{"id":6532,"date":"2018-08-19T08:59:47","date_gmt":"2018-08-19T08:59:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/?p=6532"},"modified":"2018-08-19T08:59:47","modified_gmt":"2018-08-19T08:59:47","slug":"small-changes-all-the-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/2018\/08\/19\/small-changes-all-the-time\/","title":{"rendered":"Small Changes All the Time"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"ChrisSmall Changes All the Time<\/h3>\n

by Chris Mares.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

I am coming at this cold in the sense that I haven\u2019t yet\u00a0read John\u00a0Fanselow\u2019s\u00a0book. But I will.\u00a0However, I am a great believer in small changes.\u00a0It fits in with one of my principles of teaching which I picked up from a mentor of mine, Ray Pelletier, who is both an excellent teacher of French and a miraculous chef.\u00a0He once told me that as a teacher it is important to be consistent, reliable, and \u2026 wait for it \u2013 unpredictable.<\/p>\n

I shall focus on the notion of principled unpredictability and the belief that this can positively impact student interest, engagement, and overall motivation.<\/p>\n

For a long time, before class started I would write on the board the items I intended to cover during the class and at the end of class I would put a check next to the ones we had covered.\u00a0Quite often I found that we didn\u2019t cover everything I intended, though we thoroughly covered the goals I checked off.\u00a0After a while, I sensed that some students were feeling that we weren\u2019t achieving what\u00a0I had set out to achieve.\u00a0A small change I made was to not write what I intended to cover at the beginning of the class, but to write what we had covered at the end of class.\u00a0I felt this was a small but positive change that helped motivate students.<\/p>\n

There is no doubt that student motivation is vital with regard to successful learning outcomes.\u00a0For this reason, as teachers, we must be mindful of this and do what we can to keep our learners engaged. One way to do this\u00a0is simply to switch things up.\u00a0For example, let\u2019s say that when you correct students\u2019 written work you highlight and correct every error.\u00a0A change would be\u00a0to focus on different errors.\u00a0For example, only correct errors regarding prepositions, or articles, or verb tense.\u00a0This draws student attention to a particular type of error and is less overwhelming and certainly less demoralizing.\u00a0Another change might be to choose a random four lines, mark a box around these lines and correct all errors.\u00a0Explain to students that the type of error you corrected will be\u00a0similar throughout their paper.\u00a0Next, have students mark another random four lines and have them try and correct their\u00a0errors.<\/p>\n

All teachers know that students, given freedom to choose, will gravitate towards the same seat and consequently\u00a0end up working with the same partner or the same group. A small change that will shake things\u00a0 up and create interest is to have students switch seats and form new configurations.\u00a0 This can be done once a week or whenever there is a need to inject some\u00a0new energy into the classroom.\u00a0In order for this to work, it\u00a0should be done regularly and not as a one off.<\/p>\n

Teachers have a lot going on\u00a0in their minds when teaching.\u00a0Not only do we have to envisage the tasks and activities we want our students to do, we have to remember to take attendance, and think about what technology we may need.\u00a0A way to mitigate this\u00a0is through rotating delegation.\u00a0Have one student take attendance for the week, another be your\u00a0TA, another clean the board at the end of class, and another be responsible for ensuring desks are put back where they should be and that there is no trash left in the classroom. The following week have different students assume the same responsibilities.<\/p>\n

A final area of small change with big potential big pay-off relates to our own professional growth.\u00a0 In the same way that I promised myself I would read professionally for twenty minutes every day,\u00a0I also made a pledge to try one new, principled activity a week\u00a0with each of my classes.\u00a0To do this I need to reflect on what\u00a0we have done in class and why. I also have to google and ferret out an activity I haven\u2019t done that will compliment what I am doing in class. Not only do students benefit from the surprise of a new activity, but I get to expand my repertoire.<\/p>\n

And so we loop back to the beginning. Small changes can positively impact student engagement and motivation and also keep us, the teachers, in a state of positive mindfulness \u2013 and this is a good thing.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Small Changes All the Time by Chris Mares.   I am coming at this cold in the sense that I haven\u2019t yet\u00a0read John\u00a0Fanselow\u2019s\u00a0book. But I will.\u00a0However, I am a great believer in small changes.\u00a0It fits in with one of my principles of teaching which I picked up from a mentor of mine, Ray Pelletier, who … Continue reading Small Changes All the Time<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":62,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[126],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-small-changes-big-results"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6532","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/62"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6532"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6532\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}