The BOSS, my experience with classroom leadership
Oct 16, 2016 12:06:10 GMT 8
Aaron David Screaton FTM likes this
Post by Lukas on Oct 16, 2016 12:06:10 GMT 8
First of all, I think that to provide good learning environment, we need to maintain a decent level of classroom management. If one Student gets distracted, he/she distracts others and everything goes south almost immediately.
Having that in mind, if the class is well-behaved or at least not destructive, the highest ability student will naturally become a leader in an academic sense. Happened in every class i had, and honestly I can't think of a way to artificially make a lower-ability student a leader to stimulate their progress. Unfortunately, I didn't find an answer to this in the book either.
However, as classroom management is half of success, me and our great PA Maisie came up with a nice method to keep a class calm. I had a group of 4-to-5-year-old boys. 4 of them. A nightmare in the beginning.
Our reward system in i2 is stamps in the 'passport'. They love getting them and always try to bargain for more.
In the beginning of every class, one student was assigned as a 'leader' or 'boss'. His job was to control the behaviour of others AND help them if they struggle with a task.
They took a great pride in being a boss (it was a one-term role, every class a different Student). One of them, each time it was his turn would go to his mum, all happy and what seemed like a foot taller and say 'Mama, wo shi laoban' which with time became an English version 'Mama, I'm a boss!' A boss got 'paid' with two stamps and he also got to decide who else, if anyone, deserved a prize. 4 year-old can be surprisingly fair.
Believe it or not, the day we devised this method, changed everything in this class. Everyone was well-behaved since they wanted the boss to like them, and the boss tried harder to learn the content as he had to help whomever might struggle. (Hey I think that's how you make them academic leaders too) Should the boss fail to keep his classmates calm, he wouldn't get a bonus.
To sum this up. I think a good idea would be to have multiple leaders, not just one. Equal opportunities.
Nowadays, with this group, I don't even have to do it anymore, they're great now!
Having that in mind, if the class is well-behaved or at least not destructive, the highest ability student will naturally become a leader in an academic sense. Happened in every class i had, and honestly I can't think of a way to artificially make a lower-ability student a leader to stimulate their progress. Unfortunately, I didn't find an answer to this in the book either.
However, as classroom management is half of success, me and our great PA Maisie came up with a nice method to keep a class calm. I had a group of 4-to-5-year-old boys. 4 of them. A nightmare in the beginning.
Our reward system in i2 is stamps in the 'passport'. They love getting them and always try to bargain for more.
In the beginning of every class, one student was assigned as a 'leader' or 'boss'. His job was to control the behaviour of others AND help them if they struggle with a task.
They took a great pride in being a boss (it was a one-term role, every class a different Student). One of them, each time it was his turn would go to his mum, all happy and what seemed like a foot taller and say 'Mama, wo shi laoban' which with time became an English version 'Mama, I'm a boss!' A boss got 'paid' with two stamps and he also got to decide who else, if anyone, deserved a prize. 4 year-old can be surprisingly fair.
Believe it or not, the day we devised this method, changed everything in this class. Everyone was well-behaved since they wanted the boss to like them, and the boss tried harder to learn the content as he had to help whomever might struggle. (Hey I think that's how you make them academic leaders too) Should the boss fail to keep his classmates calm, he wouldn't get a bonus.
To sum this up. I think a good idea would be to have multiple leaders, not just one. Equal opportunities.
Nowadays, with this group, I don't even have to do it anymore, they're great now!
