Second Step: State Expectations

Keep in mind the concept of teacher directed but student centered.Know your students’strengths and what works for YOUR student.Keep in mind that some students who are self-motivated need little guidance or monitoring and that excessive control can actually interfere with learning. If you have one or more of these perfect students, just thank your lucky stars. The discussion below is especially helpful for families who have less than perfect students. 

Even though we think that students SHOULD know and do what they SHOULD. This is not the case unless we share with them exactly what is expected. This is a major component of classroom management. Write down the expectations and post them, share with the students, and refer back to the expectations as reminders. This avoids many arguments and comments such as “You never said that!” “You didn’t make me do that before.” Be as consistent as possible, avoiding major multiple problems later on. Some things that might be shared with students are the following: 

(a) Location (e.g., at the dining room table or other spot that can be easily viewed or where that individual student can work productively), 

(b) Focused work (e.g., no phones or television or anything else that might be distracting) 

(c) Full amount of time or the number of tasks to be completed

(d) Breaks at specified times and length of time for breaks

(d) Level of neatness and completeness. 

Here is a note about location. Of course, where you determine your students will work is dependent upon the age, maturity of the student, and how well the student handles responsibility. If you have a less than perfect student, I advocate for a spot where you are not hovering, but where you can have a clear vision of the  task and can easily monitor as you walk by and go about your daily business, especially if students are using computers for assignments. It is helpful to have the house environment as quiet as possible. Limit distracting influences in the house generally during the study time as much as possible (e.g., television, loud music, phone conversations). Also, remember that proximity control and monitoring is especially important to keep students on task and using the time profitably. Sending students to their rooms to work is often counterproductive since there are so many options to avoid the hard stuff of getting tasks done. 

I invite comments, suggestions, ideas. 

If you have questions that I might be able to answer generally, please email me. Please keep in mind that this blog is for suggestions that may or may not work. Here is the disclaimer, professional advice requires much more in-depth information and contact and is beyond the scope of this blog.  email: gail.coulter@outlook.com