Love my classes

I LOVE MY CLASSES.

This year I have been blessed with really good classes. I still get my dose of challenging students but overall the students are settled and I get to be myself in front of them. I can be silly, make jokes and do some horrible dabbing. 

Teaching is about knowing your students and working on building good relationships with them. At the same time NOT letting them get away with things like coming late to class, incomplete assessments tasks and being rude. It is important to have consistent instructions and consequences. Students do three things when they walk into my classroom:

1. Bags off (and placed at the back of the room).

2. Sit down.

3. Zip it.

This is to get the class settled quickly without interruptions. Once the introduction is done (for practical lessons), students can start on their own project. If it is a theory lesson, students need to remain quiet unless there is a class discussion.

I am generally more flexible with senior students to show them that I am treating them as 'young adults'. However, I still give all my high school students three chances. On the third warning they stay back for detention. Three strikes and you are out! We also have a good system in our high school. If students come 4 mins late to class, we can assign them with a half lunch detention. This week, I have assigned a total of three detentions. One for being disruptive in class and two for being late. I like to make students work hard during the detentions. This includes cleaning my room, sharpening my pencils...anything that is dull and repetitive. I get a clean room and they learn their lesson. Kills two birds with one stone! 

I am also comfortable with calling home. Sometimes the parents/carer are very supportive and other times I need to remind myself to remain composed and professional. 

At the same time, I am the biggest advocator for rewarding students. If they are good...REWARD them! I have my own rewards system in my classroom and I also help run the school wide system.

Read it up here:

Rewarding students

I just rewarded my students in my Elective class with 5 Vivos (virtual points) each. The school's 'Vivo' reward system works by having accounts set up for both the teacher and student. The cost of running the 'Vivo Miles' program depends on the number of students at your school. Teachers can reward students based on how well they are meeting the school's values of being a respectful, engaged and an active learner. Students can look up their virtual points and the messages that go along with it on their computer/mobile app and trade their points in for prizes of their own choice i.e. key rings, photo frames, speakers, earphones. Check out my link 'Rewarding students' (above link) to see the huge scope of tangible prizes and teacher services offered to students as a form of reward.

Above: When you reward students or classes you can choose your own options and leave a message. 

Above: This is how teachers and students log into Vivo Miles.

Above: My home page is different to the version that students see. The chart tells me how many Vivos I have left and my class list is on the left hand side. I am in charge of helping students and teachers with log in issues and I also help organise the prizes on the vShop (Vivo shop). I organise for donations from the local and school community and then manually put the prizes up into the vShop.

The class which I rewarded 5 Vivos per student is learning about 'Street Art'. They are working on creating graffiti design and stencils based on a social issue that they are passionate about. Students are considering 'Does Street Art have its place in the art world?' They have been given old pieces of furniture to create their designs on. Students have also been given safety lessons on how to correctly use a scalpel knife and spray can. They created a quick stencil based on their initials to understand the processes involved. 

The idea of working on furniture came up on my Instagram feed. Another teacher had used furniture, walls and the general school space as a large canvas for students. She was happy to communicate with me and allowed me to use furniture as a 'canvas'. I am using old furniture from the school dumpster. Super happy to give them a second life! And the students think I am purposely dumpster diving for them. The sacrifices we make as teachers ;)