EDU221ClassroomTipsAndTricks

The Classroom Tips and Tricks project is your demonstration of the tips and tricks you've gathered so far in your life and in this semester related to effective and positive classroom management. You've been a student and have seen successful and unsuccessful approaches to classroom management. You've read the textbook for this class. You've been affiliated with a mentor teacher and have observed as well as discussed what works and doesn't work in his/her classroom. You've interviewed other teachers, either at your Practicum school or from elsewhere in your life.

Sift through all the information you've gathered and collect the tips and tricks that you think will be good ones to have in your "teacher bag of tricks". At this point, many of them will be untried in that you have not had a chance to try them out yet. Just because it works for someone else, doesn't mean it will work for you. You have to be true to who you are as a person and as a teacher as well as be true to your students. But having a strategy that you haven't tried yet is better than not having a strategy at all.

So this project is intended to be the beginning of your teacher bag of tricks. Hopefully, you will continue to gather more tips and tricks to put into your collection while here at UMF and every day that you are in the classroom. You'll even gather ideas for new strategies from places outside of the traditional classroom setting. Make a note of what it is and add it to your collection.

In addition to starting this collection of tips and tricks, you will share with your classmates what you've gathered so far. As we all share our collections with each other, you might even gain new ideas to add to yours, even before the semester is over. Your collection can be shared with the class using a Type II technology of your choice. We're going to be sitting through a lot of these presentations, so make yours the one that stands out and captivates those of us in your audience.

You may work on this project by yourself or in a team of up to 4 people. Your work will be graded using this rubric: [|TipsAndTricksRubricF07v2.doc]

NOTE: You never know what will happen. You hear us talk all the time about your work needing to be "professional" and that once it's out there on the web, anyone can see it. A student in Practicum during spring 2007 received an email less than 6 months after her Classroom Tips and Tricks Project was posted on the web for th world to see. Here's the UMF student's description of the email:

//I received an e-mail yesterday from a teacher asking permission to use my [Classroom Tips and Tricks] project for an online classroom management professional development thing. I asked for her information to pass on to you in case you wanted to share this with your practicums as an example of what might happen with their projects. This is what she sent:

"I am located in Wichita Falls, Texas. I am a graduate student working on an online professional development piece on classroom management. I teach 3rd grade at McGaha Academy. Thanks again! :~)"//

...And no, just in case you're wondering, I do now know this teacher and did not ask him/her to do this. The fact that the teacher is from Texas is just coincidental. :-)