Sydney+Robinson

Sydney Robinson

The same two or three students try to answer all questions you ask.

In the advanced classes, the same students constantly want to answer any questions that are posed. While I am thrilled I have students who are so eagerly to participate, I am bothered that the other students are not as involved. Because of this, my collaborative teacher and I have started making all of the students participate in answering questions. When we are going over homework, workbooks, or other things the students can answer, we start with one side of the room and make each student answer a part or the entire question down the rows. We try to start on different sides of the classroom and rows each time with the hopes that every student gets the opportunity to answer a question. This activity has made all of the students more involved in the classroom while still allowing the eager students the opportunity to answer questions. I have also noticed that the students who are sometimes in “la la land” are brought back to class very quickly when it comes to them to answer. If the students are not prepared to answer their question, we do allow them time to figure it out. If they cannot, we simply pass them. It seems like the students have become more responsible for their participation in class because of this activity.

While I like your ideas about involving all students in class participation, I am not sure you have addressed the problem of the over participator. One who two students who keep answering all the questions posed to class enable other students to breathe a sigh of relief and return to la la land for the rest of the class knowing that they will not be called on. One way to address the over participator is to tell the class that you are not calling on anyone with a hand raised--which will also wake up the la la students who may then raise their hands, but another choice is not to call on the constant hand raisers and wait for rest of class to raise hands or call on those without their hands raised. If student constantly calls out answer, then another approach needs to be considered. Check other replies I have made to other TOSS students who chose this scenario. (CK)

“Evan, you always have dumb ideas. That can’t be right,” one student says to another.

I have yet to actually witness this type of behavior during my experience at my placement, but I feel that is unusual because this is common behavior between students. If and when I do experience this, I will most definitely call the accuser out and tell him to remember our classroom rule about respect. I will also tell Evan that I think his idea is great. Whether the idea is great or not, right or wrong, I will take his idea further by either starting a discussion about it or by using it in some form as a future journal/writing assignment or essential question. I feel that if a student is willing to share their ideas, my job is to make them feel their ideas are worth sharing. After the class is over, I will take the disrespectful student to the side and have a discussion about his comment privately. I would do this privately in order to cause the least amount of disruption during class and so Evan is not embarrassed even more. During this discussion, I would explain to the student that my number one rule in our classroom is respect, and that he must show respect to everyone no matter what his thoughts are about a person.

Your concerns are genuine, and I applaud you consideration, but if a student gives a wrong answer, a teacher can not reinforce that answer. Perhaps a better solution is to tell Evan you think we must expand on his answer and try to improve his response with your spin. The student who uses "dumb ideas" in reference to Evan needs to be reprimanded immediately, and I must admit I did it in front of the other students because I wanted them all to understand that this behavior is unacceptable. I also admit I would have a problem avoiding sarcasm, but I would ask the offending student why he thought he was able to judge others and I would remind him of mutual respect in classroom and ask him to apologize to Evan. I probably reacted most severely to those students who were offensive to other students. (CK)