"Just Because" Justified

Communicating Effectively with Your Students

In a lecture given by Marquette University English Professor, Jean M. Czaja, she outlines 15 steps that a teacher can take to communicate effectively with their students.

1. Speak at a slower pace, but still naturally and articulate your words clearly
2. Ask direct statements and questions and avoid complicated sentence structures
3. Use simple vocabulary and avoid technical language that your students may not know.
4. Write down key words if your student doesn’t seem to understand you.
5. Use nonverbal cures such as gestures, facial expressions, and nodding to help convey meaning.
6. If your students don’t seem to understand you, repeat what you said again. If they still don’t understand you repeat what you said in a slightly different way.
7. Give your students time to understand what you’ve said before expecting a response. Don’t immediately repeat yourself.
8. Confirm that your students really understood you by using questions such as “Did that answer your question?”
9. Look at your students and pay attention to both verbal and nonverbal cues, which help convey meaning.
10. Tell you students when you don’t’ understand what they are asking you, but try to be specific about what it is you don’t understand.
11. Ask your students to repeat their question.
12. Paraphrase what you think the student is asking you.
13. Get to know our students
14. Share experiences from when you were a student
15. Be prepared for our class and make sure you are familiar with the material

Most importantly be persistent and patient with your students and give your students a chance to learn how to communicate with you!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frwP9f85TnU

Discipline and Expectations in the Classroom

Most educators, whether having just entered the field or having many years experience, find the task of responding to disruptive student behavior to be one of the most demanding and least rewarding aspects of teaching. Without the proper training and skills to respond effectively, teachers all too often find themselves resorting to the authoritarian models they may have experienced as students. Respect must be given to a student in order for the student to give respect back to the teacher; therefore, preventative measures are far more effective than punitive ones. Teachers who are effective classroom managers help students take responsibility for their own behaviors and learn other ways for handling frustrating situations. Here are some ways to deal with minor problems before allowing them to escalate into major problems:

-Arrange seating patterns so students are easily seen and accessed
-State classroom expectations and limits clearly and in a positive manner
-Use verbal as well as nonverbal cues indicating an inappropriate behavior
-Remain calm
-Speak courteously and make eye contact
-Offer assistance to students in need
-Use positive reinforcement when students are acting desirably

It is important to know that it is best if teachers handle disruptive instances themselves, rather than referring students to a counselor or administrator. It may be challenging for a teacher to handle every situation single-handedly, but doing so shows the students that the teacher possesses natural authority. This indicates that the teacher respects and genuinely cares for the students. Maintaining a positive relationship with students will make teaching and guiding them much more effective.

Quarterly Parent Surveys Encourage Communication

The use of a Quarterly Parent Survey is an efficient way to encourage communication from parents. At the beginning of the school year valuable information about a child may be revealed by a parent's response to a single question:

What are three things you would like me to know about your child?

Information provided may be valuable to a busy teacher who is trying to establish a relationship with each student early in the school year. As the year progresses, a carefully worded second survey may provide insight into a child's attitude about school. Consider the following questions:

What three things does your child like most about school?

What would you like me to know about your child?

A third parent survey at the beginning of third quarter may be worded so the teacher is provided with parent feedback about the many aspects of the classroom/school environment. For example:

As a parent, what three things do you like most about this school year?

Teachers and parents are very busy people and Quarterly Parent Surveys provide a quick and easy opportunity for communication.

The Pros to Positive Communication with your Students

Communication is the most important thing that happens between a teacher and her students. There are many Pros to having good communication with each and every student. For example: It sets the tone of how your student will treat you. Children at a young age will treat you how you treat them. You communicate positive with your students they will communicate positive right back. Teaching communication skills in Elementary school is extremely important being that it will stick with them forever. A Pro to positive communication skills is less chaos in the classroom between students, which would be a big plus for you. Less fights and outbursts lead to more education time. Therefore grades go up, children get along and everyone is happy. Good, positive communication skills save the day.

Communicating Effectively With Parents About Differentiated Instruction

Communicating effectively with parents about the way you meet the diverse learning needs of your students can help to create a supportive partnership between parent and teacher. If Differentiated Instruction is a mainstay in your classroom then you are aware of the unique learning environment you are creating for your students. Parents will become empowered to help their child learn in different ways by understanding the concept of this teaching method. I would recommend beginning your explanation by defining Differentiated Instruction. Basically, it is a learner-centered teaching method that modifies curriculum to meet the wide range of learner needs within the classroom.

Citing several examples of Differentiated Instruction will give parents an idea of the modifications you make in the classroom to accommodate different learning styles.

Examples of Differentiated Instruction Used in the Classroom

• Flexible Grouping - Organizes students into different groups based on readiness and interest.
• Scaffolding - Teacher models a concept or activity and then encourages students during participation.
• Compacting - Enables students to skip content they already know and move to more advanced work.
• Tiering - Gives students of different learning levels parallel tasks at different levels of complexity.

It would be wise to reassure parents that tasks and groupings are ever changing, and that you continually assess each student's skills and progress.

Introducing parents to several aspects of Differentiated Instruction will help them understand how this teaching method encourages students to be active learners, and nurtures creative spirit.

Through the process of effectively communicating important aspects of Differentiated Instruction, you may find a bond develop with parents as you work together to ensure student success and independence.

Persuasive Communication With Principals

Do you need more desks? Is there a student who needs to be relocated in to another classroom? Would you like to start a fund-raiser to support a school club? If these are questions you are facing as a teacher, then you are probably preparing to get an approval from the principal, and of course, you cannot just walk into the principal's office and ask such questions without preparation. Here are some helpful hints to effectively persuade the principal in your favor.
Begin by researching how the choices would affect all parties involved. The principal is your primary audience, they are going to be interested in the outcomes, and it is your job to tell them. When you are faced to with having to persuade someone, what is going to stand out is how knowledgeable are you about the topic. For instance, if you are trying to convince the principal to okay a new fund-raiser, you are going to need to know all the details. When you are asked, "How much are we going to need to raise to meet the start up costs?” you should not pull up a calculator to start crunching numbers, you should already know this.
After you have gathered enough information, and feel comfortable being considered a reliable source, start organizing it into how you are going to present it to the principal. As well, now is the time into determining the appropriate medium you will deliver your persuasive piece. Do the work for your audience; they do not want to have to think about it. The information should be organized in a way that your audience should not have to ask you the, who, what, when, and where questions. Decide whether a note card would be appropriate, if you are going to speak in person, for the situation (i.e. using numbers as part of important details). When you have finished organizing the information in a smooth flowing argument, review the following list, if you find that you cannot agree with something figure out why and correct it before you present it.
Am I...?

* Comfortable with the information I am about to present?
* Sure that this will benefit al parties, and if not, do the benefits outweigh the disadvantages?
* Confident that if I were hearing this information it would be easy to follow?

All of these are important in making your argument effective. I hope you remember these tips before you have that big talk with the school’s principal. A persuasive argument is effective when the information is researched, a well-organized medium is selected, and the it is all presented in an appropriate manner.
Good luck with what you may hope to achieve with your persuasive communication.

Communicating With Your Students

Communication between teachers and students is a very important tool that teachers need to obtain to be successful. It is very important to have a good relationship with your students especially when they are in the Elementary category. Children learn so young that it is important to teach them the right ways early especially when it comes to communication skills. They way you communicate with your students are the way that they will communicate to you and to others. When talking to you students it is extremely important to talk in a tone that is open and positive. You don’t want your student thinking that you do to like them by the way you talk to them. It is important to gain respect from your students but remember you are not there to control them; you are there to teach them, help them and guide them. Here are some tips to how you can communicate successfully with your students…..
· Make eye contact
· Obtain positive facial expressions
· Don’t use distractive gestures
· Use the students name when speaking directly to them
· Speak in a calm tone
· If you become frustrated just stop and go back to the conversation later
These are the top tools that will help ensure that your relationship with your students stays a positive one.

Parent/Teacher Communications

Research has proven that children can perform better in school when both parents and teachers are active in the school and there are also open lines of communication between the classroom teacher and the parent. There are several other ways you can achieve this besides the traditional parent/teacher conference.
· Supply the parents with an e-mail address where they can ask questions or make comments.
· PTA meetings, although not the perfect time to have one on one conferences with parents, will still give you the opportunity to interact with each other.
· Send home a weekly newsletter explaining what’s going on this week in the classroom and have the parents sign and return it to you.
· Let parents know that you are available for meetings with advance notice.
· If you see a problem starting, don’t wait for the parent to contact you, you contact the parent.

Communication Basics

Teachers communicate with the parents of their student’s on a regular basis. There are many forms of communication in which a teacher may use. When using a written form, it is important to remember there is always an audience and a purpose for writing. Many elementary teachers may choose to send home a weekly schedule in which the purpose would be to inform parents so they may be involved with their child’s school activities and make sure homework is being done on time. The other purpose for sending out a weekly schedule is to have the parent and student take action to get the assigned tasks completed. The audience for the weekly schedule would be not only the parents, but also the student. For this reason, it is important to use simple, concrete language. If a teacher follows these beginning steps, his or her writing will be more successful.