Hard Reset: A whole class intervention

I want to talk a little bit about a whole class intervention that I have used when things in class are going off the rails. But first: 

Who's responsibility is classroom engagement and cooperation*? 

Now, I am not a fan of anyone telling teachers that classroom management challenges are their fault- by any means- and I also know that my own actions and beliefs can lead to power struggles and problems. They are also in my control. 

This article by Angela Watson (Truth for Teachers) is a very good read about this topic: Is your "invisible throne" creating power struggles and unnecessary work?  I also went back and re-read this article (also by Angela Watson): How to respond to rude, disrespectful student attitudes.  

Ideas about controlling students (coercing them, manipulating them) is one way that White Supremacy manifests in classroom management, and in my work to dismantle systems of oppression and find places where White Supremacy is guiding my actions, I choose to reframe how I think about kids and behavior. 

*I prefer the term classroom engagement and cooperation over classroom management. It makes more sense to me. I don't want to manage students. I want to cooperate with them and engage with them.

Individual interventions

I get a lot of questions in workshops about individual kids and their behavior, and my response is always the same: approach with curiosity. Why is that kid doing that thing (usually blurting)? Do they know they are doing it? Is there a need not being met? Is there a relationship to develop? Depending on the answers, the interventions are going to be different. Kids are kids- and one strategy is not going to support every student. Also- consider: if it is just one or two kids that you are struggling with- how awesome is that?!? Celebrate that! Then approach those kids with curiosity.  In my Plan B post, I have a long list of possible individual and whole class interventions- take a look. 

Whole Class Intervention

This intervention is one I learned from Jon Cowart (I think) and mad props to him for his amazing work on classroom management. This is my version of a hard reset. 

However, please know- this is one intervention in a whole menu of interventions. And like many items on a menu, they are best when served with other items. I suggest adding a heaping serving of Plan A Minus or Plan B, if you're asking! 

This whole class intervention came about because I could not successfully teach a lesson. Students were interrupting me and disengaged (how is that even possible? They managed it!) and talkative and off task. This was a situation where the majority of students were not cooperating nor were they engaged- not just one or two- so I needed to approach the class as a whole.  Mind you: I was a "long term" sub with a very firm end date. I was not their "real" teacher and that was made perfectly clear, and not just by the students. So there were some factors that were out of my control. 

I had to focus on what I could control: my own practice. 

I started with curiosity.

Self-Reflection

So my reflective, curious questions to myself were:

• Had I done a good job explaining the expectations? Did I go over the expectations ALL the time? 
• Did I give students the chance to practice meeting expectations? 
• Did I celebrate when expectations were met?
• Were my expectations culturally responsive and appropriate? 
• Was I consistent or inconsistent? 
• Was I using the target language so that students were understanding the input? 
• Was I talking to the students or with the students? 
• Was I teaching content that was at all interesting to the students, or including them and their interests?  
• Were there relationships that I could develop? 
• Were there opportunities to develop relationships (with students and caregivers) that I could take advantage of? Examples would be sending a positive email home, or talking to the student's coach to find out more about them and their interests. 
• What did the students -as a group- need that they weren't getting? 
• Could I provide that with my time and energy and means? 

It became clear to me, upon reflection, that I had not taken enough time to set and practice expectations, and in fact, had not considered their input at all. Since I was a substitute  and had limited time with them, I made the decision at the beginning to use the classroom teacher's expectations.  With some classes that seemed to work fine. But with the 8th graders, it was not working.  Lots of things weren't working.

I also realized that in addition to expectations, students needed more structure- they were used to one thing, and they needed scaffolding to be able to do something different. Thus: the More Structured Input plan, aka Plan A minus.  I implemented both interventions more or less simultaneously, and although I didn't have a lot of time with students, it made the last few days with them more successful and more fun for everyone. 

Hard Reset

When students walked in, I had some kind of starter on the board, but instead of reviewing it, I sat on a stool in front of them and I said something like "I don't feel like class has been going well, and I think we need to come up with some norms and agreements so that I can do my job of teaching and you can do your job of learning. I have been very frustrated because I don't feel like I am doing a lot of teaching, and I get the sense that you all are frustrated too. So we are going to start over." I did this in our shared language (English). 

I made a classic T-chart on the board with the titles Student and Teacher. I asked them what their job was. Some shouted out, but most were happy to raise their hand and offer their ideas. For each student job they came up with, I said "so what does that mean for me?" and added my job. 

There was some negotiation, and some explaining on my part. Like when I had to say "the thing that I am most frustrated about is when you talk over me. I can't do my job when that happens. So how can we address that?" 

I learned that one student thought I was really mean and unreasonable- I had no idea- because of a comment I'd made that they misunderstood. I also learned that, for the most part, they wanted to be there and learn Spanish, and were incredibly frustrated with their peers that were being mean. 

This is important: Jon Cowart reminds us that expectations need to be OBSERVABLE. "Respect" is not an observable behavior.   "One person speaks at a time" is observable. 

I had to work with them (not entirely successfully as you will see) to keep behaviors observable. 

This is what we came up with in one class:

Image ID: T-chart with student jobs (listen the first time, focus, move quickly, Don't be attention seeking, use Spanish*, Hands to self, ask a friend) and teacher job (Give clear instructions, 2nd chances, give support, brain breaks, use Spanish*, be nice/flexible, use a kind tone)

This took most of the class time. We even did a brain break game in the middle.  Or maybe more than one!

I let the students know that we would be signing a document with these new norms in the next couple of days. (I wanted to live with them and see if there was anything missing or problematic before committing to them, honestly!)

Then what?

The following day as a starter (bell-ringer),  students were shown the list and asked to pick 2 agreements to focus on. They had to use a sentence frame to write about why it was important. They did this in English, our shared language. 

Image ID: A slide with directions for the starter, sentence frames "I will (choose one from the list). This is important because..." and a picture of class agreements. 

Before starting any language instruction, I went through the Norms in English and let them know that at the end of class, they would be reflecting on what they chose. 

At the end of class, I had them use the same scrap of paper that they wrote on to reflect-I asked them to put one to five stars on each sentence, one star being "nope, I didn't really succeed at this" and five being "I succeeded at focusing on this agreement". I collected these reflections but I did not ask them for names. I was curious to see if their self-reflections matched my perception of how class went- and it turns out, it did...mostly.

The following day, we signed the agreements, one at a time, and put them on the board, and again, I started class by reading them. 

Moderate Success!

And you know what? Between this hard reset and giving them more structure in class, I began to see improvement in both engagement and cooperation. It wasn't what I had hoped for- it wasn't the 8th grade class of March 2020, those dreamy kids who did everything I asked and then wanted more- it was the actual kids in front of me, being somewhat successful. More successful, at least.

I could see that there was an upward trajectory- progress was being made, and with patience and work, we could have a lot of fun and use a lot of language.

 Unfortunately, all that happened the last week I was subbing, so I didn't get a chance to let it play out in the long run. That's ok. I think small successes add up to big ones, and being able to have some discussions and do some things in class, in the target language, is actually a pretty big success!

I hope that this look at a Hard Reset, paired with some other structured input plans, help you! 

More Structure: Creating a Plan A Minus*

Plan A-Minus*

*Not quite Plan B, not quite low-fun input plan, but something else: when it's becoming clear that having conversations with students about something is something they are not yet ready for. Adding more structure. 

The Background

Two of my classes in my recent role as a long term sub needed something...a lot more of something. Or less of something.  Or just...SOMETHING.  

They were CHATTY. Like I couldn't say a sentence without being interrupted by something totally unrelated or by students having side conversations about whatever they felt like.  It was not fun.  There were some other behaviors as well, but it was the CHATTY that was making me insane. 

They also were very used to an output-heavy class and were very reluctant to engage with input.  

My Thinking

I had to make 2 interventions/shifts in my teaching in order to meet the kids where they were.  

Mindset Shift 1: Teach the kids you have, not the kids you want

I was a little caught up in my pre-pandemic teaching brain- pretty much constantly wondering why they weren't like the other classes, or why were they so completely unlike the class that I last had...the middle school kids that I adored and had so much fun with! It is so easy to dwell on wanting to teach the kids I wanted...not the kids that were actually in front of me.   

But I had to teach the kids in front of me, not some idealized version of the kids I wanted. Which meant I had to make some changes to the class structure because what I was doing was not effective. And that, my friends, was on me. 

This was a mindset shift that I had to work through- teaching the kids that were there.  (Thanks to Laurie Clarcq for naming this shift.) Once I made that shift though- it became a lot easier to manage.

Mindset Shift 2: MORE STRUCTURE

I realized within the first week that I needed to give them a LOT more structure. Some of this was the group of kids, some of it was because as a long term sub they were not interested in investing in me or my class, and some was just...well, I guess because. 

The (Original) Plan

My lesson plans were to teach the song La Gozadera, using plans from The Comprehensible Classroom (please read the disclosure about my relationship with The Comprehensible Classroom here.) I thought a song unit with lots of reading and culture would be just the right amount of content to finish during my time as a sub.  Plus,  I've never taught the song before and wanted to try it. 

The lesson plan (simplified) looks something like this:

• Card talk
• Clip Chat (movietalk) for beginning of music video
• Watch video
• Discuss video
• Read about meaning of the title
• Students do some reading activities related to the reading
• Read more about video and song 
• More reading activities

The Reality

When I looked at the plan, I saw a big looming disaster.

Nope. That was NOT going to work!

These students did not seem to be able to handle any kind of class discussion, and the free-form nature of Card Talk or Clip Chat seemed like a recipe for frustration and disaster. I believe that there would be very little input happening and a lot of frustration. 

I did some reflecting about what the challenges were in class, and what actually was going well (when it was!), and I decided that I needed to give students more structure. I also decided that it would be a good thing to trick them into thinking that they were creating with language (output) while getting them to attend to the input. I framed this in my own head as "the illusion of output". 

Credit

All of these ideas came from a mix mash of Jon Cowart's Weekly Packet, the Plan B plan from Martina Bex, Implementing Plan B (from me!) and Low Fun Input Plans from AnneMarie Chase, and my own experience as a teacher. 

Modification For Card Talk

I created a little response sheet- it was 6 or 8 open ended sentences: En la opinión de ____, _____ es/no es divertido/a. (In ___'s opinion, ____ is/is not fun.) 

When I say little response sheet, that is exactly what I mean. Since I print everything "2-up" (or 50% sized) and then copy it on recycled paper from the copy room- copy paper that has already been copied on one side- it was quite small!

Telling them that we would discuss each picture then fill out the form was like magic. Suddenly they were listening, and mostly responding to my questions! Engagement! 
After discussing someone's card, I filled in the blanks on the board and they copied them. (illusion of output, actually input!)

The Response Sheet for Card Talk 

At the end of the form, I had two open ended sentences for them to finish themselves, and then we discussed how they finished the sentences (also more illusion of output, but with the focus on me leading the discussion- that is, input). 

The bottom of the response sheet for Card Talk

Modification for Clip Chat (MovieTalk)

For the movietalk portion of the lesson plan, I created a slideshow with screenshots. Since the lesson plans ask the teacher to just use the intro to the video, I only used 3 stills for this part. 

A screengrab from the La Gozadera video plus vocab to use instead of a video 

I also created a little response sheet.  

Question 1 was ¿Qué ves? (What do you see?) 
I gave them some input first, then let them tell a partner what they saw, then I talked about their responses, and THEN I let them write. See how the input came first? 

Question 2 was ¿Dónde están las personas? (Where are the people?). Again, I showed the slide, talked about it, let them make predictions, talked about their predictions and why they thought that, and then let them write. Since I noticed that they weren't very good explaining how they reached their conclusions (which is an important skill in any language!) I lead the discussion down that road: What's your evidence? Why do you say that? Why do you think that? 

The third question was something like ¿Cómo están las personas" (How are the people feeling?) and again I got their ideas, led a conversation, asked them for some evidence for their thinking, then let them write. 

I also added a space for them to copy the Write and Discuss, just in case I decided that they needed that. (They did not, and I am not a fan of having students copy them in general, but I thought I might need that space!) 

Part of the ClipChat response sheet 

Watching the Video

For the actual watching of the video, I gave them a 5 Senses Video Viewing Form from Martina Bex and they had to fill it out while they were watching. After, I led a discussion. I really like this particular sheet because it allows them to write at the level that they wish- single words, phrases, and sentences. 

Prep Time

Now, it took me less than 10 minutes to make those response sheets- which may sound fast (and it was! Remember- I'm pretty experienced!). I hoped they would work - I thought they might be exactly the ticket- but I didn't want to spend a ton of time on creating. I was using the MVP principle in creating these: the Minimum Viable Product.  Basically, the idea is to create the thing that you think will work, and after you use it, then reflect, touch it up, change it, make it pretty if that's your thing. (I learned this from Angela Watson and it has been a HUGE timesaver mindset for me!)

What Happened in Class

To my everlasting joy, it went pretty well. I was able to give them the input because they felt like they were getting output. (Illusion of output, very structured output, lots of input!)

Once they bought in to the illusion of output, I was able to do the more free-form activities (Card Talk, Clip Chat) with much less difficulty. The response sheets gave exactly the right amount of structure to let the input still be about the students (their cards, their interests, their ideas).  

The reading activities were pretty straightforward and although I was surprised that they had never done activities like the ones I was asking them to do, once they figured out what I was asking for (reading, re-reading, reading closely, interacting with the text in a way (that forced them to make meaning), they were pretty cooperative.  

Note: I did a major behavior intervention as well- which I will post about at a later date, but I think the structure is what allowed them to settle in and let input happen.