Student Behavior Concerns And Consider Effects

By Author: Alex Armas
Total Articles: 74
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We were also forced to revise the literacy intervention almost from the start as a result of student behavior concerns. During our first classroom observations, we observed significant numbers of students who were sleeping, talking with one another, leaving the class when they wanted to roam the halls, being disrespectful to teachers, sending text messages, answering their phones in class, and displaying a host of other problematic behaviors. When asked about this, one of the teachers told us, "That's the way it is here. You just gotta put up with it to get by."

When we asked the principal about this, she acknowledged the problem and said that the small learning communities were designed to address this. They had placed vice principals and counselors in each academy Replica Cartier Santos who were supposed to address behavioral issues. However, the principal said, "We've gone from bad to worse" over the past couple of years. We urged the principal to address this issue, and the following month she hired a full-time behavior specialist who provided ...
... professional development (once per month) to the teachers and coached the vice principals and counselors daily. In addition, the principal dedicated time at each after-school staff meeting to behavioral issues.

For example, a few months into our work with Western, we attended a staff meeting. The focus was on the student ID policy. The faculty decided, with leadership from the behavior specialist, that no one (faculty, student, administrator, or visitor) would be allowed on campus without a lanyard and ID. The faculty voted on this at the meeting and acknowledged that the change would cause a temporary absence problem and enforcement issue. A few months later, the faculty discussed a tardy policy in which they decided to lock the classroom doors when the bell rang and require students who were late to miss class, resulting in a truancy and the possible failure of the class. The overall success of this effort outweighed the cost of transferring focus from the literacy plan once a month.

As teachers engaged in the implementation Breitling Replica Watches of the instructional routines selected for school wide implementation, new questions were raised. For example, after nearly nine months of work on Cornell note-taking, the teachers began talking about students' lack of ability to summarize. In response, during a professional development session, the literacy coach said, "Our students didn't just forget how to summarize, we just didn't notice before. The Cornell notes have forced us to notice a need our students have." The following month's session with the LLT focused on teaching summarizing, which led to a discussion about main ideas and details. The team designed a number of professional development sessions on summarizing as a result of this revelation.