End of the Year .......are you getting frustrated? Take a quick look.

           Click here to take the educator's three-step journey to reflect and refocus on student behavior.

Two questions that WILL change you

From Daniel H. Pink, the author of the bestselling A Whole New Mind, comes a paradigm-shattering look at what truly motivates us and how we can use that knowledge to work smarter and live better.  You have to view this! Click here.

Most of us believe that the best way to motivate ourselves and others is with external rewards like money—the carrot-and-stick approach. That’s a mistake, Daniel H. Pink says in, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, his provocative and persuasive new book. The secret to high performance and satisfaction—at work, at school, and at home—is the deeply human need to direct our own lives, to learn and create new things, and to do better by ourselves and our world.

Drawing on four decades of scientific research on human motivation, Pink exposes the mismatch between what science knows and what business does—and how that affects every aspect of life. He demonstrates that while carrots and sticks worked successfully in the twentieth century, that’s precisely the wrong way to motivate people for today’s challenges. In Drive, he examines the three elements of true motivation—autonomy, mastery, and purpose—and offers smart and surprising techniques for putting these into action. Along the way, he takes us to companies that are enlisting new approaches to motivation and introduces us to the scientists and entrepreneurs who are pointing a bold way forward.

Coaching Behavior - are we focused on this key piece?

Coaching Behavior - are we focused on this key piece?

As I get set to work with staff as a principal, I keep wondering how I can keep the focus on "coaching the behavior" instead of so many schools in which incentives and consequences have returned to schools just with another name called PBIS.

We know from the book Drive by Daniel Pink -- thanks to a new teacher friend I am listening to and from my drive to Door County each day -- that external motivators don't work. It is student choice, curiosity, and ownership that educators now call "student engagement" that works. Keeping students highly engaged in interesting, self-valuing work is what matters most.

How does this help us keep the focusing on coaching behavior? Understanding that all the time spent on big rewards that exclude some instead of providing more social time for students to develop relationships and coaching/re-teaching social skills when student behavior misses the mark is key. The best counselors are those who are on the playground as often as possible to help students generalize social skills from the counseling curriculum.

There is a lot to think about each summer - and that is what educators are busy doing as they head into another exciting year to influence students academic and behavioral growth.

Accountable Talk - clarity for students

Thanks to Renee for sharing this handout that everyone at our meeting today wanted a copy of when they saw it sitting on the tables for the next class of students.  Kudos to great work and sharing helps the team.

Hi Kathy,

Here's a copy of the handout on Accountable Talk. They help students recognize the purpose for each of their comments during group discussions. Hope you can find a good use for them :)

Renee Heyden

7th Grade Language Arts

Fox River Middle School

Waterford Graded School District

heyden@waterford.k12.wi.us

Let your students return to personalized "Welcome Back Notes"

Enjoying some Pinterest time over the holiday vacation and found this great site.  Pinterest is free so feel free to get a membership.  Click here to see how a teachers welcomes her students back to school after holidays.

Can transitions be so exciting kids move quickly to see what is happening.............

Can you transitions students and promote books at the same time --- check this out ----- "Bookloose" reading promotional video done by some Texas middle school students!

Need to calm them down ....try this Magnificent Library video.

Motivation is Inseparable from Culture

Motivation Is Inseparable from Culture

Engagement is the visible outcome of motivation, the natural capacity to direct energy in the pursuit of a goal. Our emotions influence our motivation. In turn, our emotions are socialized through culture—the deeply learned confluence of language, beliefs, values, and behaviors that pervades every aspect of our lives. For example, one person working at a task feels frustrated and stops, while another person working at the task feels joy and continues. Yet another person, with an even different set of cultural beliefs, feels frustrated at the task but continues with increased determination. What may elicit that frustration, joy, or determination may differ across cultures, because cultures differ in their definitions of novelty, hazard, opportunity, and gratification, and in their definitions of appropriate responses. Thus, the response a student has to a learning activity reflects his or her culture.

While the internal logic as to why a student does something may not coincide with that of the teacher, it is, nonetheless, present. And, to be effective, the teacher must understand that perspective. Rather than trying to know what to do to students, we must work with students to interpret and deepen their existing knowledge and enthusiasm for learning. From this viewpoint, effective teaching is culturally responsive teaching.

Making Transitions Smooth with Music

Using music in the classroom is a great way to help students transition without always having to direct them with your words.  Here are some tools you might consider this year. Kathy

Upper Elementary Music

Pintrest Options

Make your own classroom alarm "bell" clock with music - procedures for your computer

Music for Management

Conscious Classroom Management - Some Nuggets to Share

Taking some time today to read another Classroom Management book, Conscious Classroom Management by Rick Smith.  It is a book that is being used with the New Teacher Orientation.  It is good to review some golden nuggets in successful teaching as we move into the new year:

• Content, procedures and behavior are the functional trinity of the classroom, and students want to learn them all.
• Every professional has good days and not so good days. We are all human.
• Knowing when our own resources need a boost is a sign of great strength. Being open to receiving the boost is key.
• Effective teachers sometimes make mistakes, feel overwhelmed, stressed and under-appreciated.
• Counter isolation - getting out and connecting positively with others is a proactive step that teachers need to do purposefully. Working together is an essential element for teachers to survive and flourish.
• Teaching is not just hard work, it's 'heart' work. - Eleise Buxton
• The more we build in choices for our students, the more likely they are to feel energized as participants in their learning process.
• An effective teacher prepares systematically for the start of a successful school year by thinking through how they will connect with students, manage behaviors and begin to orchestrate content in a highly successful learning environment.

Reading this book made me reflect on all of the many components that come together for effective teachers. It is why being in classrooms and seeing this work first hand is such a joy. Kathy