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RT 9 – Classroom Discipline
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11 thoughts on “RT 9 – Classroom Discipline”
Metacognition? I’ve seen this mentioned in a few of the more recent posts. I searched the term, but I couldn’t find any articles explaining it.
Also, how does Jason hold them accountable?
“- they will be held accountable.”
I’d be interested in finding out how others hold students accountable. My biggest issue with CI is classroom discipline. What are some of the consequences CI/TPRS teachers use for specific infractions?
Metacognition is from “meta” (after) + cognition (thinking). In its strictest sense it is “thinking about thinking”. For us, it’s thinking about how we learn and acquire language. The metacognitive piece is to get students thinking about how their behavior affects learning. Most of the time, if we get them to concentrate, they concentrate on the content of the lesson/discussion/story, etc. Metacognition involves getting them to think about why we demand that they look at us, sit up straight, focus, have a single conversation. Most students never consider how their behavior might affect learning and acquisition – to them just being in the classroom should somehow suffice to learn. It is often considered a very passive experience on the part of the student. By asking for their 50% and telling them to listen with intent, etc. we show them that learning is active. Asking them to reflect on their behavior in class in terms, not of citizenship, but of demonstrating mastery of a standard is metacognitive – thinking about learning.
Here’s a link to a wikipedia article on metacognition –
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metacognition
Thanks for clarifying. Do you know the post(s) where this was all discussed? Perhaps Ben you could start a catagory for Metacognition posts?
One thing related to Metacognition I’ve thought of is this: what if we videotaped class so we could show it to our students? I mean, perhaps if students could actually see themselves and how rediculous they look when they’re zoning out, staring at the floor with their mouths half open, etc., perhaps that would help them realize what they’re really doing in class.
I used to be a cross-country skier in college and we used to do some video sessions to watch our technique. Many times, the video would show us things we were doing we had no idea we were doing. “Wow coach, I felt like I was doing pretty good until you showed me.” We could tell kids till we’re blue in the face, but unless we show them, perhaps things arn’t going to change too quickly. It’s kind of like making FL comprehensable. How do we make behavior comprehensable? I think there was a blog post that illustrated the same thing- a teacher demonstrated to the students what they were doing- slouching or something like that, and after she showed them, they finally realized what she wanted from them, or didn’t want them to do.
I love the video idea Michael. Just show them what they look like. I will do that in the fall. Remind us then if we forget. Although, honestly, a lot of what we see has a lot less to do with our class than we may want to think. It’s not all about us. Kids are in so much pain these days. Instead of coming home to a family who needs them to get some work done on the farm or whatever, they come home to scenes that have qualities of purgatories. They aren’t needed and, in many cases, are not even wanted. I was with a kid who was getting an a lecture from an AP in the hallway. He had a black mark under his eye. She asked how he got it and he refused to say. Instant more work for the AP. A lof of kids these days aren’t going to rock our classes because they can’t. They haven’t received the training at home or in their other classes, which is a real indictment of those other test and tell teachers. If they just don’t care I don’t blame them. That is why, if they miss class for a week, which happens often in our school, when they walk back in I act like it’s a really big deal that they are back, I don’t question where they were, and I always get a round of applause from the class. It may their only moment of the day to be acknowledged as important. I have two kids failing all their other classes. When I see them listening and understanding and occasionally answering and participating, I make sure that they know I saw it. I walk over on the sly and get a fist bump. Why do that with a kid who would be flunking any traditional teacher’s class? Because I am not a traditional teacher. Look what our society has give them. Most are pursuing advanced degrees in YouTube and Facebook. None of that will stop me from teaching critical self analysis, however, and, like jen, I’m starting that piece this week for at least the last five minutes of class. I think this metacognition piece and the bad ass (Annemarie said that a lot in Denver last week that is why I am saying it so much) REALLY BIG poster I made from what Jody and Grant and Bryce said is going to be the highlight of next year. Looking back, I don’t see how I ever taught without it. I’ve taught Theory of Knowledge classs and that’s all we did.
I’ve had a lot of trouble managing my 7th graders, and I have the idea of videotaping my 6th graders during PQA or a story and SHOWING it to my 7th graders so that they can see what it’s supposed to look like. I also have many truant students, even at the middle school level. Our school has a tremendously high transient rate also, which I find so frustrating-I’ll get a new 8th grader who has little or no Spanish half way through the year. That’s why it’s such a good idea to have the “check list” we’ve been discussing-and to continually go back to it and reflect upon it. If we create the culture in the classroom that students take responsibility for their learning because they know what’s expected of them in the class, then a student will see and feel this culture and will have no choice but to enter it as well.
At my school right now we are focusing on the “metacognitive” piece around students learning-they are constantly assessing themselves on their knowledge of content as well as their habits of learning while being given clear learning goals or targets, as we call them. The idea is that if they self-assess and monitor their progress on the learning targets, they are more likely to reach that target. Using CI in the world language classroom lends itself so well to student- engaged assessment because there is power in reflecting upon the way they are learning-they can really get better at it. My learning targets don’t look like this “I can distinguish between a subject pronoun and a verb in a Spanish sentence” but rather like this “I can recognize when I don’t understand something in Spanish” or “I can following along while reading in Spanish with my finger.” It helps that the teachers in the rest of my school are focusing on using learning targets and students engaged assessment.
Next week I will be presenting to my PLC ways that teachers of other content areas can use CI, story asking, and reader’s theater. I’m very excited about sharing this because I feel like there are many ways other teachers can use this methodology. Has anyone on this blog done any work around transferring TPRS/CI to another subject area?
Annemarie, how did it go, sharing CI strategies with other teachers? My only experience has been with the 2nd grade plays. I work with my 2nd grade colleagues each year to do 3 plays in Spanish. I find that if my students and I build the stories together in Spanish class, then when it comes to ‘learning’ their lines for the 2nd grade plays, it’s simple, because it’s all totally familiar language. The 2nd grade teachers are fine with me doing it, but haven’t yet realized that they can build stories with their students too. They still send the kids home with a script to memorize and practice with a parent.
It’s doubtful. When I taught TOK in a magnet school and GT kids in a middle school, we used the metacognition piece all the time bc one cannot have a socratic format without it. But, in general, I highly doubt that this self engaged assessment is more than a micropiece of assessment. Not in our schools, not now. I dare say most teachers wouldn’t the hell know what it means.
What you wrote there, Annemarie, is key. Your initial statement that we are tying our learning goals and our assessments to self evaluative instrospection in terms of the Three Modes is a logical outcome of the discussion begun by Robert in May. And there you’ve said it again above. I’ll make it into a blog post so we can categorize this. I’ll need all of this to start next year. Never again will I take on my shoulders the training that really should be done by the kids themselves. That is the difference between the Rules Chart and the Metacognition Chart.
I use TPRS to learn vocabulary by asking stories in my English classes all the time. They remember the vocabulary for ever. We also do PQA when it’s appropriate.
I’ve seen a link but don’t know where now to a science teacher who does the same thing with science concepts. When I heard it described, I thought that it was a natural. And I can’t but think that it would be perfect in a history classroom as well, as long as the teacher is concentrating on the story, rather than just the dates.
Gestures have been experimented with successfully in math, and Kodaly has an entire system of choral conducting based on gestures, but I think we represent such a unique blend of so much that no other discipline will ever come close to what we have uncovered as possible in language teaching. They’re all just too left brain dominant. Play this for them:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hv-HTHNffYU
I think that there are several pieces of CI that work extremely well with other disciplines. Keep in mind these concepts:
a. COMPRENSIBLE INPUT
b. repeated, repeated, repeated input
c. which happens with focused questioning
d. and adding/questioning/circling increasingly detailed information
e. then repeatedly checking for comprehension
f. while giving everyone a role
g. because this is an INTERACTIVE lesson
h. in an EMOTIONALLY SUPPORTIVE and loving atmosphere.
:o)
with love,
Laurie