50 Ways to Improve Student Behavior

Simple Solutions to Complex Challenges (Study Guide)

Annette Breaux, Todd Whitaker

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781596671393
• eBook ISBN: 9781317927730
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Written to accompany 50 Ways to Improve Student Behavior: Simple Solutions to Complex Challenges by Annette Breaux and Todd Whitaker, this Study Guide was written for the participants of seminars, book study groups, and other professional development events. This Study Guide serves as a roadmap to help you organize and work with your faculty study group. It provides assistance to staff developers, principals, team leaders, college professors, and other educational leaders who are working with teachers as they develop their professional skills.

Meet and Greet:
Classroom Solution/Strategy #1

Students who feel welcome and are greeted warmly are more likely to want to be in your class!

What is:

Consider your current classroom environment. What three things are you already doing to make your students feel welcome and wanted?

1.  ________________________________________________

2.  ________________________________________________

3.  ________________________________________________

Rate yourself for creating a warm and welcoming atmosphere in your classroom:

Seriously Lacking   Room for Improvement   Good   Excellent

What thoughts do you have about the rating you gave yourself?

______________________________________________________

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What could be:

Greeting each student personally each day is important! Practice this skill by writing 10 personalized greetings you could use with your students tomorrow. Make sure they are individualized and personal. Hint: Share your 10 with 3 colleagues and you’ll have a list with as many as 30 possible greetings!

1.  ________________________________________________

2.  ________________________________________________

3.  ________________________________________________

4.  ________________________________________________

5.  ________________________________________________

6.  ________________________________________________

7.  ________________________________________________

8.  ________________________________________________

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10.  ________________________________________________

What changes might you see in your students if you greeted them each day?

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Name three of your most challenging, unmotivated, or unruly students. Create two personalized greetings for each of those students.

Name: ________________________________________

Greeting 1: ________________________________________

Greeting 2: ________________________________________

Name: ________________________________________

Greeting 1: ________________________________________

Greeting 2: ________________________________________

Name: ________________________________________

Greeting 1: ________________________________________

Greeting 2: ________________________________________

Make it real:

Greet your students warmly and personally every day for a week. Note any differences in behavior, tone, and attitude in your students and in yourself.

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Letter of Introduction:
Classroom Solution/Strategy #2

Writing a welcome letter helps you establish a positive relationship with your students and their parents.

What is:

What strategies do you already use to establish a positive relationship with your new students and their parents at the start of every year or semester? (Open House Night activities? Written communication? Welcome messages in the classroom?)

1.  ________________________________________

2.  ________________________________________

3.  ________________________________________

What could be:

The authors suggested the content for a letter (or postcard) to students or parents. Write your own student letter or message below:

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Write your own parent letter or message below:

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Consider all the possibilities. What alternative means could you use to welcome students and get to know them?

Describe your own “welcome” or “get to know you” activity below:

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Share your ideas with a group of colleagues. Then you will all have several new ways to welcome your students and get to know them from day one!

Name one strategy you currently use to foster positive relationships with parents.

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Share the strategy you just listed with several colleagues and have them share theirs with you.

Make it real:

Are lots of ideas flowing now? Outline a plan for how you will start the new school year or semester with a strong relationship-building introductory activity.

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How can you build on the new introductory strategies you employed in August/September throughout the year? Remember to keep the relationships strong all year long.

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Tools for Rul...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Introduction
• 1 Meet and Greet
• 2 A Letter of Introduction
• 3 Tools for Rules and Procedures
• 4 Are You All Right?
• 5 Stay Near, Dear
• 6 Believe in Them!
• 7 Meting Out the Seating
• 8 Happy Notes to Parents
• 9 Their Own Notes to Parents
• 10 Make Them Responsible
• 11 Stress Success, Not Duress
• 12 Enthusiasm Breeds Enthusiasm
• 13 Pry for Why
• 14 A Laugh is Half
• 15 Student or Teaching Problem?
• 16 Learn What to Overlook
• 17 If You Sweat, They Win
• 18 Defuse the Bully
• 19 Hold Private Practice Sessions
• 20 Speak Awfully Softly
• 21 Teaching in Small Bites Makes Them Hungrier
• 22 Saving “Gotcha” for Behaving
• 23 Find the Gleaming and Redeeming
• 24 Join the Ranks of Thanks
• 25 Humiliation Breeds Retaliation
• 26 Beware the 90/10 Rule
• 27 We Care About Those Who Care About Us
• 28 As Nice, Polite, and Motivated as YOU?
• 29 Unmask the Mask
• 30 Don’t Let the Mood Brood
• 31 Who’s the Most Positive?
• 32 Become Interested in Their Interests
• 33 A Favor as a Lifesaver
• 34 Admit Your Mistakes
• 35 Seeing Eye to Eye
• 36 Bell-to-Bell Teaching
• 37 Smile, Smile, Smile!
• 38 Teaching With Urgency
• 39 Make it Doable and Chewable
• 40 Brag About Them to Others
• 41 The Diversion Excursion
• 42 Change the Way They Think
• 43 Nip It in the Bud
• 44 Discover the Beams of Their Dreams
• 45 Work that Body Language!
• 46 No Rest for the Weary
• 47 A Little Guilt Trip Goes a Long Way
• 48 Teach Them to Cope or They’ll Create a Way!
• 49 Listen, Listen, Listen!
• 50 Only a Fool Loses His Cool