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Art as Text: Bridging Literacy and the Arts

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Family Business & Innovative On-Site Child Care - Patagonia

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Strong families build strong businesses. Watch and learn how supporting families offers steps every business can take to create a family-friendly workplace.

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Iris Center

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Engage the kids who "don't like math".

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"I don't like math," my students commonly say. The alternative high school in rural Colorado where I've been working for the last two-and-a-half years serves students ages 14 to 20, who come to us when they have not done well in traditional environments since we have more freedom to use creative instructional methods to meet their needs.

Thinking about that comment, I used to ask myself, "How would the students' attitudes toward math change if there was an opportunity to experience a different side of math, one that involved hands-on learning, promoted teamwork, and ended in a product to be proud of?" I thought I could use Rubik's Cubes to facilitate camaraderie among my math-anxious and math-eager students, based on my own love of the popular puzzle. And after learning about students creating mosaics of historical figures, famous landmarks, and animals out of the cubes, I saw a way to promote critical thinking and algorithmic problem-solving.

Making Connections to Math

I incorporated informal math conversations throughout the mosaic process. Once the students began to experience success in solving a face of the cube to build a mosaic, they became more open to mathematical conversations around the three-dimensional puzzle.

On different days, I would ask students questions like, "What percent of the mosaic is finished?" or "If three students are each able to solve one face at an average rate of two minutes, about how long will it take to complete the mosaic?"

I wanted to provide students with opportunities to use estimation and reasoning skills while still having fun. I didn't incorporate paper-and-pen worksheets because I wanted them to practice mental math and approximation-useful skills that will help them as they progress through math.

There are several connections one can make between the Rubik's Cube and math. The Rubik's Cube can be used to conceptualize surface area and volume, as well as exhibit a net of a familiar, three-dimensional solid.

The Rubik's Cube can be connected to fractions, ratios, and proportional reasoning. For example, on one face of a scrambled Rubik's Cube, there may be three red, one blue, two green, two yellow, and one orange tile. The teacher can ask, "What fraction of the visible face do the red tiles represent? (Answer: 3/9 or 1/3).

For an older group of students, a teacher may introduce the concept of factorials to explain the 43,252,003,274,489,856,000 different combinations of the Rubik's Cube. No matter how a Rubik's Cube is arranged, it can be solved in 20 moves or fewer-a fact that typically piques students' curiosity.

And by arranging squares of nine, 16, and 25 Rubik's Cubes together so their corners form a triangle, a teacher can demonstrate the Pythagorean threorem, a ² + b ² = c ².

Building Rubik's Cube Mosaics

With a passion for the Rubik's Cube, I researched ways to introduce the puzzle to students and came across the organization You Can Do the Rubik's Cube. The group's website has free templates for mosaics of icons such as Anne Frank, landmarks like the Golden Gate Bridge, and a variety of animals. (There's also guidance for classes that want to create customized mosaics.) One mosaic may have as many as 600 cubes.

You Can Do The Rubik's Cube is a lending library for the cubes and a resource that helps K-12 educators and youth organizations teach students how to solve the puzzle and engage them in STEAM lessons. Educators in the United States and Canada can borrow up to 600 Rubik's Cubes for six weeks at a time.

This was perfect for my school since we offer five-week elective courses that capture students' interests and align with teachers' areas of expertise. I proposed a course entitled "Art and Problem-Solving with the Rubik's Cube: Diversity," and then borrowed 225 cubes once the course was approved.

Students in my class were interested in learning about the historical figures while constructing the mosaics, so they researched an icon of their choice from the mosaics we built. A couple of memorable figures included Marilyn Monroe, Rosa Parks, and Nikola Tesla.

Once my students learned how to arrange the Rubik's Cube, most were able to do one face in two or three minutes, and even close to one minute on a great day. They worked alone or with a partner to build one 25-cube section at a time, and an entire 100-cube mosaic usually took 20 to 30 minutes to complete with five or six students.

Bringing Rubik's Cubes Into Regular Content Lessons

There are free lessons and units for a variety of subjects, many created by and for educators, that address math and science standards.

For example, a middle school biology lesson plan uses a classification system to design "critters" using the concept of DNA codons. The lesson addresses Common Core English and Next Generation Science standards, like MS-LS3-1: "Develop and use a model to describe why structural changes to genes (mutations) located on chromosomes may affect proteins and may result in harmful, beneficial, or neutral effects to the structure and function of the organism."

The STEM Rubik's Unit Student Notebook is a K-5, nine-lesson unit that explores concepts from engineering and design, genetics, the geometry of shapes and figures, the geometry of solids, and neuroscience.

The Rubik's Cube is an engaging way to explore many topics across content areas. With a growth mindset and determination to provide an engaging experience for all, educators can motivate students and inspire them to seek out challenges and pursue ways to think critically and solve new problems.

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"I don't like math," my students commonly say. The alternative high school in rural Colorado where I've been working for the last two-and-a-half years serves students ages 14 to 20, who come to us when they have not done well in traditional environments since we have more freedom to use creative instructional methods to meet their needs.

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Simple strategies for developing the strong relationships with students that encourage them to take risks and increase their learning.

The quality of presence-a state of alert awareness, receptivity, and connectedness to the working of both the individuals and the group in the context of the learning environment-is unfortunately not often taught explicitly in teacher education programs.

Teachers know they have presence when they have a genuine connection with the students that breeds confidence and respect throughout the classroom, allowing for risk taking and increased learning opportunities. These teachers engage in authentic relationships with students, addressing their academic and emotional needs while being resourceful about anticipating unknowns.

It's possible to develop and refine one's command of presence by focusing on authenticity, relationships, and confidence.

Fostering a Sense of Authenticity

Students want and need sincerity, honesty, and care for the subjects they are being taught. This multidimensional approach is not easy, but it is attainable. The path is a journey of critical reflection that can include peer coaching, caring colleagues, and a teacher's own self-reflective toolbox.

Authenticity involves the sincerity of caring about your students and wanting them to grow. It's the backward-planning process that integrates what you know and are interested in, what your students know, and what they really need to know.

As in any relationship, an honest approach to your class, to yourself, and to the subject matter is vital to the effectiveness of your instruction. Giving students honest responses like, "That's a very good question. I don't know the answer right now, but I'm going to write it down and get back to you tomorrow," or "Class, I apologize..." can encourage students to take healthy risks in discussions and can give them permission to be imperfect.

Enthusiasm, creative lessons, implementation of technology, use of audio and visual input, or guest speakers will definitely help build your presence in the classroom by making your lessons more engaging. Building your own growth mindset so that you continue to improve lessons is just as important. Ultimately, these things show how you value your subject matter, which your students will assess as they decide how authentic they think you are.

Building Strong Relationships

Developing positive and optimistic relationships is a worthwhile goal to have when establishing presence. An effective educator communicates a genuine belief that all students are capable of growth and learning.

Relationship-building skills always begin with the critical skill of listening. We should actively listen by asking great questions, having the patience to listen, and showing genuine interest by either asking follow-up questions or validating students' responses in a positive manner.

To create this type of engagement and shared focus, you may want to start class with warm-up writing that intertwines issues of personal relevance to the students with the lesson of that particular day. You could start a high school government class on the First Amendment by asking, "What rights do you wish you had as a student that you currently don't have, and why?" This type of question shows that you have empathy with students' perspective on the world and with their struggles.

It's the authenticity of the relationship that permits students and a teacher to see each other and know that what is being shared is real.

Projecting Confidence

We know that effective teachers teach with confidence-which is not to be confused with arrogance. The first step in teaching with confidence is to know why you teach-why you show up to meet the intellectual, emotional, and physical demands that are placed on teachers every day.

In observing teachers for nearly two decades, I've noticed that the most effective ones demonstrate their confidence through an active voice, body language, and preparedness.

When speaking actively and expressively, you'll also need to know when and how to keep your voice calm and steady. Learning and practicing variations of voice will help you command presence and achieve the attention you and your students deserve. You can practice pauses, voice variations, and tempo changes. If you have the time and resources, try signing up for a theater class. Or simply volunteer to read children's books to preschoolers or kindergartners-those little ones will let you know instantly if you can keep their attention with your delivery.

Entering a classroom slouched, looking to the floor, or scowling while you have your arms crossed will not inspire too many students. Instead, stand tall, walk the room while talking, make eye contact, and smile. A confident body will greatly improve your presence.

If you enter a basketball game knowing you've prepared by practicing your offensive and defensive plays, you'll compete with much more confidence. The same goes for teaching. Benjamin Franklin once said, "If you fail to prepare, you are preparing to fail." You teach with confidence when you're prepared.

Presence is crucial to maintaining classroom management and to effective delivery of instruction, and it's a skill we can develop with effort.

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Simple strategies for developing the strong relationships with students that encourage them to take risks and increase their learning.

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1. Create a sense of belonging and purpose. Students are part of a school and a class that are special and for which students' presence and attendance are important.

2. Learn classmates' names and something about them. Keep it simple and age-appropriate.

3. Learn and practice some key routines. Routines provide reassurance and a sense of security for students. Take ample time to cover these and practice them. Remember, what is routine for you is likely still a source of apprehension for many students.

4. Feel excited and motivated about what's to come. Give kids a sense of how what they will learn will help them.

5. Reassure and excite parents. Communicate to parents before and during the first week much more about the exciting things to come and your care for their children than about requirements and tests.

Activities to Assist

Some sample activities to help accomplish the above goals are:

Give students a chance to express their hopes and dreams for the year. Set up a birthday chart for K-2. For older grades, set up a chart showing favorite books, authors, TV shows, or movies.

Give students a chance to share "Something about Me."

Start a Word Wall. Use age-appropriate words your students will learn that open up a sense of excitement and windows to what is coming during the school year. (Some examples of words you can use are: explore, pride, curiosity, creativity, service, scientist, Dr. Seuss, artist/illustrator, classmate, experiment, goal, share, help, cooperate, collaborate, prepare, review, sing, and

Pay Attention to Key Routines

As noted above, routines provide great reassurance and security. From kindergarten onward, some versions of these are relevant to most classrooms:

Signals for quiet attention

Bathroom procedures

Classroom centers, entries, and exits

Desks, cubbies, lockers, books, and materials

Lining up and walking in hallways

Lunch and dismissal

When and how to ask questions, including establishing the importance of asking questions, no matter how small

More Activities for the First Month

Finally, the following are some important activities toward reinforcing the goals that can be used the first month and continued throughout the year.

Provide students with opportunities to learn something about one another's families. Alert parents that this lesson is coming so they can help children have clear answers, especially with complicated backgrounds that some families have. Use a United States and world map to begin to help children develop a sense of location, direction, etc.

Start to work on a brief, age-appropriate project for your students to share their favorite book or song. They can use any medium they wish: posters, digital slide show, written list or paragraph, photos, etc. For young children, it may begin with verbal sharing after a little bit of thinking time. Give children a chance to help one another to the extent possible. This is a tremendously valuable diagnostic activity, as you will see children's multiple intelligence strengths, how they plan, how they take advantage of or give help, how well they verbalize and communicate interpersonally, and their overall emotional intelligence and social-emotional competence.

Set a norm of having students help one another with routines.

Create end-of-the-day routines, like reflections about a happy thing that happened in school today, one thing they learned that they most want to remember, a closing song or chant to end the day, or saying something they are looking forward to in school tomorrow.

Find time for a fun, energizing break at least once a day other than the start or end of the day. Chants, songs, games, brief meditations, Mad Libs, group problem solving, imagination and creativity activities -- all of these add tremendous enthusiasm to children and help them stay positive for a day of learning.

Please share with us your thoughts and ideas in the comments section below.

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Elementary Classroom: Making the Most of the First Month

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Create a sense of belonging and purpose. Students are part of a school and a class that are special and for which students' presence and attendance are important. Learn classmates' names and something about them. Keep it simple and age-appropriate. Learn and practice some key routines.

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Get access to files anywhere through secure cloud storage and file backup for your photos, videos, files and more with Google Drive.

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Abstract

Appropriate Levels of Dominance

Establish Clear Expectations and Consequences

Establish Clear Learning Goals

Exhibit Assertive Behavior

Appropriate Levels of Cooperation

Provide Flexible Learning Goals

Take a Personal Interest in Students

Use Equitable and Positive Classroom Behaviors

Awareness of High-Needs Students

Don't Leave Relationships to Chance

By using research-based strategies combining appropriate levels of dominance and cooperation and an awareness of student needs, teachers can build positive classroom dynamics.

Abstract

Appropriate Levels of Dominance

Establish Clear Expectations and Consequences

Establish Clear Learning Goals

Exhibit Assertive Behavior

Appropriate Levels of Cooperation

Provide Flexible Learning Goals

Take a Personal Interest in Students

Use Equitable and Positive Classroom Behaviors

Awareness of High-Needs Students

Don't Leave Relationships to Chance

Today, we know more about teaching than we ever have before. Research has shown us that teachers' actions in their classrooms have twice the impact on student achievement as do school policies regarding curriculum, assessment, staff collegiality, and community involvement (Marzano, 2003a). We also know that one of the classroom teacher's most important jobs is managing the classroom effectively.

A comprehensive literature review by Wang, Haertel, and Walberg (1993) amply demonstrates the importance of effective classroom management. These researchers analyzed 86 chapters from annual research reviews, 44 handbook chapters, 20 government and commissioned reports, and 11 journal articles to produce a list of 228 variables affecting student achievement. They combined the results of these analyses with the findings from 134 separate meta-analyses. Of all the variables, classroom management had the largest effect on student achievement. This makes intuitive sense-students cannot learn in a chaotic, poorly managed classroom.

Research not only supports the importance of classroom management, but it also sheds light on the dynamics of classroom management. Stage and Quiroz's meta-analysis (1997) shows the importance of there being a balance between teacher actions that provide clear consequences for unacceptable behavior and teacher actions that recognize and reward acceptable behavior. Other researchers (Emmer, Evertson, & Worsham, 2003; Evertson, Emmer, & Worsham, 2003) have identified important components of classroom management, including beginning the school year with a positive emphasis on management; arranging the room in a way conducive to effective management; and identifying and implementing rules and operating procedures.

In a recent meta-analysis of more than 100 studies (Marzano, 2003b), we found that the quality of teacher-student relationships is the keystone for all other aspects of classroom management. In fact, our meta-analysis indicates that on average, teachers who had high-quality relationships with their students had 31 percent fewer discipline problems, rule violations, and related problems over a year's time than did teachers who did not have high-quality relationships with their students.

What are the characteristics of effective teacher-student relationships? Let's first consider what they are not. Effective teacher-student relationships have nothing to do with the teacher's personality or even with whether the students view the teacher as a friend. Rather, the most effective teacher-student relationships are characterized by specific teacher behaviors: exhibiting appropriate levels of dominance; exhibiting appropriate levels of cooperation; and being aware of high-needs students.

Appropriate Levels of Dominance

Wubbels and his colleagues (Wubbels, Brekelmans, van Tartwijk, & Admiral, 1999; Wubbels & Levy, 1993) identify appropriate dominance as an important characteristic of effective teacher-student relationships. In contrast to the more negative connotation of the term dominance as forceful control or command over others, they define dominance as the teacher's ability to provide clear purpose and strong guidance regarding both academics and student behavior. Studies indicate that when asked about their preferences for teacher behavior, students typically express a desire for this type of teacher-student interaction. For example, in a study that involved interviews with more than 700 students in grades 4-7, students articulated a clear preference for strong teacher guidance and control rather than more permissive types of teacher behavior (Chiu & Tulley, 1997). Teachers can exhibit appropriate dominance by establishing clear behavior expectations and learning goals and by exhibiting assertive behavior.

Establish Clear Expectations and Consequences

Teachers can establish clear expectations for behavior in two ways: by establishing clear rules and procedures, and by providing consequences for student behavior.

The seminal research of the 1980s (Emmer, 1984; Emmer, Sanford, Evertson, Clements, & Martin, 1981; Evertson & Emmer, 1982) points to the importance of establishing rules and procedures for general classroom behavior, group work, seat work, transitions and interruptions, use of materials and equipment, and beginning and ending the period or the day. Ideally, the class should establish these rules and procedures through discussion and mutual consent by teacher and students (Glasser, 1969, 1990).

Establish Clear Learning Goals

Establishing and communicating learning goals at the beginning of a unit of instruction.

Providing feedback on those goals.

Continually and systematically revisiting the goals.

Providing summative feedback regarding the goals.

The use of rubrics can help teachers establish clear goals. To illustrate, assume that a teacher has identified the learning goal "understanding and using fractions" as important for a given unit. That teacher might present students with the following rubric:4 points. You understand the characteristics of fractions along with the different types. You can accurately describe how fractions are related to decimals and percentages. You can convert fractions to decimals and can explain how and why the process works. You can use fractions to understand and solve different types of problems.3 points. You understand the basic characteristics of fractions. You know how fractions are related to decimals and percentages. You can convert fractions to decimals.2 points. You have a basic understanding of the following, but have some small misunderstandings about one or more: the characteristics of fractions; the relationships among fractions, decimals, and percentages; how to convert fractions to decimals.1 point. You have some major problems or misunderstandings with one or more of the following: the characteristics of fractions; the relationships among fractions, decimals, and percentages; how to convert fractions to decimals.0 points. You may have heard of the following before, but you do not understand what they mean: the characteristics of fractions; the relationships among fractions, decimals, and percentages; how to convert fractions to decimals.

The clarity of purpose provided by this rubric communicates to students that their teacher can provide proper guidance and direction in academic content.

Exhibit Assertive Behavior

Teachers can also communicate appropriate levels of dominance by exhibiting assertive behavior. According to Emmer and colleagues, assertive behavior is the ability to stand up for one's legitimate rights in ways that make it less likely that others will ignore or circumvent them. (2003, p. 146)

Use assertive body language by maintaining an erect posture, facing the offending student but keeping enough distance so as not to appear threatening and matching the facial expression with the content of the message being presented to students.

Use an appropriate tone of voice, speaking clearly and deliberately in a pitch that is slightly but not greatly elevated from normal classroom speech, avoiding any display of emotions in the voice.

Persist until students respond with the appropriate behavior. Do not ignore an inappropriate behavior; do not be diverted by a student denying, arguing, or blaming, but listen to legitimate explanations.

Appropriate Levels of Cooperation

Cooperation is characterized by a concern for the needs and opinions of others. Although not the antithesis of dominance, cooperation certainly occupies a different realm. Whereas dominance focuses on the teacher as the driving force in the classroom, cooperation focuses on the students and teacher functioning as a team. The interaction of these two dynamics-dominance and cooperation-is a central force in effective teacher-student relationships. Several strategies can foster appropriate levels of cooperation.

Provide Flexible Learning Goals

Just as teachers can communicate appropriate levels of dominance by providing clear learning goals, they can also convey appropriate levels of cooperation by providing flexible learning goals. Giving students the opportunity to set their own objectives at the beginning of a unit or asking students what they would like to learn conveys a sense of cooperation. Assume, for example, that a teacher has identified the topic of fractions as the focus of a unit of instruction and has provided students with a rubric. The teacher could then ask students to identify some aspect of fractions or a related topic that they would particularly like to study. Giving students this kind of choice, in addition to increasing their understanding of the topic, conveys the message that the teacher cares about and tries to accommodate students' interests.

Take a Personal Interest in Students

Use Equitable and Positive Classroom Behaviors

Awareness of High-Needs Students

Classroom teachers meet daily with a broad cross-section of students. In general, 12-22 percent of all students in school suffer from mental, emotional, or behavioral disorders, and relatively few receive mental health services (Adelman & Taylor, 2002). The Association of School Counselors notes that 18 percent of students have special needs and require extraordinary interventions and treatments that go beyond the typical resources available to the classroom (Dunn & Baker, 2002).

Figure 1. Categories of High-Needs Students

The Key to Classroom Management - table

Category

Definitions & Source

Characteristics

Suggestions

Passive

Behavior that avoids the domination of others or the pain of negative experiences. The child attempts to protect self from criticism, ridicule, or rejection, possibly reacting to abuse and neglect. Can have a biochemical basis, such as anxiety.

Fear of relationships: Avoids connection with others, is shy, doesn't initiate conversations, attempts to be invisible. Fear of failure: Gives up easily, is convinced he or she can't succeed, is easily frustrated, uses negative self-talk.

Provide safe adult and peer interactions and protection from aggressive people. Provide assertiveness and positive self-talk training. Reward small successes quickly. Withhold criticism.

Aggressive

Behavior that overpowers, dominates, harms, or controls others without regard for their well-being. The child has often taken aggressive people as role models. Has had minimal or ineffective limits set on behavior. Is possibly reacting to abuse and neglect. Condition may have a biochemical basis, such as depression.

Hostile: Rages, threatens, or intimidates others. Can be verbally or physically abusive to people, animals, or objects. Oppositional: Does opposite of what is asked. Demands that others agree or give in. Resists verbally or nonverbally. Covert: Appears to agree but then does the opposite of what is asked. Often acts innocent while setting up problems for others.

Describe the student's behavior clearly. Contract with the student to reward corrected behavior and set up consequences for uncorrected behavior. Be consistent and provide immediate rewards and consequences. Encourage and acknowledge extracurricular activities in and out of school. Give student responsibilities to help teacher or other students to foster successful experiences.

Attention problems

Behavior that demonstrates either motor or attentional difficulties resulting from a neurological disorder. The child's symptoms may be exacerbated by family or social stressors or biochemical conditions, such as anxiety, depression, or bipolar disorders.

Hyperactive: Has difficulty with motor control, both physically and verbally. Fidgets, leaves seat frequently, interrupts, talks excessively. Inattentive: Has difficulty staying focused and following through on projects. Has difficulty with listening, remembering, and organizing.

Contract with the student to manage behaviors. Teach basic concentration, study, and thinking skills. Separate student in a quiet work area. Help the student list each step of a task. Reward successes; assign a peer tutor.

Perfectionist

Behavior that is geared toward avoiding the embarrassment and assumed shame of making mistakes. The child fears what will happen if errors are discovered. Has unrealistically high expectations of self. Has possibly received criticism or lack of acceptance while making mistakes during the process of learning.

Tends to focus too much on the small details of projects. Will avoid projects if unsure of outcome. Focuses on results and not relationships. Is self-critical.

Ask the student to make mistakes on purpose, then show acceptance. Have the student tutor other students.

Socially inept

Behavior that is based on the misinterpretation of nonverbal signals of others. The child misunderstands facial expressions and body language. Hasn't received adequate training in these areas and has poor role modeling.

Attempts to make friends but is inept and unsuccessful. Is forced to be alone. Is often teased for unusual behavior, appearance, or lack of social skills.

Teach the student to keep the appropriate physical distance from others. Teach the meaning of facial expressions, such as anger and hurt. Make suggestions regarding hygiene, dress, mannerisms, and posture.

Source: Marzano, R.J. (2003). What works in schools: Translating research into action (pp. 104-105). Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

School may be the only place where many students who face extreme challenges can get their needs addressed. The reality of today's schools often demands that classroom teachers address these severe issues, even though this task is not always considered a part of their regular job.

In a study of classroom strategies (see Brophy, 1996; Brophy & McCaslin, 1992), researchers examined how effective classroom teachers interacted with specific types of students. The study found that the most effective classroom managers did not treat all students the same; they tended to employ different strategies with different types of students. In contrast, ineffective classroom managers did not appear sensitive to the diverse needs of students. Although Brophy did not couch his findings in terms of teacher-student relationships, the link is clear. An awareness of the five general categories of high-needs students and appropriate actions for each can help teachers build strong relationships with diverse students.

Don't Leave Relationships to Chance

Teacher-student relationships provide an essential foundation for effective classroom management-and classroom management is a key to high student achievement. Teacher-student relationships should not be left to chance or dictated by the personalities of those involved. Instead, by using strategies supported by research, teachers can influence the dynamics of their classrooms and build strong teacher-student relationships that will support student learning.

Want to add your own highlights and notes for this article to access later?

ASCD empowers educators to achieve excellence in learning, teaching, and leading so that every child is healthy, safe, engaged, supported, and challenged.

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Today, we know more about teaching than we ever have before. Research has shown us that teachers' actions in their classrooms have twice the impact on student achievement as do school policies regarding curriculum, assessment, staff collegiality, and community involvement (Marzano, 2003a). We also k

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Classroom Management Resources from Edutopia

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Classroom Management Resources from Edutopia

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New Teachers: Fundamentals of Classroom Management

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Resources for developing routines, fostering classroom community, managing disruptions, and building student relationships.

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115 results.

Use the following lessons, resources, and activities for all grade levels to practice good manners, investigate temporal and cultural differences, and test students' knowledge.

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115 results. Use the following lessons, resources, and activities for all grade levels to practice good manners, investigate temporal and cultural differences, and test students' knowledge.

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115 results.

Use the following lessons, resources, and activities for all grade levels to practice good manners, investigate temporal and cultural differences, and test students' knowledge.

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115 results. Use the following lessons, resources, and activities for all grade levels to practice good manners, investigate temporal and cultural differences, and test students' knowledge.

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Classroom Management Articles | Scholastic

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Creative classroom management strategies from fellow teachers and our experts.

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by John Dewey

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Standards of professionalism which teachers are measured against.

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Posted: April 16, 2019 | Category:

By Rossana Villaflor, Teacher

School administrators are evaluating teachers' effectiveness across the nation with the Charlotte Danielson's Framework for Teaching. The rubric shown above outlines the four domains that teachers must fulfill in this framework: 1. Planning and Preparation; 2. The Classroom Environment; 3. Instruction; and 4. Professional Responsibilities. As a teacher, I'm pleased to know that my use of the Overcoming Obstacles Life Skills Curricula seamlessly supports the 22 components of these domains, playing a major role in achieving my previous teacher evaluation scores.

Domain 1: The way the lessons are structured in the Overcoming Obstacles curriculum significantly supports the criteria for this domain. Each Overcoming Obstacles lesson clearly outlines the lesson objectives on the cover page and lists activity titles found within the lesson along with the timeframe for each activity. In addition, teachers can easily see the materials needed for the lesson. Most materials are basic school supplies and activity sheets that can be easily modified or differentiated according to my students' needs and interests. Activity sheets like "People Bingo" and "Star Power" in the middle school curriculum, for example, provide teachers a way to fulfill component 1.b - Demonstrating Knowledge of Students, including interests and cultural backgrounds. Each lesson also includes key points and higher order thinking questions for student assessment, which covers the criteria for component 1.f - Designing Student Assessments.

Domain 2: The Classroom Environment is an area that is easily fulfilled by Part 1: Creative a Positive Environment from the Overcoming Obstacles middle school curriculum. The lessons found in this module call for students to engage in team-building and game-based activities that empower them to take ownership of the rules and positive expectations that are established for a safe and healthy learning environment. Infusing these Overcoming Obstacles lessons in any core content class makes creating an environment of respect and rapport a collaborative effort for the teacher and students, therefore creating a sense of unity in the classroom. Sometimes, teachers find themselves asking, "How do I get my students to respect each other?" Needless to say, without mutual respect, teaching and learning just cannot take place. The module on Confidence Building contains activities that help students to understand the definition of respect and how respect for others must begin with respect for self. A colorful poster of respect created by the students from the activities can be displayed on the wall to support the need for visual prompts in the classroom. Overcoming Obstacles lessons on resolving conflicts align with the tenet of managing student behavior (2d), and assist with providing positive reinforcement when responding to negative behavior.

Domain 3. Instruction requires teachers to communicate effectively with students and engage them in meaningful class discussions. Each Overcoming Obstacles lesson includes a three- to five-minute "Starter" that teachers can use to introduce the lesson to their students. The "Starter" is an engaging script that often asks students critical thinking questions that will motivate them to "think outside the box" or brainstorm ways they can relate to topics in the lesson. Discussion prompts and famous quotes are also found in the lesson extensions, which provide more opportunities for teachers to engage students in written self-reflection and journal writing. Students may use their journal entries to assess and monitor their own development, fulfilling the 3d of the domain. What I like most about the starters found in each lesson is having a lesson introduction already prepared for me, and that I can easily adjust if necessary. Component 3e calls for flexibility in my instructions, and I'm glad that I'm able to do this with any Overcoming Obstacles lesson.

Domain 4: This essentially calls for teachers to take charge of their professional growth, to communicate with and appropriately engage parents, and build positive relationships with the school community. To fulfill these criteria, teachers can further explore and utilize the additional resources found on the Overcoming Obstacles website. Overcoming Obstacles offers six comprehensive standards alignments that make it convenient to infuse the critical life skills that students need to succeed in any subject, or in a school-wide PBIS initiative. Because the Overcoming Obstacles curriculum is also aligned with the ASCA national standards, teachers can work collaboratively with the school's guidance counselor to further support students outside the classroom. The availability of the activity sheets in different languages further supports the diversity of my school's community. The snapshots available for parents give parents a concrete approach to supporting the life skills lessons that their children are learning in school. Furthermore, training videos are available to further support teachers' needs to fulfill this domain.

A teacher's job has no shortage of challenges, and I can attest that having free unlimited access to the Overcoming Obstacles curricula and resources not only helped me to survive my first year of teaching but also have continually supported my professional development and personal growth as a teacher over the years. Looking back, despite the tremendous challenges I have faced as a teacher, I was also honored to be the recipient of my district's Coach of the Year award for my school's LEGO Robotics after-school program. As a teacher and coach, I invested a lot of time teaching my students life skills, and the results always proved beneficial for me and my students.

I'm glad that there is such a comprehensive-and free!-resource available for teachers that completely fulfills the entire criterion of an effective teacher. I can't imagine teaching my core content class and after-school programs without also teaching these vital life skills that make it possible for me to reach and connect with my students. I'm hoping more teachers will take advantage of these resources and discover the positive impact they can have on both teacher development and fulfilling the needs of our students' academically, socially, and emotionally.

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Overcoming Obstacles and the Danielson Framework for Teaching

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School administrators are evaluating teachers' effectiveness across the nation with the Charlotte Danielson's Framework for Teaching. The rubric shown above outlines the four domains that teachers must fulfill in this framework: 1. Planning and Preparation; 2. The Classroom Environment; 3. Instruction; and 4. Professional Responsibilities.

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We all have biases.

We've heard many times that those biases are an evolutionary adaptation that helped us survive, but even after these thousands of years, we haven't yet learned to recognize and overcome many of our unconscious (and conscious) biases related to race, gender, disability, age, geography, and even species.

Research shows that unconscious bias is prevalent in schools and that teachers demonstrate implicit bias even with children as young as preschool age.

Fortunately, there's a lot educators can do to reduce implicit bias in their classrooms and school community, including teaching students about recognizing and overcoming unconscious biases.

Take advantage of resources like these to help explore issues of unconscious bias with your students.

1. Who Me, Biased?
The New York Times produced a series of six short videos (between 1 and 3 minutes each) looking at the effects of our unconscious choices and attitudes.

Don't forget to forward this to ONE person who would benefit from at least ONE of these resources.

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Get in-depth training for helping your students become solutionaries. Apply for one of our grad programs in humane education!

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9 Resources for Teaching About Unconscious Bias - Institute for Humane Education

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We all have biases. We've heard many times that those biases are an evolutionary adaptation that helped us survive, but even after these thousands of years, we haven't yet learned to recognize and overcome many of our unconscious (and conscious) biases related to race, gender, disability, age, geography, and even species.

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Be Internet Awesome is a multifaceted program that includes a fun and free web-based game called Interland and an educational curriculum to teach kids how to be safe and responsible explorers of the online world.

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For students with hyperactivity. A weighted stuffed owl. Students hold it. If it "flies" it becomes the teacher's.

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The Monocle Guide to Building Better Cities

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The Monocle Guide to Building Better Cities

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Guidance for Setting Student Learning and Growth Goals(SLG)

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Guidance for Setting Student Learning and Growth Goals(SLG)

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WHO WE ARE WHAT WE DO NEWS & EVENTS RESOURCES

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Oregon Framework for Teacher and Administrator Evaluation and Support Systems

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Oregon Framework for Teacher and Administrator Evaluation and Support Systems

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Curated by Reading Rocket

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Parent involvement continues to challenge practitioners engaged in school reform despite being a required component of many school improvement initiatives-from Title I Schoolwide Programs to federally mandated school improvement plans. The benefits of parent involvement are clear: A growing body of research shows that successful parent involvement improves not only student behavior and attendance but also positively affects student achievement. Yet many schools continue to struggle with defining and measuring meaningful parental involvement, and many don't feel that their efforts are successful. A recent survey of American teachers revealed that 20 percent of new teachers and nearly one fourth of principals identify their relationships with parents as a cause of significant stress in their jobs (MetLife, 2005).

In this article, we offer research-based advice and resources designed to help schools and districts foster successful parent involvement.

What is successful parent involvement?

Successful parent involvement can be defined as the active, ongoing participation of a parent or primary caregiver in the education of his or her child. Parents can demonstrate involvement at home-by reading with their children, helping with homework, and discussing school events-or at school, by attending functions or volunteering in classrooms. Schools with involved parents engage those parents, communicate with them regularly, and incorporate them into the learning process.

What are the barriers to successful parent involvement?

Schools often don't engage parents because they don't think they can. "A lot of it is perception. Teachers perceive that families don't want to be involved when, in fact, families don't know how to be involved," says Karen Salinas, communications director for the Center on School, Family, and Community Partnerships at Johns Hopkins University.

For their part, parents are sometimes hesitant to become involved in school because they don't have extra time or because they don't speak fluent English. But "the biggest problem is the disconnect between the school and the families," says Salinas. "Parents believe that they are not welcome. It comes in part from their own education history. They often have had a less-than-satisfactory experience with their own schooling, and so they don't feel like [being involved] is guaranteed to be a good experience."

Despite these communication barriers, both schools and parents want the relationship to improve, if only for the benefit of students. A 2003 analysis of more than 25 public opinion surveys by Public Agenda, a nonpartisan public opinion research organization, found that 65 percent of teachers say their students would do better in school if their parents were more involved, and 72 percent of parents feel that children whose parents are not involved sometimes "fall through the cracks" in school (Johnson & Duffett, 2003).

How do schools foster successful parent involvement?

Schools successful in engaging parents start by going beyond narrow definitions of involvement. They don't just count the number of parents who attend the spaghetti dinner or volunteer at the book fair. They don't focus on requirements such as having parents sign reports cards. Instead, they start with a belief that student success is a shared interest of both school and family, envision parents as partners in the learning process, and then identify concrete ways that partnership can be activated.

Improve Communication

Effective communication requires a two-way flow of information. While most schools develop efficient structures for getting information out-such as newsletters, Web sites, and press releases-far fewer develop similar structures to ensure that feedback from parents is actively solicited.

For some schools, improving communication involves technology such as e-mail messages and interactive phone systems. When Stonewall Jackson High School in Manassas, Virginia, implemented an interactive voicemail, for instance, the school saw parental attendance at freshmen orientation jump from 50 to 1,000 (Viadero, 1997). Parents can use the system, called ParentLink, to hear messages from teachers about what is happening in their children's classes and access their children's grades and attendance records.

Other schools try to view parent involvement through the parents' eyes. B.F. Day Elementary in Seattle, for example, holds parent meetings and workshops not at the school but in a Family Center that operates in the neighborhood where many of their bilingual families live.

Of course, the use of any strategy must be tailored to the school's population. If families don't have reliable access to the Internet, e-mail won't work. A phone message in English won't communicate much to parents who speak only Spanish. The bottom line for schools is to communicate using strategies that convey what is important in a way that can be heard by parents and families and invites them to respond.

Teach both parents and teachers

We know that one thing that keeps parents from being involved is their discomfort with schools. And that discomfort often stems from parents not knowing how to be involved. Schools with a commitment to parent involvement take an active role in helping parents learn a variety of ways to be involved. The benefits for students are proven: A recent review of parent involvement research found that parent-child reading activities produce a significant improvement in children's language and reading skills from preschool through high school (Sheldon & Epstein, 2005); another study finds a strong positive effect on student achievement when parents work with students on homework (Van Voorhis, 2003).

Many schools use workshops and other school-based programs to help parents learn about what goes on in classrooms. For example, Clara E. Westropp School in Cleveland, Ohio, held monthly family reading nights. Parents go to the elementary school and read with their children as well as speak with teachers about reading and reading strategies (Epstein & Salinas, 2004). Even traditional involvement strategies present teaching opportunities. Sending home a "weekly work folder" is one positive step, but providing parents with specific information about what to look for in the student work goes one step further in communicating what's important.

The National Network of Partnership Schools at Johns Hopkins University has designed a useful teacher-parent partnership process called Teachers Involve Parents in Schoolwork (TIPS). TIPS aims to forge a three-way relationship between teachers, parents, and their children through a creative approach to homework. Among its goals are encouraging parents and children to talk regularly about schoolwork, sharing ideas, gathering reactions, interviewing, or otherwise encouraging interaction between student and family members. TIPS also aims to keep assignments linked to real-life situations and "enable parents and teachers to frequently communicate about children's work, progress, and problems" (National Network of Partnership Schools, 2005). Some studies show secondary school homework assignments that require parent-student interaction predict higher levels of reading achievement (Sheldon & Epstein, 2005).

Many teachers report feeling unprepared to effectively involve parents. As a means of breaking down these barriers, teachers in the Sacramento, California, area have been trained since 1998 to participate in structured visits to their students' homes. The first visit focuses on establishing trust, while later trips give teachers and parents a chance to discuss ways in which parents can support students with the material they are learning in school. The schools involved in the program have seen a reduction in discipline problems and increases in attendance rates, and also are starting to see achievement gains.

Personalize

Successful parent-involvement programs typically develop in response to a specific need in the school or its community and are both focused and flexible in addressing that need. A strategy that works in one school might not be the best choice for another. For instance, while Sacajawea Elementary School in Seattle has established a Parent Mentor program in which parents are designated to contact other families to tell them about school activities, another school in the same city, High Point Elementary, began a program that allows parent volunteers to earn points toward rewards such as computers and other educational materials. Both programs have been recognized for dramatically increasing parent involvement.

Successful parent-school partnerships are not stand-alone, add-on programs. Instead, they are well integrated with the school's overall mission. Typically, quality programs are developed in collaboration with parents and reflect their needs and interests. Offering child care, translators, and multiple opportunities to hear information go a long way toward expressing a school's genuine interest in parent input.

Conclusion

Parents are the most important partner in a child's education and schools can reap large dividends by capitalizing on their support. To be sure, such relationships require a lot of work by both educators and parents. Although success will not come easy, the rewards are too great for a school not to try.

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Parent involvement continues to challenge practitioners engaged in school reform despite being a required component of many school improvement initiatives-from Title I Schoolwide Programs to federally mandated school improvement plans. The benefits of parent involvement are clear: A growing body of research shows that successful parent involvement improves not only student behavior and attendance but also positively affects student achievement.

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Watch Ralph Phillips - video dailymotion - orangemo8 on dailymotion

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Cambridge

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An online game in which people play the role of propaganda producers to help them identify real world disinformation has been shown to increase "psychological resistance" to fake news, according to a study of 15,000 participants.

In February 2018, University of Cambridge researchers helped launch the browser game Bad News. Thousands of people spent fifteen minutes completing it, with many allowing the data to be used for a study.

Players stoke anger and fear by manipulating news and social media within the simulation: deploying twitter bots, photo-shopping evidence, and inciting conspiracy theories to attract followers - all while maintaining a "credibility score" for persuasiveness.

"Research suggests that fake news spreads faster and deeper than the truth, so combatting disinformation after-the-fact can be like fighting a losing battle," said Dr Sander van der Linden, Director of the Cambridge Social Decision-Making Lab.

"We wanted to see if we could pre-emptively debunk, or 'pre-bunk', fake news by exposing people to a weak dose of the methods used to create and spread disinformation, so they have a better understanding of how they might be deceived.

"This is a version of what psychologists call 'inoculation theory', with our game working like a psychological vaccination."

To gauge the effects of the game, players were asked to rate the reliability of a series of different headlines and tweets before and after gameplay. They were randomly allocated a mixture of real ("control") and fake news ("treatment").

The study, published today in the journal Palgrave Communications, showed the perceived reliability of fake news before playing the game had reduced by an average of 21% after completing it. Yet the game made no difference to how users ranked real news.

The researchers also found that those who registered as most susceptible to fake news headlines at the outset benefited most from the "inoculation".

"We find that just fifteen minutes of gameplay has a moderate effect, but a practically meaningful one when scaled across thousands of people worldwide, if we think in terms of building societal resistance to fake news," said van der Linden.

Jon Roozenbeek, study co-author also from Cambridge University, said: "We are shifting the target from ideas to tactics. By doing this, we are hoping to create what you might call a general 'vaccine' against fake news, rather than trying to counter each specific conspiracy or falsehood."

Roozenbeek and van der Linden worked with Dutch media collective DROG and design agency Gusmanson to develop Bad News, and the idea of a game to inoculate against fake news has attracted much attention.

Working with the UK Foreign Office, the team have translated the game into nine different languages, including German, Serbian, Polish and Greek. WhatsApp have commissioned the researchers to create a new game for the messaging platform.

The team have also created a " junior version " for children aged 8-10, available in ten different languages so far. "We want to develop a simple and engaging way to establish media literacy at a relatively early age, then look at how long the effects last," said Roozenbeek.

This first set of results from Bad News has its limitations, say researchers. The sample was self-selecting (those who came across the game online and opted to play), and as such was skewed toward younger, male, liberal, and more educated demographics.

With this in mind, however, the study found the game to be almost equally effective across age, education, gender, and political persuasion. Bad News has ideological balance built in: players can choose to create fake news from the left and right of the political spectrum.

There are six "badges" to earn in the game, each reflecting a common strategy used by purveyors of fake news: impersonation; conspiracy; polarisation; discrediting sources; trolling; emotionally provocative content.

In-game questions measuring the effects of Bad News were deployed for four of its featured fake news badges.

For the disinformation tactic of "impersonation", often seen in the mimicking of trusted personalities on social media, the game reduced perceived reliability of the fake headlines and tweets by 24% from pre to post gameplay.

Bad News gameplay reduced perceived reliability of deliberately polarising headlines by about 10%, and "discrediting" - attacking a legitimate source with accusations of bias - by 19%.

For "conspiracy", the spreading of false narratives blaming secretive groups for world events, perceived reliability was reduced by 20%.

"Our platform offers early evidence of a way to start building blanket protection against deception, by training people to be more attuned to the techniques that underpin most fake news," added Roozenbeek.

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sander van der linden sander van der linden

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-department of psychology department of psychology

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Fake news 'vaccine' works: 'pre-bunk' game reduces susceptibility to disinformation

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An online game in which people play the role of propaganda producers to help them identify real world disinformation has been shown to increase "psychological resistance" to fake news, according to a study of 15,000 participants. In February 2018, University of Cambridge researchers helped launch the browser game Bad News.

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Afghanistan Dispatch

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Students of the Rustam School walking home last month on a single track over the mountains, the school standing behind them. Credit Credit Jim Huylebroek for The New York Times

YAKAWLANG, Afghanistan - The girls began appearing about seven in the morning. Seen from a distance, they made up thin blue lines snaking across the barren tan mountainside along narrow trails traced in the dirt, converging from several directions on the little school in the bottom of the valley.

Wearing powder blue school uniforms and white head scarves, many of the girls, ages 7 to 18, had already been walking for an hour or more by the time they arrived at the school. There were smaller groups of boys, too, mostly out of uniform, walking apart from the girls.

By 7:45, they were all gathered for assembly in the yard of the Rustam School, in a remote corner of Afghanistan's Yakawlang District. It is the area's only high school, years 1 through 12, and has an enrollment of 330 girls and 146 boys - astonishing in a country where normally only a third of girls attend school.

The principal, Mohammad Sadiq Nasiri, 49, gave his daily pep talk: Getting into university is going to be harder than ever this year, so they are going to have to do better than ever.

Rustam may seem an unlikely place to encourage collegiate dreams. With seven crude stone classrooms, supplemented by six big tents, there are so many students that they are divided into morning and afternoon sessions only four hours long.

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Mohammad Sadiq Nasiri, the school's principal, checking on first graders, who attend class in open air. Credit Jim Huylebroek for The New York Times

There is no electricity, heat, working computers or copy machines. Many school materials are written out in longhand by teachers. Foreign aid once helped but has dried up. One teacher said she has fewer books than students.

Only 5 percent of the students have parents who can read and write, Mr. Nasiri said. Most are the children of subsistence farmers.

Yet Rustam's 2017 graduating class saw 60 of 65 graduates accepted to Afghanistan's public universities, a 92 percent college entrance rate. Two-thirds of those accepted were girls. A couple of years earlier, 97 percent of the graduates went to college.

Unlike most Afghan schools, Rustam mixes boys and girls in its classrooms. "Men and women are equal," the principal said. "They have the same brains and the same bodies."

He added, "We tell these boys and girls, there is no difference between you guys, and you will all be together when you go to college, so you need to learn how to respect one another."

One day late in the spring term, Badan Joya, one of five female teachers among the school's 12, was teaching a fourth-grade math class in one of the overflow tents. A piece of cardboard painted black served as a chalkboard, with simple algebra formulas scribbled on it. She asked her students, nearly all girls, to name their favorite subject. They chorused: "Math."

That is not surprising at Rustam; 40 percent of questions on the college entrance exams cover mathematics, more than any other subject. And the girls excel.

The head student in 11th-grade math, based on test scores, is Shahrbano Hakimi, 17. Ms. Hakimi is also head student in her computer class, where, on that recent day, the girls were studying the Windows operating system, from books. Only one of the 60 students had a computer at home.

"The thing I wish for most in the world," Ms. Hakimi said, "is a laptop."

When the Taliban ruled Afghanistan, girls' education was banned and women were mostly confined to their homes, especially in rural areas like this one in Bamiyan Province.

The local passion for education, especially among girls, is a reaction to that era, their teachers said. The fourth-grade math teacher, Ms. Joya, who is 28, did not begin school herself until the Taliban fell when she was 11; she could not read or write, and her only schooling had been sewing class.

"I had to start from zero," she said. "We tell them about the Taliban and what they did to us, and say, 'You have an opportunity now, you should take it,'" she said. "They're listening. They hear about it at home, too, from their mothers and aunts."

The area around Rustam is now free of Taliban and little touched by violence. In other places, families are reluctant to send girls to school, especially over long distances in rural parts.

The girls at Rustam are highly motivated. "Honestly, girls are better than boys, they are more serious," Mr. Nasiri said. "These kids all know that you can't make a slave out of someone who is educated."

Except in Islamic studies, nearly all head students are girls.

Amina, "nearly 18," who uses one name, is head girl of the entire school. She is fortunate, she said, because her father is educated, though her mother is illiterate.

She will be the first of eight siblings to finish high school and hopes to go to Mawoud Academy in Kabul, a college preparatory school, even though she knows that 40 students were killed there recently by a suicide bomber.

Amina's favorite subject is math; she hopes to become a doctor.

Ms. Hakimi also dreams of becoming a doctor, in part because her mother suffers vision problems and her father is nearly deaf at age 65. Both are illiterate.

Outside their mud-walled home, a water wheel on a nearby irrigation ditch turns a small generator, just enough to power lights at night, for studying.

"I'm not educated," said her father, Ghulam Hussein. "I'm just a farm laborer. I don't want them to have the same life." Of his 11 children, a son and two daughters have already reached college.

"I am so proud of them," said Zenat, Ms. Hakimi's mother.

Their family is also an example of why fewer boys are in school. Their son Ali, 9, stays home to help his parents, while their son Reza, 12, works in the fields. "Ali wants so badly to go to school," Zenat said. "Maybe next year." All the daughters, though, are in school.

One day Mr. Nasiri, the principal, noticed one of his students, 13-year-old Friba, hiding behind other girls during assembly because she was out of uniform. Her family was too poor to buy one. So he bought a swatch of blue cotton in the nearest bazaar; Ms. Joya, the math teacher, sewed a tunic from it, using her Taliban-era skills.

Mr. Nasiri borrowed the money for the cotton. He earns less than $200 a month.

In addition to running Rustam the past six years, Mr. Nasiri supported four daughters and two sons with his wife, Roya, 45. They married during Taliban times; he taught his wife to read and write.

"We discussed it and decided she should go to school," he said. "Children will do better when their mom is educated."

Their eldest daughter finished high school four years before her mother. This year Roya graduated from high school, and next year will take the college entrance exams, Mr. Nasiri said proudly. "She raised six children," he said. "Now she raises herself."

Hundreds of feet up a rocky mountainside opposite Rustam, sheep grazed, watched by shepherds. One of the shepherds wore a blue dress, much like a school uniform, but covered in dust. Her name is Nikbakht, she said; she is 13. She carried a pen and a workbook for the Pashto language.

"I love school, but no one else was home so I had to work with the animals."

Pashto, a required subject, is not her favorite, Nikbakht said. Math is.

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A School With No Heat or Computers but Many College-Bound Students. Mostly Girls.

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Afghanistan Dispatch YAKAWLANG, Afghanistan - The girls began appearing about seven in the morning. Seen from a distance, they made up thin blue lines snaking across the barren tan mountainside along narrow trails traced in the dirt, converging from several directions on the little school in the bottom of the valley.

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vol. 1 and 2

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The Fatboy Transloetje is a designer table lamp with a subtle operation and decorative character. Choose your favorite color from these modern table lamps >>

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The IKEA Foundation supports children's right to play - IKEA

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To mark Universal Children's Day, discover six world leading organisations IKEA Foundation has partnered with to support every child's right to play.

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"The evidence shows that what makes sports really fun for kids is trying hard, making progress, being a good sport, experiencing positive coaching," a doctor of sports medicine said.

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Credit Credit iStock

By Perri Klass, M.D.

A new clinical report on organized sports for children, preadolescents and adolescents from the American Academy of Pediatrics keeps coming back to the question of fun.

The report summarizes evidence on the many benefits of sports participation for children, from acquiring motor skills to developing positive self-image, from strong social interactions to higher levels of physical activity and good weight management. But especially in younger children, all of this should spring from the child's desire to get out there and play, and kids who participate in organized sports should also have lots of time for less formal activities with friends.

"It doesn't necessarily have to do with winning," said Dr. Kelsey Logan, the director of the division of sports medicine at Cincinnati Children's Hospital, and the co-author of the report. "The evidence shows that what makes sports really fun for kids is trying hard, making progress, being a good sport, experiencing positive coaching."

Dr. Michele LaBotz, a sports medicine physician near Portland, Me., and a member of the A.A.P. council on sports medicine and fitness, said: "So much of what drives the sports industrial complex is, what's your team's performance this year, short term." But as someone who cares for these young athletes, she said, she is more concerned with how they are developing over the long term, both in terms of their athletic abilities and "their ability to move forward and make good decisions."

Parents with younger preadolescent children should "embrace variety in the way your kids move." If all they do is a running sport like soccer, she said, they aren't getting all the movements they need. "You've got to enable younger kids to move their bodies in as many ways as possible, organized sports but also free play," she said.

"Younger kids need variety, not repetition, that's a big mistake I see over and over again," Dr. LaBotz said. She may see parents with an 8- or 9-year-old whose soccer coach wants him to give up swimming for indoor soccer, for example, she said, and "that's not the right choice." Children should balance a running sport like soccer with a sport that uses more upper-body motion like baseball or swimming or tennis, she said, or with an activity that requires more motor control like martial arts or gymnastics or dance.

[Try the Healthy Sport Index, a tool to find the best sport for your priorities.]

Dr. Logan said that some children, even though they participate in team sports, may not be sufficiently active for their own health. "Both pediatricians and parents assume that kids in organized sports are getting enough physical activity, but they actually might not be," she said. "There can be a lot of standing around at practice."

Several studies have looked at this in different sports, she said, and at ways to educate coaches with strategies to increase the amount of moderate to vigorous activity for everyone on the team. "Watch what your kid is doing on the field," Dr. Logan said. "You might be surprised at what you see."

For kids who are getting vigorous intense workouts, rest is also important. "It's important to train hard, and I say this to patients all the time, but it's also important to recover hard," Dr. LaBotz said. "Working out, you're breaking your body down - it gets stronger in that recovery period in between workouts." If children are playing on multiple teams, or going home from baseball practice to throw a ball in the backyard, they may be shortchanging their bodies.

Kids need a few days a week away from organized sports, she said, but they also need bigger blocks of time off, at least a couple of four-week blocks every year away where their activity is just playing casually with friends.

And for all the importance of coaches and teammates, studies show that parents really matter. "The coach-athlete relationship is incredibly important," Dr. Logan said, but the evidence shows that parents have an even more central role in helping children get the most out of their participation in sports.

"Organized sports needs to be tailored to the child's developmental stage, not just their age," Dr. Logan said, so it's particularly important to be sure that the coach is working with children in a developmentally appropriate way. Parents can play an important role here, looking at their children to see what they are developmentally ready to do, and not pushing them too early into situations that will be frustrating.
[Read more on how to avoid burnout in youth sports, and Norway's declaration of children's rights in sports.]
When she sees children with sports-related injuries in her practice, Dr. LaBotz said, she focuses on understanding the mechanics behind how they occurred, and how they can be prevented. "The biggest predictor for future injury is past injury," she said. "What is it that set this kid up for injury?"

She also sees kids with chronic or overuse injuries, she said, and "I have the recovery talk over and over again." She talks about the importance of appropriate rest, about the role that getting enough sleep plays in injury prevention, about the right amount of the right kinds of nutrition, "getting what you need from foods rather than tapping into supplements."

Sometimes, she said, this involves explaining to parents who have come to feel that carbohydrates are to be avoided at all costs that they are in fact "the best, most effective fuel for young athletes." She tells them that if they don't have carbohydrates on board, "your body will break down muscle, and you've worked too hard to build it."

Dr. Logan said that she has started to talk to parents about the issue of abuse by coaches and what they need to look for in a program to be sure that the environment is safe. "Most parents don't ask any questions of the sponsoring sports organization," she said. She recommends a parent checklist developed by Dr. LaBotz, available on the A.A.P. website.

Dr. LaBotz also points out that "the most prevalent forms of abuse on sports teams are between teammates, hazing, bullying." She talks with parents about paying attention to a child's emotional experience on the team. Watch for the same kind of signs you might see with bullying in other contexts - is your child shying away from teammates?, does your child's personality seem to be changing? - and most of all, keep talking, keep asking questions, stay involved.

"The parent plays an absolutely essential role in supporting the child's progress, skills, development, enjoyment," Dr. Logan said. Parents should also be keeping an eye on other aspects of children's lives, making sure they're getting enough sleep, getting the right nutrition. "I find myself having a lot of conversations about how organized sports is fitting in with the rest of the child's life," Dr. Logan said

Sometimes adults and schedules and pressure can take the fun away from kids who originally just wanted to go out and play, Dr. LaBotz said. "I've learned to ask the kid directly: Are you having fun? There's one right answer for sports: It should be, 'Oh, yeah,' with some enthusiasm behind it."

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"The evidence shows that what makes sports really fun for kids is trying hard, making progress, being a good sport, experiencing positive coaching," a doctor of sports medicine said. By Perri Klass, M.D. A new clinical report on organized sports for children, preadolescents and adolescents from the American Academy of Pediatrics keeps coming back to the question of fun.

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Oregon Computer Science Teachers Association

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Get Your Kids Moving & Practicing Mindfulness with GoNoodle®. Start Watching Now & Get Access to Hundreds of Videos! Active Learning. Healthy Kids. Active Kids. Boost Learning.

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Transform your tablet into a hands-on coding adventure. Designed for ages 5-10, Coding Starter Kit builds coding skills in progression with 3 hands-on learning games. Watch your child learn to code as they connect colorful blocks of code in the physical world to chart the adventure on their screen.

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String together commands to guide Awbie on an epic strawbie-munching adventure.

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Spark interest in STEAM topics with fun, hands-on learning games that teach coding in progression.

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Best Interactive Coding Games for Kids of Ages 5-10 - Osmo

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Extra 10% OFF on orders above $200 Home Store Starter Kits Coding Starter Kit Ages 5-10 (4.7 2,868 ratings) See all compatible devices Transform your tablet into a hands-on coding adventure. Designed for ages 5-10, Coding Starter Kit builds coding skills in progression with 3 hands-on learning games.