by Marcia Hansen, SPS Professional Learning Specialist
Tools for Teaching by Fred Jones is a book that provides practical advice and strategies for classroom management. Jones notes that many classroom management problems are really what we might call “goofing off” or a lack of student engagement. So what are some ways we might strengthen this component of our management toolbox?
Jones lists teacher proximity to students as a highly effective classroom management tool to promote student engagement. Included in the book are several different strategies to promote teacher proximity. One strategy mentioned which aligns with our Learning Model is that of providing timely, effective feedback to students.
Providing “just in time” feedback to students is extremely effective and is usually done one-on-one with students as they are working. Unfortunately, this is also a prime time for student misbehavior to occur; because the teacher can spend too much time with one student and loses proximity with others as a result.
“Praise, Prompt and Leave” is a strategy that Fred Jones teaches as a solution to this problem. Jones explains that teachers seem to have a natural tendency to spend too much time providing too much information or explanation to a student. He notes that “too much” puts a student into cognitive overload and ends up not being effective as a result. It also significantly reduces the teacher’s proximity to the rest of the class. The steps to this strategy are listed below. Note that we have adapted the name from “Praise, Prompt and Leave” to “Acknowledge, Provide Feedback and Leave” to better reflect what SPS teachers are providing for their students.
ACKNOWLEDGE: The teacher looks at the student’s work and identifies
what is correct and begins the conversation there. “I see that your have written
a sentence with a subject and a predicate.
PROVIDE FEEDBACK: The teacher then gives the student feedback- “Your next
step is to add some details to your sentence.
What details might you provide for your audience?”LEAVE: The teacher then walks away with the positive presupposition that the student will resume working. In the example given, the goal is for the student to think about and add details to their writing.
This frees the teacher up to utilize proximity with the
rest of the class, as well as the opportunity to provide many more students with
“just in time” feedback. The teacher may
return to the original student and provide additional feedback as many times as
needed, keeping in mind that one step at a time feedback is most likely to be
implemented. The bonus is a better managed classroom with higher student
engagement.
Tools for Teaching is available for loan from the
Professional Learning Department Library located at the Tefft Learning Center.
