I am in Lake Elsinore, CA, in Mike Peto’s classroom with a group of very talented teachers. This post will be short as I need to get back to the workshop, but this is so big that it needs to be shared right away. I visited Dave Ganahl’s classroom last night and noticed a two-column poster with a new way to organize and apply the Interpersonal Communication Rubric, aka jGR. He informed us that he modified the poster from Mike Peto’s website. I talked to Mike and he insists that he got the ideas from jGR and simply rearranged them. This new arrangement is very student- and teacher-friendly.
Dave uses this poster to keep behaviors that support interpersonal communication in the classroom setting. In Dave’s classroom, the Interpersonal Communication grade is 65% of the kid’s grade. Students earn 7 points for consistently exhibiting all the communication-supporting behaviors in the first column (“Pay Attention”). Students earn a 8 for exhibiting all the first-column behaviors plus #1-3 in the second column (“Contribute”). Student earn an A (9 or 10) for exhibiting all the behaviors in both columns.
We discussed with Dave his wording on “Use the stop signal”, as we both use “Let the teacher know if (s)he is unclear.” However, Dave says that for his students, this wording works well. Perhaps this is because Dave has the whole class gesture along with the student who initiates the gesture for non-comprehension. Dave uses three different gestures: I do not understand (hand over head), You are talking too fast (“Slow down” motion with the hands), and I want to see this written (a writing gesture like you are writing in the air with a pencil).
Dave has his students fill out a quick exit slip at the end of the period. Then at the end of the week the students estimate the week average and Dave fills in his Teacher Observation. Dave’s grade is the one that goes in the grade book.
