Charting a Course for Progress

For our next assignment, I had to, "Imagine next year is completed. Using the system described in Chapter 4, you've faithfully charted your own behavior, as an instructor and your students’ progress. Looking back, what did you learn?"

It’s difficult to believe I've reached the end of another school year.  This year has been especially rewarding because, in addition to managing the behavior of my students, my primary goal was to manage my own behavior!  Each week, I would score myself from 1-10 for my ability to control my emotions in the classroom, and another 1-10 points for implementing my classroom management system with consistency.  Over many weeks my score fluctuated plus or minus one or two points, however, by the end of the school year, my average combined self evaluation score was an admirable eighteen! By managing my own behavior, I was better equipped to manage my classroom in a competent and consistent manner.

To monitor my students’ behavior, at the beginning of the year, I grouped my class of eighteen students accordingly:

4 Alphas: students who are always on task, follow directions quickly, and turn in neat work in a timely manner.

6 Go-Alongs: students who usually follow my directions, turn in their work regularly, and are often on task.

5 Fence Sitters: this group of students can go either way; their performance and behavior is somewhat inconsistent.

3 Challenging: students who rarely follow directions quickly, raise their hand for permission to speak, or turn in neat work.

There was one more group, “Leaders,” and at the beginning of the year, we had none.  Leaders are above Alphas; they are a reliable, consistent group that is, for the most part, self managing.

At the end of each week, I scored my students: each Alpha had a value of four points; each Go-Along earned three points; I awarded each Fence Sitter two points, and each challenging student received a score of one point.  I then totaled the points and divided by the number of students in my classroom.  The progress was slow, but consistent: by year’s end, the student score had climbed from a 2.5 in the early months to a staggering 3.45 in June! Not only did each student move up one level, but now we also had three Leaders in our midst!  Thank you, Whole Brain Teaching, for helping me to examine and observe our progress!

(November 12, 2013)