What do your students do in the classroom to make smart choices? During centers, do they make smart choices or are they playing around? At recess are they playing together or are they fighting? Wouldn't it be great if every child 24 hours a day made smart choices?
Lesson 6- Make Smart Choices video
The whole reason for rule 4 in Whole Brain Teaching is to help each student develop moral reasoning. Moral reasoning needs to be taught to the students. They will need lots of practice making choices so they can learn to make the better choice.
The whole reason for rule 4 in Whole Brain Teaching is to help each student develop moral reasoning. Moral reasoning needs to be taught to the students. They will need lots of practice making choices so they can learn to make the better choice.
So, what do you do when you see a child making a foolish choice? Here is what you do. When you see a child not making smart choices, pull them aside and talk to them one-on-one. Make sure you talk to them privately so they don't start acting up in front of the class to get attention. Ask them about what happened. Have them tell you what some of their choices were in the situation. Ask them to then tell you what the smart choices would have been in this situation. Next ask them what foolish choices would have been in this situation. Asking these sets of questions helps the student develop moral reasoning. The students need to be able to see the difference between right actions and foolish actions.
This is our goal as teachers to help our students develop this reasoning. If students have moral reasoning their reasons for their actions with make sense. They will be able to think before they act and hopefully their reasoning leads them to make the right choice.
April, I came across Whole Brain Teaching methods last summer and implemented several parts of them all throughout last school year. It was difficult at times because our school already has certain expectations for systems/methods to use for behavior management and they didn't necessarily mesh with WBT's methods. BUT...I did do the "Class, Yes", "Teach, Okay," and the scoreboard, and it did work well. I know many critics of WBT say that your class looks like little robots when you do stuff like that, but chants work!! Especially with 1st graders! I definitely am looking into using more of WBT next year and getting deeper into it. The only thing I've struggled with is how to address individual student issues when your main source of "power" for management is the scoreboard which is a whole class incentive. The "guff counter" did not work nearly as well as I had expected it too to take care of individual issues, so that's why I ask.
ReplyDeleteI like speaking to the child individually. My daughters get so embarrassed when teachers fuss about things (missing work, no name) in front of others. It is all we moms hear for hours when they get home.
ReplyDeleteJennifer
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