were my best efforts. By grouping and charting student behaviors, this year, I had real evidence that student behavior was improving!
Charting behavior progress also allowed me to see patterns. I could see, for example, that my own behavior scores were lower during high stress weeks, like parent teacher conferences, ends of grading periods, and the end of year onslaught of paperwork! This tells me that my outside of school work may need to increase, so that I’m hyper-organized and can focus on my behavior goals.
Similarly, I see patterns of lower student behavior scores during the weeks before vacations or around the times of highly anticipated school events. This helps me to see the importance of a high-energy lesson plan that will keep students engaged in content. Maintaining my own energy and enthusiasm during these periods is another key to success.
It is great to have evidence of the relationship between teacher and students!
Senora Keith,
DeleteThis is another great post from you! I appreciate the information gathered specific to the times of the year. Here are 25 points!
When I began teaching three years ago, I knew classroom management was my Achilles’ heel. I had to develop something quickly. Fortunately, co-teachers were very experienced and helped me tremendously, but it remained my weak area. Even so, when I learned that WBT classroom management meant I needed to fill out another weekly report, it did not make this dear teacher happy!
ReplyDeleteThat was then. Now, I am so glad I compiled the weekly ratings because it forced me to keep the scoreboard and the SIT faithfully all year long. Each day I counted the number of tick marks on the scoreboard and noted them on my weekly summary. It helped train me to use the scoreboard each class period consistently. I also reviewed the SIT cards weekly as I learned to pace myself so that I did not to give out too many or too few stars. I wanted to make sure that all stars were earned and, at the same time, wanted students to know improvement would be rewarded.
Compiling the weekly student ratings helped me with behavior modification. It showed me when I was successful and when I needed to use another WBT technique with a student. I was also able to show behavior trends to parents. When I showed a graph based on their child’s weekly rating, it was a game-changer during parent conferences. It was hard for parents to argue with data.
All in all, weekly reflection reports were very helpful for me this past year.
Ruby Aguilar
Ruby,
DeleteNoting the Scoreboard tally marks, as well as the SIT stars, was very valuable in reflecting and sharing daily and weekly progress in your class! Here are 25 points for you!
Before learning about WBT one of my greatest challenges was my tone of voice. I wasn’t aware of how often I was yelling at my students. This year I monitored the tone of my voice, consistency of follow through with classroom management and the student’s behavior. Every year it seems I will have at least one student who is sweet, smart and polite however, they can’t seem to raise their hand for permission to speak. You hate to constantly correct them, because they are such an all-around good student. I knew that it was an area that I needed to work on, but figured I had bigger problems, not realizing that the other students are feeding off of one student.
ReplyDeleteAfter a year of successfully charting my behavior as well as the students it has become easier for me to control the tone of my voice. Grading myself aided me in becoming accountable of my behavior, by documenting when or what was happening when I was struggling, I could then come up with a plan to adapt to that time of day.
Monitoring my student’s behavior also helped me move the students up to the next level. It helped me become aware of students who seemed to be meeting my expectations, but just needed the extra boost.
As the year comes to an end the students become disruptive and fidgety. However buy using the weekly reflection and motivation for myself the students were engaged up to walking out of Kindergarten.
Now to spend the summer reflecting and coming up with an even better plan for next year.
Lori Wessing
Lori, Good reflection about charting progress. It is always interesting how the chart brings our attention to children that were not necessarily on our radar. Be careful of those teeny spelling mistakes. (buy/by). Here are 20 certification points just for you!
ReplyDeleteAs I pause to reflect on this past school year, I feel proud of myself. Not only did I achieve my goal of attaining more consistency with my WBT classroom management plan, I was able to follow through with a chart of my students’ behavior, as well as my own. I learned several things about myself and my students.
ReplyDeleteThe most useful tactic I will carry into the years to come is my own competitiveness. I really wanted to see myself improve on the week’s prior score! It was so useful keeping those numbers in mind, and it helped curb my rising emotions. My own competitiveness also kept the consistency with my classroom management plan. On weeks when I scored low, I really stepped up my game. On weeks when I scored high, I struggled even more to beat my top score. It was thrilling! Charting my progress made me temper my emotions, and it forced me to follow through with my classroom management plan. As exciting as it was for me, my students were really the ones who benefited.
After the honeymoon period at the beginning of the year, it was easy to sort my children into groups. I loved that each one always had a place to move to. Keeping in mind where they currently were and where I wanted them to be helped raise the bar of my expectations for them. I quickly learned that in order for me to help them reach the goal of moving up into the next group, I had to make sure I was consistent. Most of my students did improve and move up, and the ones who didn’t quite make it still made improvement.
This motivates me all the more for next year. I want 100% growth! As tricky as it was to chart behavior, remain accountable, and be honest with myself, the dividends in student achievement were more than worth it.
Meredith,
ReplyDeleteYou are so correct in recognizing the "dividends in student achievement" as a result of this program! Here are 25 new points!
As the year comes to an end it is time to reflect and think about my own behavior as an instructor. Throughout this year I have kept track of my behavior in two ways. Did I control my emotions by controlling my tone of voice and did I consistently following through with my classroom management plan. Both of these are important to remember throughout the year. If I cannot manage my own behavior how can manage a class? Likewise if I did not use WBT consistently how could I expect to see growth? Since I created a points system to track this and I gathered data weekly it was easy to see my growth and improvement. It was also easy to see where I needed to improve. Along with reflecting on my behavior I was able to look back and see the growth individual students had made. Again having a set points system or groups made it easy to see where there was progress and growth with individual students. Sometimes it is hard to see growth if you are looking for a short term fix. You have to think about the bigger picture or long term. This way of tracking students’ growth has allowed me see their individual growth over a long period of time. I am so glad that I have tracked behavior this way and will continue to do so year after year.
ReplyDeleteAndrea McCord
Andee,
DeleteTracking both student progress, as well as your own, gives you a lot of data to analyze. You're right, you do have to look at the bigger picture. You said, "It was also easy to see where I needed to improve." It would have been great if you included some more details on this. You get all of this data, now what do you do about it? That's the big question. Here are 20 Certification Points for you efforts!
“Charting Progress” Reflection Journal Entry: Final Entry for ’12-’13 SY
ReplyDeleteNow that the school year is over, it’s important to look back and take stock of what I have learned from my “Charting Progress” experiment. At the beginning of the year, I embarked on a journey to monitor both my students’ and my own behavioral progress. However, of the two, I found it was more important for me to monitor my own behavior. For myself, I documented just two variables: how well I could control my emotions through the tone of my voice, and my ability to follow through on my classroom management plan.
An important life lesson I learned from charting my progress is that it is imperative to keep my own emotions in check, especially with my most challenging students. I must remember that I am ultimately in charge of my responses to other people’s behavior and that unless I allow them to do so, no one can upset me; it is my own loss of awareness that results in my losing control of my emotions.
Additionally, I realized the importance of consistency in classroom management systems. When, for example, I allowed students to break a classroom rule, such as calling out without first raising their hand, I found students’ poor behaviors escalated. Much like keeping track of the slow, incremental progress of an exercise program, monitoring my consistency with classroom management helped keep me keep focused on the goals that I had set for myself at the beginning of the year.
Nevertheless, as I tracked my progress on both of these aspects of teaching, I noticed that there were certain events and times of the year that were more challenging for me. If I hadn’t been monitoring myself over time, I’m sure I would not have been aware of the relationship between them.
Also, by having established a baseline for this information at the beginning of the year, I was able to recognize the steady progress I had made. It was rewarding to record and see how I was doing week by week. Of course some weeks were better than others, but as we all know from Aesop’s fable, The Tortoise and the Hare, slow and steady wins the race.
With regard to my other goal of monitoring students’ behavior, unbeknownst to them I had arranged them into groups which corresponded with their classroom behavior. Throughout the year I kept track of which group each individual student belonged. I made a point of informing both the student and their parents when a student had moved up to the next level.
What I found most striking though, was that as the year progressed, my students’ behaviors seemed to be improving in relation to how well I was able to control my own behavior and follow through with my classroom management system. It’s been such a pleasure to watch my students’ behavior improve and more importantly, to get the recognition that they deserve for it, especially for the Leaders of the class. Now for the first time ever, instead of student behavior making a steady decline to the end of the year, the students' classroom behavior has actually gotten much better over time, and not surprisingly, so has mine!
Heidi,
ReplyDeleteYou're absolutely right when you say that our students' behaviors improve in relation to our own behavior. Nice job! Here are 25 Certification Points for you!
Terri Brown
ReplyDeleteJuly 7, 2013
What a year it’s been. Now that I’ve had some time to recover” it is time to reflect over this past year and see what did and didn’t work during the year. This past year was my first year to fully implement WBT. The two behaviors I chose to chart at the beginning of the year were to be consistent in implementing, enforcing and practicing the 5 classroom rules and to control my tone and level of voice when things weren’t going well. I find it to be true that: You cannot manage student behavior if you cannot manage your own behavior.
The first behavior I charted was my consistency in implementing, enforcing and practicing the 5 classroom rules. What I found was at the beginning of the year, I was pretty good about implementing and practicing the 5 rules. As time and stress got to me I could see where I was slipping and not constantly practicing the rules as students behavior started to get out of control. By charting my procedure, I realized that I actually did better when I added reminders right on my lesson plans to practice the rules at certain times of the day when student behavior seemed to escalate. As an example, I could tell a difference in student behavior after specialists and afternoon recess. When I was consistent, the students responded and we didn’t waste valuable learning time.
The second behavior I charted was my tone and level of voice. A wake up call for me was when a student the previous year drew a picture of a dragon with wings and a speech bubble. Inside the speech bubble was, BE QUIET! I asked him who was that and he said you yelling at the kids to be quiet, oh my! I know that yelling at the kids does not make them listen. I found myself doing this when I felt all else had failed. Reviewing my charts, I felt I did well at the beginning of the year, however, when I wasn’t consistent with the 5 classroom rules, my tone and level increased when the students’ behavior was off task. Due to my charting on being consistent with the 5 classroom rules, I found there was no reason for me to get upset and increase my voice level.
Taking the time to chart my behaviors benefited both the students and me. I was able to stay focused and they in turn stayed focused on learning. After all, learning is what it’s all about!
Terri,
ReplyDeleteGreat job reflecting on your teacher behaviors. We learn a lot when we chart progress. An important part of this prompt and the chapter was charting students' behavior. What additional information do you think this might give you in your quest for Teacher Heaven? Here are 20 certification points for you!
It is the end of another school year and time to look back on my progress and evaluate my data. This year, I made a conscious effort to monitor and track not only my students' behavior but my own as well. I decided to focus on 3 key areas; follow directions quickly, raise their hands for permission to speak, and engagement during lessons.
ReplyDeleteI used the same grouping system as Mrs. Maestra and realized that the majority of my class was Go-Alongs and Fence Sitters. My goal was to move these students up one level and end the year with a group of Leaders.
Looking back on my data and reflecting on my own behavior, I realized that my Go-Alongs mirrored my attitude. On days that I was tired or 'not in to it' they were less consistent. My inconsistency became theirs. Only by looking at my own behavior weekly did I realize that the more consistent in my classroom management I was the more progress my students made. Soon, I found my Go-Alongs becoming Alphas. They were consistently engaged and following the rules regardless of whose classroom they were in.
My biggest 'Ah-ha' came on one of the worst days. I found myself sitting behind my desk shaking my head at how many things went wrong, then looking up at the Scoreboard and only seeing 2 points. 2 points!! So I started tracking the amount of Scoreboard points daily. The more points on the Scoreboard the more focused all my groups were, including my challenging students. Utilizing the Scoreboard helped my Fence Sitters remember to follow directions quickly and raise their hands for permission to speak. I was able to end the year with a group of 4 Leaders and less Fence Sitters. Reflecting on my own behavior was powerful. My students were happy and engaged. Consistency is key!
Sara,
DeleteYes, consistency is key in managing a classroom! The Scoreboard is very powerful, but you have to use it all day! Here are 25 points!
A major part of growth is reflection. In college, our professors made us reflect on practically every assignment, every practicum we completed and every project we accomplished. Why then, did I think I would never need to employ this strategy as an actual teacher? If we have been taught to chart and monitor student behavior, then why wouldn’t it work for adults as well? As I read about Mrs. Maestra’s success with self-tracking, I was encouraged to give charting a try.
ReplyDeleteChris Biffle’s statement “…she couldn’t manage her challenging students, if she couldn’t control her reaction to them” is very true. As I had several challenging students this year, I knew that my own self-control would make or break our classroom community. I am such a competitive person, that I knew the Charting Progress system would be right up my alley! I would look at this as a motivator, a personal challenge, and by setting personal goals; I would be able to compete with myself to do better each week to follow my own classroom management plan. Every week I gave myself a grade from 1-10 based on my ability to be consistent with my classroom management, and also a score on self-control. Although I had weeks that my score was not as high as I liked, I recognized that I was now more aware of my responses to those difficult situations, as was able to reflect on better solutions.
I also chose to follow her pattern to evaluate each student’s classroom behavior. The four measures I used were: following directions quickly, raised their hands for permission to speak, stayed on task, and turned in neat work. Using these measures, I divided my class into groups. My Alpha group was quite small to begin with. It consisted of those sweet three young ladies that are just people pleasers all the time! I gave myself 4 points for each alpha member. One in particular, Jennifer, was actually a huge motivator for me to do this charting system. Although she fell into my Alpha group, a comment she made privately to me really made me step my game up and look for a way to improve my teaching. She, in a nutshell, told me of her frustrations in our school, and in our classroom. She noted the disruptive behaviors of students, and how irritated she was that we often struggled to get through a lesson without “David” having an outburst. I decided that Jennifer did not deserve that frustration and vowed to look for a better way to handle “David” and his comrades.
Secondly, my next group was the “Go-Alongs”. This was a large group of students that tried hard, but were overly chatty. I gave myself three points for each of these students. I focused on the tenant “raise your hand for permission to speak” often with this group, and the card system seemed to work well.
My third group, the “fence sitters” included the majority of the class at the beginning of the year. Thankfully, throughout the year, by employing Whole Brain Teaching methods, this drastically improved! Most of these students moved to Alpha and Go- Alongs quite nicely. The third group, “challenging students” were David’s domain. After introducing WBT methods such as the scoreboard, cards, guff counter etc., even David moved to the Fence Sitters group often. Mid-year I was even able to add a small group of leaders that were self-managing.
Each week I tallied my points and averaged then based upon the number of students. This form of reflection was invaluable to me because I was giving myself, and my administrators, a visual to see growth and areas of need in my own behavior as a teacher. But, it also was a way for me to see growth in my students. This was a manageable system, taking only a few minutes of my time, and the results were well worth it as I noted growth in myself and every student by the end of the year.
Michelle Shelton
Michelle,
ReplyDeleteGreat post! I appreciate the specific examples you gave to illustrate your group levels. Here are 25 points and a 5 point Bonus!
Wow! Another school year has come and gone. Let’s stop and look at how well the year went. Now, starting off the year I knew it would be difficult because I would be going out on maternity leave in the middle of the school year. I used the point system to grade myself on controlling my voice and class management consistency then looked over the data each week. I noticed that I started the year off wonderful during the “honeymoon phase”. The same was true for the few weeks after. As I moved closer to my due date I started having less control of my voice, but having the grading system helped me see this and I reminded myself to stop, breathe, and regain control. After coming back from maternity leave, I had lots of struggles of getting myself and the class back in sync. However, the grading system always put me back in check. I think it is my competitive nature to do the best I can. I divided the students up into 4 groups based on following directions, raising their hand for permission to speak, staying on task, and turning in neat work. The students could move groups based on how they were graded. I noticed that most of my students were moving up. Again, after coming back from maternity leave some of my students had fallen back. Once we were able to get back on track as a class, my students regained their original groups or moved to higher groups. Looking back at the students behavior charts I can see that the weeks that I struggled they also struggled. Now that it is the end of the year, I need to always remember that their behavior mirrors my behavior.
ReplyDeleteDominique,
DeleteQuite an important lesson, isn't it? But isn't it also nice to know that you are in control of how your class progresses? Here are your 25 certification points!
As I look back over the last year, I think it is important to remind myself of where I started on my journey. I am fortunate to work in a school where behaviour is generally very good, with only one or two particularly challenging children in a class. There are far more ‘low-level’ behaviour issues that can sometimes go under the radar, so this was my main focus for improvement this year.
ReplyDeleteI am quite aware that my own failings as a teacher are that, when faced with particularly challenging behaviour, I can get quite exasperated and end up in an argument with the student. This needed to stop. Welcome to charting progress a la Mrs Maestra! I set myself a goal to turn this behaviour of mine around. Some weeks were fantastic, others less so, but I found that by charting my own behaviour I was able to look at those difficult weeks and begin to unpick exactly why they had happened. Maybe my planning wasn’t quite up to scratch that week, maybe I was starting to feel ill or tired … I could begin to see reasons, which helped me to keep striving toward my goal rather than give myself up as a failure!
As I was also charting my students, I could see correlations between my own behaviours and theirs. This really helped me focus on managing my attitudes so that it would have a beneficial effect on them. The children, too, knew that I was looking at their improvement for behaviour, even if they were not aware of who was an ‘alpha’ or a ‘fence sitter’! We were focussed all this year on improving ourselves in any way we can so it was great to celebrate their achievements in this area as well as the normal academic ones.
Now I am ready to start a new year, with a new set of students and once again I’ll be charting my own behaviour as well as theirs to keep proving to myself that we are growing and learning together.
Laura Ward
Laura,
DeleteSeeing growth is so motivating! Good luck with your charting system this year. Watch out for those tiny spelling errors (focussed). Here are 20 certification points!
Tired of losing my cool at school, I decided to track my teaching improvements with a weekly evaluation of my performance for the 2012-13 school year. My goal was to manage my own behavior by controlling my tone of voice and consistently follow through with my classroom management plan.
ReplyDeleteEvery week of the school year beginning in August I evaluated my ability to control my emotions and classroom management. I gave myself a grade on a scale of 1 (low) – 10 (high) on my ability to control my tone of voice and consistently follow my classroom management plan.
In October, I was comfortable with scoring myself and could tell that my scores in self-control and consistency in classroom management were improving. So, I added a system to chart my students’ progress.
I chose 4 measures and divided my class into groups without telling them. I kept weekly records to help me determine if I was making progress with classroom management. My goal was to raise the average behavior score for all my students by the end of the year, even if it was a small amount.
Weekly charting my behavior and students’ behavior helped me keep my eye on the goal of growth in positive behaviors. There were some bumps and stumbles along the way especially as FCAT got closer and I was stressed. Record keeping helped me focus on the students, not the test!
This school year was definitely one of my most enjoyable and successful years in the classroom. I learned that when I control my own behavior and consistently follow my classroom behavior management plan, the students are much better behaved. I will track my behavior and the students’ again in the 2013-14 school year. Thank you Chris Biffle and WBT!
Gena Parkison
Gena,
DeleteCharting takes time, but as you showed, it's worth the time! Nice job! Here are 25 points for you!
At first charting progress was one more chore to do among the many I already had on my agenda. I am glad I took the advice of Coach B and kept going because it quickly became a motivator for me. While imperceptible at first, progress slowly became apparent. It was especially exciting to eventually see students move up a level. I know my enthusiasm for those moves (or when I knew a student was getting close to moving up) helped me raise my expectations for that student, spurring even greater achievement in him or her. Never did I see students as “types” that were unlikely to change, thinking “Well, that’s just how he/she is.” I had proof that students can and will improve significantly given enough time and the right conditions!
ReplyDeleteCharting progress also helped me see patterns in students and the class to make better decisions about planning. I could more easily see when the class was ready for a new level of the scoreboard. I could see if, instead of slowly advancing, a student was stagnant or even regressing. (I found out that a close relative of one of my very quiet students was moving out of state. The student was very upset and was having a hard time dealing with the situation.) I could see how the time of year or proximity to an important event affected behavior. The weekly score provided invaluable information to me about myself, individual students, and the class as a whole.
Charting progress has been so helpful, I plan to expand it next year. The following are ideas I am considering. A priority will be to keep it very simple, so I can maintain it all year long.
1. Scoreboard points (Add up the total points each week to establish how often I am using it.)
2. Super Improver Team (Add up the total points I award each week to establish how often I am using it.)
3. Brain toys (Rate myself on a scale of 1-10 based on how often I am using them in my lessons.)
4. Teach-Okay (Rate myself on a scale of 1-10 based on how often I am using it in my lessons.)
5. Mirror (Rate myself on a scale of 1-10 based on how often I am using it in my lessons.)
Diane,
DeleteYou have a great plan ready for the fall! Here are 25 Certification Points for you!
I learned that looking at my own behavior first was empowering to me. Since I cannot control others, only influence them, evaluating how I controlled my emotions and followed through with my classroom management plan helped me to evaluate myself objectively and make changes I needed for the next week. I appreciated the quote, “Mrs. Maestra didn’t focus on managing students as her primary goal. Her primary classroom goal was managing her own behavior!”
ReplyDeleteThis self-awareness helped me consciously keep my emotions in tact with my voice calm under frustrating circumstances. With a few extremely challenging students, I was still able to grade myself highly in this area most weeks.
Staying consistent with following through with my classroom management plan was challenging, but my score did improve as I held myself accountable with my self-evaluations. The hardest part for me was remembering to follow through with consequences of practicing the rule at recess or another specific time for a student who had a practice card for a rule infringement.
Charting my students’ progress was difficult for me at the beginning of the year. Putting the students in groups and trying to evaluate them took a huge amount of time and required intermittent note taking throughout the week. As the weeks continued, I found this process less daunting, and I was excited to have concrete evidence of student growth.
Connie Way
Connie,
DeleteAlthough it does seem like a daunting task to progress monitor on all of your students each week, you will find that it is much easier that you anticipate. It's easily done in upper grades with 100+ students in much the same way. You can do it, and it's worth it! Here are 25 Certification Points for you!
Looking back at this past year, I feel a sense of accomplishment for the first time in a long time! I am proud, not just of myself, but of my students as well. I know I am feeling this sense of accomplishment due to having used Whole Brain Teaching throughout the year. One especially useful strategy that helped me recognize my success was having a tool to chart our progress. By having a visual, concrete representation of our progress, I was able to quantify our success - and the numbers were great!
ReplyDeleteThis past year, I used Mrs. Maestra’s evaluation system described on pages 14-17 in the book 'Whole Brain Teaching for Challenging Kids'. While overall this was a useful system, I did have some difficulties using it. The most challenging aspect of my personality and consequently, one of my biggest professional hurdles, is my disorganization. I constantly struggle to keep my classroom and especially my desk neat and clutter free. Since Mrs. Maestra’s evaluation system requires not only consistency, but organization I struggled at certain points in the year. I found that if I had a particularly busy week or if we were out of the room (computer lab, outside) I would forget to chart that day’s progress. So, I learned that this system requires organization and consistency. Next year, therefore I will focus on organizing my evaluation system.
Now for some of the positive things I learned as a result of using Mrs. Maestra’s evaluation system. By determining an average score for my students initially, I was able to place them in cooperative groups in a way that would be most beneficial to all group members. For example, I would try to have at least one Alpha or Go-Along in each cooperative group. In some classes where I had an especially high-scoring group, I was able to double up on the Alpha’s and Go-Alongs, which was great for all of us!
In addition, this evaluation tool was so relevant during parent-teacher conferences! Rather than simply repeating what my colleagues had already said about a particular student (“Suzy talks a lot during class”, “Suzy often seems distracted”, etc.), I was able to present parents with a visual representation of their child’s behavior and progress, or lack of in each area. I learned that this system can be beneficial to students, parents and teachers.
On final thing I learned while using Mrs. Maestra’s evaluation system is that it’s data driven! Our school, like many spends a lot of time studying and analyzing data about our students’ performance in order to better serve them. I learned that the reason this is so successful is because it is data-driven! I liked that this system demonstrated the growth over time of each of my classes. I also appreciate that in rating myself I am constantly improving my teaching. I can’t wait to see what I’ll learn next year!
Katherine,
ReplyDeleteIsn't it nice to know that while your students are improving, so are you? Here are 25 certification points!
Charting progress is the backbone of an intentional teaching framework, as it encourages realistic, yet ambitious goal setting, and brings a new level of awareness to the teaching and learning process. Even though exemplary teachers track their students’ academic progress to help them make informed, instructional decisions and adjustments, they do not as commonly track their own progress, or even their students’ behavioral improvements. Looking back at a whole school year of charting my own behavior, as well as my students’ progress, I made three interesting discoveries.
ReplyDeleteFirst, I noticed a correlation between my own behavioral progress and my kids’ behavioral improvements. In other words, my students’ weekly total scores (5 rule adherence) often grew proportionally to my own weekly total scores (emotional control + classroom management).
Additionally, setting goals for my Alphas to become Leaders, my Go-alongs to become Alphas, my Fence Sitters to become Go-alongs, and my Challenging Students to become Fence Sitters, acted as a powerful motivator for me to improve my own total score. Indeed, knowing exactly where each of my kids stood behaviorally, and what I wanted them to achieve next, made it easier for me to gauge what to expect of each child. To make this differentiated tool even more motivating and user-friendly, I entered scores weekly in Excel and created bar graphs, to visually track our progress.
Finally, thanks to the wealth of WBT techniques I used in my classroom, I was able to support everyone’s growth, including my own as a teacher. Indeed, WBT techniques support progress charting, and progress charting fosters an ongoing push to strive for WBT technical mastery.
In conclusion, charting behavior progress for us all proved to be a powerful, ongoing evaluation tool, which is strongly supported by the Whole Brain Teaching techniques at the disposal of any Wibbeeter. I found that progress charting helped us all grow faster and with greater intentionality, within the safety of our Whole Brain Teaching classroom community.
Sophie Gourdon
Sophie,
DeleteWhat a wonderful reflection your charting behaviors! Nice job! Here are 25 Certification Points for you!
This year has been a year of trial and error. One thing I have learned about myself is that if I am not consistent in my behavior plan I will have a difficult time. Consistency is the key to success and no matter how overwhelmed I am with the politics of the job and the needs of the kids, my ability to be consistent will make or break my year.
ReplyDeleteTracking my progress has also given me the opportunity to see that, while I am able to control my temper most often, there are certain times during the year when it is a bit harder. When are those times? Right before district assessments and the CST test. When I am feeling the push from my principal to get these kids ready for the tests, that stress is pushed down onto the students because I am often frustrated with their lack of ability. What I need to remember is that the students show growth even if they are not on grade level. Maybe the politicians don’t understand that, but I do. I just need to remember that so that I can enjoy how much the kids have learned instead of pushing more at them so they can pass a benchmark test.
As for the students’ progress, charting has shown me how much they have improved academically and socially. They have remained motivated and eager to learn throughout the year. Motivation is always a problem for my kids because they are often more worried about if they will have dinner at night, where they will sleep, or if Dad will punish them for no reason. When there is so much more going on in their lives they have a hard time being motivated to learn. Using WBT has kept them engaged, focused, and excited to learn.
Shannon,
DeleteGood job reflecting on your charting! It is such a great thing to be able to reflect and learn. Did you notice that your kids made gains in their behavior? In other words, did your Go Alongs move up to Alphas or did your Fence Sitters move up to Go Alongs? Seeing this progress helps keep us motivated, too. Here are 25 certification points for you!
This past year I tracked my behavior in two areas. First, I gave myself a score on how well I was able to control my emotions by controlling my tone of voice, and secondly by how consistently I followed through with my classroom management plan. I learned that I needed this reflection tool to keep me focused on these two goals. I learned that when I accurately reflected I may have had some weeks where I had set backs but overall, throughout the year I improved from where I was at the beginning of the year. Finally, through charting my own behavior I was able to see when I needed to do something different. If I didn’t see any improvement for a few weeks, I knew I had to do something different.
ReplyDeleteI learned so much by tracking the behavior of my students! I am the type of teacher that beats myself up if I don’t feel my students are progressing the way I need them too. However, with the totally attainable goal of 0.1 a month I was always able to feel that there was some improvement. I also learned how to reflect on individual students’ behavior. I am great at reflecting on students’ scores and knowledge of the material, but I generally don’t stop and reflect on their behavior. This charting system allowed me to do that. Once again, I learned when I needed to make a change in the classroom such as adding a level to the scoreboard or making a small change to the scoreboard such as the reward I was using.
Erin,
ReplyDeleteSeeing our students improve is a great motivator for us! You are so right that we never really consider, with traditional management programs, improvement in the area of behavior. With today's data driven classrooms, this WBT technique will be one more piece of information for us. Here are 25 Certification points.
It is difficult to believe this year is over! This past year I charted my progress using the Whole Brain Teaching method discussed in Chapter Four concerning emotions. I recognize there are areas in which I still need improvement.
ReplyDeleteI must remember that "you cannot manage student behavior if you cannot manage your own behavior." During the year I noticed that I became somewhat frustrated with a particular student and allowed the student to see my frustration. It was brought to my attention that when students see a teacher becoming frustrated, the students then rebel even more because they are winning in the control factor.
When evaluating my students I noticed that some students moved up in the scale and others did not. What was I doing wrong? I believe I was not controlling my emotions to help those students to move up the scale. My biggest problem was being consistent with the rules. I would frequently become frustrated when the students did not raise their hands, yet at other times I did not care. My inconsistent behavior sent confusing signals to my students which, in turn, caused them to rebel. My main focus should be getting those students moving up the scale; my "go-alongs" should become "alphas," my "fence-sitters" should become "go-alongs," etc. Because of my lack of consistency and the lack of control of my emotions, I believe I have enabled my challenging students to rebel.
I consider these mistakes to be among the most significant I have made. I do hope that other educators will learn from my mistakes. Through Whole Brain Teaching I believe I will be able to become more organized and consistent with classroom management.
Katrina,
DeleteThe charting system does help us recognize the impact of our inconsistent behaviors in the classroom! I predict great success in your classroom this year! Here are 25 points for you!
During the past year I decided to maintain a weekly evaluation of not only my students, but also myself. My goal was two-fold, first I wanted to be sure I was maintaining consistency in expectations, and secondly to measure how effective my management system was throughout the year.
ReplyDeleteFor myself I followed Mrs. Maestra’s plan. Each week I scored myself on a scale of 1-10. I gave myself one score for maintaining composure of myself and emotions, and another set of scores, also 1-10 for sticking to my management plan. I found that after a year there were certain points of weakness for me. I could tell by looking back at my scores over a 9 month period that I seemed to score lower around assessment periods. I am thinking that this is due to the stress and disruption that assessment causes to our daily routine. This was very insightful and will certainly help me next year when the time comes to know this is my trigger and prepare myself for it.
Although knowing how I was fairing during the year was highly informative I also needed to know how my students were behaving as the year progressed. This data helped me immensely when it came time to placing my students on the behavior data wall. I decided to track four behaviors:
- following directions quickly
- raised hands for permission to speak
- work independently
- work in cooperative groups
I placed the students in to groups depending upon their success, just like Mrs. Maestra. I love the information this progress monitoring gave me! I was able to see very clearly which of my students were going to need a little more work and prompting to move to the next levels and which students to go to for an appropriate model. I was excited to see that through this monitoring and my tuning in to those that needed my assistance, that several of my students made it from fence sitters to alphas! This system helped me to hold myself accountable and to reflect weekly on what was best practice for my classroom.
Erin Eckholt
Erin,
DeleteGood reflection about the charting process! Here are 25 certification points!
At the beginning of last year I decided that I would chart my own behavior as a teacher as well as my students’ progress. I realized that I “…cannot manage student behavior if (I) cannot manage (my) own behavior.”
ReplyDeleteMy goals for myself were: 1. Control my emotions by paying attention to my tone of voice. 2. Follow my classroom management plan consistently throughout the year.
My goals for each student were to: 1. Follow directions quickly. 2. Raise his hand for permission to speak. 3. Stay on task. 4. Turn in neat work.
After grading myself on a scale of 1-10 on each of my goals every week, I added the scores together and if I got a combined score of 16 or higher I labeled the week as a success for me. I divided my students into four groups: “Alphas”, “Go-Alongs”, “Fence Sitters”, and “Challenging”. I gave a point value to each group, and added up the student points every week also. My main objective was to move as many students as possible to higher levels throughout the year. It was very important to keep weekly records because I would never know if I was getting anywhere with my students if I didn’t keep records of where they had been.
Looking back I found this system to be very beneficial. At first it was a little difficult to evaluate myself objectively. I had a tendency to be either too lenient or to tough, but eventually I got the hang of it. Also knowing that I was being evaluated (even if it was by me) caused me to be extra diligent in meeting my goals. Before I used this method I couldn’t be sure if I was actually making progress with my classroom management system. Also, I was especially focused on moving my children into higher behavioral levels. If I could “raise the average score for the behavior of all of (my) students by only .1 per month, then by the end of the year every student in (my) class would have moved up, on average, one level in classroom behavior.” This is exactly what happened. I knew that all children would never become “Alphas”, but simply moving from being a “Fence Sitter” to a “Go-Along” was significant progress. This system allowed me to track the behavioral progress of each student and to celebrate in the victories that were achieved. Charting my own behavior and progress as well as the behavioral progress of my students has given me insight into how I can become a better, more efficient teacher.
Julia,
ReplyDeleteI agree, keeping these weekly records will help you be more aware of your students' progress, even the small growth. You had one sentence that may need to be reworded: "I knew that all children would never become “Alphas”... Here are 20 certification points!
At the beginning of the past school year I made it my goal to give myself a teaching grade at the end of every week, set goals for self improvement and chart my weekly progress. I followed one of the great truths of Whole Brain Teaching,“You cannot manage student behavior if you cannot manage your own behavior.
ReplyDeleteI gave myself a grade on my ability to have all materials and plans ready a week ahead of time. I also gave myself a grade at the end of the week based on my ability to follow my own classroom management system consistently. I averaged the two weekly grades together to get my final grade. Grades were based on a point system 1-10 (10 being the highest).
I quickly wanted to improve my weakest area. Over the past few years, I had gotten lazy with having detailed plans and materials together a week ahead of time. I was too often waiting until the last minute to gather materials for a lesson. I hate to admit that their were often times that my lesson plans could not be carried out as planned due to not having the appropriate materials for that day. My first score was a 4 is this area. I eagerly started getting plans and materials ready sooner and used every minute of the day to get prepared for the next day. I challenged myself to improve my score in this area. My goal was to increase my initial score of a 4 to a 7 by the second nine weeks of school. This forced me to compete with myself, and the results were amazing. I started looking for new ways to organize my materials and plans. I felt more energy at the end of each successful day. I met my goal and by the beginning of the third nine weeks of school I was able to plan and organize myself a week ahead of schedule.
As the school year progressed, I realized that my score had a direct effect on my students’ scores, as my scores went up, so did theirs. This was especially true with regard to me being consistent with the classroom management system. My students were happier throughout the day when I was consistent with classroom rules and procedures.. The “challenging” students from the first week of school were able to make small gains weekly and were on their way to “go alongs” by the beginning of the 2nd semester. I was able to pinpoint individual student needs as I reviewed students’ scores from week to week. Seeing improvement with each day kept me motivated and on the right track.
I was able to pinpoint individual student needs as I reviewed students’ scores from week to week. Seeing improvement with each day kept me motivated and on the right track.
A consistent, fair classroom management system was a benefit to us all.
I plan to continue to chart my weekly progress next school year. I will set small attainable goals for myself. I will also chart student progress and have small goals set for each student. I can’t wait to meet my students and get started!
Lori Crigler
Lori,
DeleteThis is an excellent assessment of your weekly progress! I loved your comments "I felt more energy at the end of each successful day." and "Seeing improvement with each day kept me motivated and on the right track." Using this technique will help you have an enjoyable year! Here are 25 certification points!