Why come
Why is it that good classroom management is often invisible? How can we understand and utilizethese invisible skills with all our students, especially our toughest, to maximize learning and prevent misbehavior?
While most people do not go into teaching to become behavioral specialists, one’s skill in this area can make or break success in the classroom. This training provides teachers with the tools they need to succeed.
Registration
Individuals:
Early Bird Rate: 500 Euros (register by 11 January, 2019)
Standard Rate: 550 Euros (register by 6 March, 2019)
Group rate (3 or more):
475 Euros (register by 11 January, 2019)
Workshop details
Who is it for?
K – 8 classroom teachers and student support teams
Day 1: Conscious Classroom Management: Creating the Classroom Environment You’ve Always Wanted
Day 1 of this two day workshop “Conscious Classroom Management” addresses these questions, giving K-8 teachers practical, hands on strategies that can be used right away to prevent student misbehavior and to intervene effectively when prevention techniques fail.
This day will focus on improving your classroom environment. Learn and practise dozens of practical, easy to implement techniques to reduce arguing and off-task behaviours and increase clarity and calm, and have fun doing it! All participants, regardless of grade level, experience, or student population, will walk away with the following:
5 non-verbal strategies to help keep kids focused and on-task.
4 ways to de-escalate tension and reduce arguing.
3 ways to use consequences to teach behavioural lessons, rather than to punish.
2 assumptions that allow teachers to skillfully manage their classrooms.
1 proven method for connecting with our most reluctant or challenging students .
A dozen simple strategies for smoother classroom transitions.
Day 2: Rebels with Applause: Brain Compatible Approaches for Motivating Reluctant Learners
On the second day we will look at why standard teaching models don’t always work with reluctant learners. We will investigate how we address our “rebel” students who seem to have the hardest time paying attention and getting work done. Recent research on the brain reveals some of the reasons why these students struggle. “Rebels with Applause,” offers practical classroom strategies based on this research which will help get “rebel” students of varying abilities and learning styles involved and motivated, and help them retain more.
Day 2 is another fun and fast-paced day where you will learn strategies to improve the attention, participation, and academic learning of your students who struggle the most. Learn and practise simple, yet innovative and easy to apply techniques that will get your most reluctant students more motivated and involved. Do you have students who don’t pay attention, don’t try, or just aren’t learning? We have the solutions. All participants, regardless of grade level, experience, or student population, will walk away with the following:
10 active engagement strategies for involving students deeply in their learning.
8 participation strategies that gently, but firmly, put kids “on the hook” for learning and trying.
4 techniques for getting and maintaining any student’s attention.
Current neuroscience that supports each of the above strategies.
Schedule
DAY ONE – THURSDAY, 7 MARCH 2019
9:00-10:30
Introduction & Inner Authority:
Being confident vs. insecure or authoritarian.
How who we are as teachers affects how students perceive us and respond to us.
What we can do to increase our own sense of inner authority.
Assuming the Best:
Two assumptions we can make as teachers that will change for the better the way students respond to us during disciplinary moments. Two techniques that help us hold onto these positive assumptions and intervene productively with off-task student behaviours.
Holding Ground:
Strategies for how to hold ground and say “no” to student requests in a way that invites their cooperation instead of their confrontation. Also a technique for appropriately dealing with our own feelings of frustration and anger with kids.
10:30-10:45 Morning Break
10:45-12:00
Teaching Procedures :
Dozens of strategies for teaching and reinforcing key classroom routines and procedures in a way that will work with traditionally reluctant learners. Use of non-verbals, visuals, and behavioural rubrics to help students be successful at following behavioural and procedural expectations and instructions
12:00 -13:00 Lunch
13:00- 14:00
Positive Connections:
Why connecting with tough students is so important and how to do it when it isn’t happening organically
Consistency:
How to become more consistent with key procedures e.g. hand-raising, no arguing, and private conversations to promote overall consistency.
14:00-14:15 Afternoon Break
14:15- 15:15
Consequences:
Assumptions, techniques, and key strategies for de-escalating confrontations with students. Includes putting together appropriate hierarchies of consequences and how to implement them with appropriate physical and verbal cues to teach kids behavioural lessons rather than giving negative consequences.
15:15 -15:30 Closure
DAY TWO – FRIDAY, 8 MARCH 2019
09:00-10:30
Introduction & Brain Research:
Current neuroscience on learning, including research on engagement, movement, and memorization. Practical applications and physical practice of the elements learned in the research.
Partnering/Pairing Techniques:
Four techniques for pairing students and variations on each one for different learning groups and grade levels.
10:30-10:45 Morning Break
10.30-12:00
Creating Active Engagement:
How and why to break up direct instruction, 5 different types of breaks and 10 strategies for rehearsing information during these breaks that increase retention of academic content. Samples, examples, and/or physical practice of each strategy will be included.
Getting & Keeping Attention:
How attention works in the brain and how to use that knowledge to better engage students and sustain attention in various learning situations, from giving directions to direct instruction to guided instruction to independent work. How to avoid distractions and what to do when they can’t be avoided.
12:00-13:00 Lunch
13:00- 14:00
What the Brain Likes:
Summary review of key techniques in workshop so far, and addition of connected research and techniques to expand their use and effectiveness.
Increasing Participation:
How to put students gently, but firmly, on the hook for participating during class discussions and whole group Q & A. Eight strategies for increasing student participation with shy, low performing, and/or reluctant students. Includes 4 techniques specifically for dealing with students saying, “I don’t know.”
14:00-14:15 Afternoon Break
14:15- 15:15
Connections:
Excavating prior-knowledge and connecting new knowledge to it. Also, creating new experiences when no prior knowledge exists.
Rehearsal Strategies:
Differences between rote and elaborative rehearsal. When and how to use each for maximum learning. Review and discussion of 4-page packet of elaborative rehearsal strategies for all grades and subject areas. Practice with one or two rehearsal strategies
15:15-15:30 Closure
Session leader
Grace Dearborn
Education Consultant
Grace Dearborn is an education consultant, author, award winning teacher, and international presenter on classroom behavior management and brain-compatible teaching techniques for motivating reluctant learners. She has been in education over 20 years and for most of it she taught at-risk students in elementary and secondary schools in the San Francisco Bay Area. In addition to being a veteran classroom teacher, Grace has worked as a mentor teacher, literacy coach, curriculum developer, and professional development coordinator. Currently, Grace runs herself ragged facilitating workshops for teachers across the United States, and internationally, while also working as an instructional coach and volunteering at local schools near her home in northern California. But she loves every minute of it! Her skills at motivating and managing youth are daily put to their truest test by her two sons, ages 12 and 14.