How Do We Get Their Attention?

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How Do We Get Their Attention?

A Behavior management primer forweaker and learning disabled students

Ellen Hoffenberg-Serfaty, J.D.

I began teaching in Pisgat Zeev High School two years ago with the ambitious goal of trying to reach the weakest level of students in each grade and improve their chances of passing the 1 point and supplemental Bagrut exams. I vividly recall standing in front of my relatively small classes with what, I was sure was outstanding material...and being driven crazy by their behavior for the first few weeks of school! A common litany--no books, no notebooks, no pens; homework? Are you serious? Pairwork? And how do you actually hope to keep them on task and get their attention? I quickly concluded that “material” is not as important as how we get weaker students motivated to learn and study.

Prior to discussing the system that has proved effective in my classes, it is important to define the type of student that I (and other teachers) are likely to find in a “weaker” class, since “Non-readers” is really a misnomer.

My students have many problems with the English language.

They may have severe learning disabilities that prevent them from producing spoken or written communications, or from understanding verbal or written information. Many of these learning disabilities have not been officially diagnosed.

Some of these students may have undiagnosed attention disorders. This means that they have problems focusing on their work or concentrating. This often manifests itself in behavior problems, and these are students who are often referred to disciplinarians.

Some students have emotional, behavioral or developmental problems that exhibit themselves in failing to perform well on tests, not doing homework or completing assignments, disrupting class, not knowing how to organize their work, not coming to school, being late for class...this category has many manifestations.

We can’t really put these students in any “category”--some suffer from all of the above symptoms. What we do know is that they are “poor” or “non”-performers in English. And they present challenges (sometimes insurmountable) for the untrained teacher of a large or average-sized heterogeneous class, and require careful planning in a smaller setting.

During those first weeks, I decided to provide tasks where I could watch how the students worked (or didn’t work) and how they interacted, and I systematically jotted down all of the behavior that was counter-productive to the learning process. I also began one-on-one chats with my pupils about how they learned English in the past and how they felt about their language learning progress.

After a month, I was ready to reorganize our class. I advised the students that I was no longer going to police their behavior, admonish them for being late or failing to bring supplies, or nag them about homework. I began to discuss my new philosophy of how I defined their success during their tenure with me, aided by a quote:

To succeed in school, you must take control of your education. Become an active learner.

Stop thinking of school as something that happens, something that is done to you.

Start thinking of each of your classes as something you do that improves your skills and enhances your learning.

Remember, every assignment provides you with the opportunity to prove to yourself and to others that you are learning.

Your teachers don’t give you grades, you earn them.

The Learning Skills Handbook, by Jay Amberg

My research reinforced my belief that most of my students had never learned how to learn and were rarely required to produce work like other students. Many of them advised me that they spent most of their English learning time being given busy-work tasks or sitting outside of class for disciplinary problems. Their failure to do homework was often overlooked because their teachers understood that they had problems in English, or that they had learning problems which interfered with the mode of production demanded of other students. They were used to being allowed to “pass” on a task, simply by claiming that it was too hard.

As we began to discuss the above quote, I learned that my students had never really assumed responsibility for their own learning--not only in English, but in other subjects as well.

I asked my students to reflect and write down the answers to the following four questions on an index card that I would keep until the end of the semester:

How would you like to improve your English this semester?

What grade do you want in English?

How much time are you willing to study to achieve that grade?

How can I help you achieve your goal?

Initially, these questions provoked much confusion...it was my impression that my students had never been asked to think about these issues before. But I received some very interesting responses. Most students accurately identified reading as their major problem, although some believed that more vocabulary and grammar would pave their way to success. Noone identified their study habits as being the chief culprit for their poor achievement.

I am always touched by their comments of how I can help them--they ask me not to yell at them, to treat them with respect, to have patience, not to get mad if I have to repeat myself... I often wonder how these obviously frail young people have been treated in the past.

My request that they identify the grade that they want always provokes much discussion, and the opportunity to explain the special system that we use.

I use a Daily Behavior Log every day in my classes, as follows, so that my students and I can grade their achievements in all areas for which I expect certain student behavior--or simply that they “act like a student”. In tenth grade classes, I begin by having one student hand out the sheets at the beginning of each class, and each area is graded as the lesson progresses. I make sure that I spend a few moments with each student (many of my lessons are double lessons) talking with them about their achievements for the day and assigning them grades, while collecting the sheets. In my eleventh grade classes this year, students are so well-trained in the system that they often give themselves grades, and are now responsible for keeping the Daily Logs, bringing them to each class and saving them each month for their portfolios.

Daily Student Record--Month:

Name:______

I began work with the log by simply checking off behavior, but have since assigned up to 10 points for each category. I don’t always check each area every day, but often concentrate on certain problems.

At the end of the month, the students look over their progress during the previous month, and jot down their feelings about their improvements or problems. They select one area for improvement for the next month, and circle the number on their new log...and we thus progress throughout the year.

Teachers of younger students often use a weekly log in order to provide additional reinforcement and feedback to students. Recently, I have begun sending the logs home with a note for parents to sign--and non-reader teachers often use this practice as well. Our Non-Readers Project has incorporated these behaviors into a cumulative progress sheet which becomes part of each non-reader’s individual plan.

When I explain the system to the students’ homeroom teachers, many ask if this system is not demeaning. Some students complain that I am treating them like babies. But by the end of each semester, when they are asked to reflect on the use of the logs in their portfolios, I am still surprised to learn how much they appreciated using the logs and being able to gauge town progress.

Changing the Grading System for Weak Classes

Weaker students, as well as those who have learning disabilities are unlikely to be successful in classes where testing is the major determinant for evaluating their progress and assigning them grades. Even where they have mastered the material, are given listening cassettes to aid their reading comprehension, and extra time to complete tasks, many are simply anxious during test situations. In order to motivate these students, as well as give them an opportunity to succeed, their grading system has to reflect the new values that I am trying to introduce.

Tests are reduced from 40% of their grades to 20% in tenth grade. Their achievements as measured by the daily logs are worth between 20-30% of their grades, depending on the severity of problems in this area. When questioned about assigning such a high percentage to their behavior, I feel comfortable in replying that if students are on time, bring their supplies and homework, behave acceptably, pay attention and participate, improved language learning is sure to follow.

Their classwork and homework grades are constructed according to a point system: Each piece of work that is assigned has a certain number of points. Bonus points are generally provided for turning work in on time. And all work is returned for corrections and more grades, if the student chooses to strive for them--and many do. Everything that I ask students to do in class and for homework has points assigned--including certain oral tasks, and especially work that I assign for groups.

Students are frequently assigned tasks such as reading cassettes (reading a passage that they select into a tape, which I listen to and reply on tape with corrections); book tasks (we read silently in class, often accompanied by listening to tapes of books, and then they are allowed to choose one of several simple tasks to perform, many of which require oral work); projects; as well as a new task that I assigned this year--dialogue journals. At the end of the semester, I assign maximum points below the level of cumulative points assigned for all work--I correctly assume that my students need lots of flexibility to choose which tasks they like to do, and will not always perform at the optimal level.

Finally, by organizing portfolios and reflecting on their work for the semester according to carefully constructed rubrics that I review with my students, they can achieve up to an additional 10 percentage points to be added to their grade.

For some learning disabled and non-reader students, my class is the first time that they begin to understand that writing is not the only way that they can produce homework and projects in English. I frequently allow book tasks, projects and other work to be taped instead of written, although I identify specific tasks that the students must write, e.g. dialogue journals and worksheets. Many teachers of weaker students share my belief that pupils can often perform at a very high level if permitted to converse about their chosen topics on tape. Their successful production of tasks in a more flexible setting is often marked by being removed from weaker classes and placed in stronger classes, if they have succeeded in securing an assessment where their specific learning disability has been identified in such a way as to allow this practice for Bagrut testing purposes.

My emphasis in this article on behavior, study management techniques and strategies doesn’t mean that I am not diligent about the type of material and activities that I prepare for my students. On the contrary, I have yet to find a text or ‘canned” activity that I can give to my students without “teacher-tampering”. I have learned to carefully construct my lessons, emphasizing the accumulation of language learning strategies, and breaking material down to “absorbable” levels for my students: when I ask them to perform a task, I have to be sure that they have been exposed to its basic elements of word awareness, schema, vocabulary, etc., and that they remember this foundation as they approach a new subject or task. I have learned to accept “quality” work on a small amount of material, and ignore the “quantity” that “should” be covered. However, this approach would comprise an article (if not a book) in itself and is beyond the scope of the present discussion. Also missing is the importance I have learned to place on using a portfolio as the student’s most instrument of reflection on his or her learning process.

A final word about “weak” students--I have had no greater joy in this present career (and it competes with those experience I treasure in my career as a child advocate and lawyer) than collecting student portfolios at the end of year, reading them through, conferencing with my students and sharing our thoughts about what grade they deserve. In the course of a semester, I have seen many young people transform themselves from students who completely balked at trying to attack a reading comprehension passage and exercise, to those who know how to dig into their work and use the strategies they have learned to their maximum benefit. I credit this transformation to a carefully planned behavior and learning management program that both teachers, students, and sometimes parents are willing to invest in each and every day--and a grading system that rewards students for their efforts. Once this transformation takes place, success in English usually follows, and students often find themselves transferring what they have learned in our classes to their other subjects, as well as discarding several years of failure and insecurity. It is not unusual for a hard-working student to receive 100 in one of my classes--if they work, they learn that they will receive the grades that they deserve. In high school classes, where students will eventually take Bagrut examinations, student participation in these special classes may need to be noted on their records--and at some point, student final grades must be built on the basis of Bagrut level proficiency. However, this transition must be carefully planned, and the students prepared for the changeover from grading based upon effort to a system that primarily focuses on proficiency levels.