Teacher Treat

Rick Morris Seminar

I had the opportunity to go to a seminar taught by Rick Morris, and I learned many ideas that I want to use. Here are my top three.

Class Discussions: When asking for students to give you their answers, don’t give them a yes or no response. When the teacher says yes, then all discussion is over and other students who wanted to share didn’t get to. When a teacher says no to a response, then the student who was told no is reluctant to share next time. A simple fix to this is just say thanks to all of the responses. Once everyone has shared, then explain the right answer. No one gets their feelings hurt or is embarrassed and everyone gets to be involved. Yes!

Music: Music can be used to make the classroom environment more organized and interesting. Music can be used to let students know if it is time to clean up, how long they have to clean, or a signal to go to the carpet.  Imagine it’s time to clean up. All you do is push play and a song starts to play. Students start cleaning. By the time that song is over the desks are cleared off and students are in their seats. Sounds wonderful because it is. This will take some practice, but it is a great tool! http://www.newmanagement.com/music/index.html

Sign Language: Use sign language to communicate. Instead of having students raise their hand, have them use sign language to tell you if they have a question, comment, or answer. Here are a few signs. There are more sign language cards at http://www.newmanagement.com/