Teach More Hover Less How To Stop Micromanaging Your Secondary Classroom

A hover-free classroom starts with a dynamic class community. Our image of a classroom community in secondary education is rapidly evolving. The experience of remote learning during a pandemic has altered our mental picture of students occupying rows of desks with a teacher nearby, closely monitoring their activities. But even when teachers are able to be in physical proximity to their students, the research is clear that students need to be empowered to take ownership of their learning in order to be fully engaged. The question this book explores is: How can teachers step back, stop micromanaging, and allow students more agency? In this engaging guide, instructional specialist Miriam Plotinsky breaks hover-free teaching down into four sequential stages: mindset, deeper relationships, planning for engagement, and choice-based instruction. Her book shows how teachers can free themselves from helicopter habits and allow students greater control of their own learning, while still managing and maximizing classroom time effectively.

For the sake of students, close the empathy gap between the classroom and the front office. Far too often, teachers and administrators are adversaries within a school or district and display a mutual distrust and disrespect for each other’s perspectives. Yet when this dissonance can be overcome, the result is a more-harmonious school environment that promotes student achievement. In Lead Like a Teacher, instructional specialist Miriam Plotinsky urges secondary school administrators to lead more effectively by actively listening to teachers and welcoming their expertise. Each chapter examines one of nine key aspects of leadership and offers specific, creative solutions to the complex challenge of empowering change. Moving from a micro to a macro focus as the book progresses—from classroom instruction to schoolwide initiatives—Plotinsky provides administrators with the tools to build and maintain collaborative leadership structures. This thoughtful approach to secondary leadership provides an actionable plan to dismantle some of the biggest barriers to achieving school excellence.

Whatever subject you teach, you can encourage students’ sense of self-worth. “I’m a bad writer” is a disclaimer every secondary teacher has heard many times. Overcoming that negative self-image, Plotinsky argues, is key to helping students build a positive academic identity—and because of the vulnerability associated with sharing what we write, the benefits of interrupting this particular form of deficit thinking extend far beyond English class. Drawing on her years of experience as an English teacher and literacy specialist, Miriam Plotinsky uses writing instruction as a powerful vehicle to examine how teachers can help students build a sense of themselves as legitimate, valuable contributors to the world around them. The chapters move fluidly through ways to build capacity such as celebrating student voice, separating grading from class participation, giving feedback that inspires trust, and avoiding the labeling of students. Along the way, teachers in other content areas contribute insights into how the identity-building strategies in the book can be applied to their own disciplines.

For the sake of students, close the empathy gap between the classroom and the front office. Far too often, teachers and administrators are adversaries within a school or district and display a mutual distrust and disrespect for each other’s perspectives. Yet when this dissonance can be overcome, the result is a more-harmonious school environment that promotes student achievement. In Lead Like a Teacher, instructional specialist Miriam Plotinsky urges secondary school administrators to lead more effectively by actively listening to teachers and welcoming their expertise. Each chapter examines one of nine key aspects of leadership and offers specific, creative solutions to the complex challenge of empowering change. Moving from a micro to a macro focus as the book progresses—from classroom instruction to schoolwide initiatives—Plotinsky provides administrators with the tools to build and maintain collaborative leadership structures. This thoughtful approach to secondary leadership provides an actionable plan to dismantle some of the biggest barriers to achieving school excellence.

Secondary Classroom Management presents an introduction to classroom management in secondary schools. Written in a lively, engaging, conversational style, it combines what research has to say about effective classroom management with knowledge culled from practice. This text focuses on real decisions made by real teachers as they manage the complex environment of the secondary classroom. The text integrates the thinking and the actual management practices of four real secondary school teachers into discussions of research-based management principles. Readers come to "know" these teachers. We hear about the classes they teach and about the physical constraints of their rooms. We hear them reflect on their rules and routines and watch as they teach these rules and routines to students. We listen as they talk about motivating students and building community, and as they discuss appropriate ways to deal with misbehavior. Secondary Classroom Management is well-organized and more comprehensive than many classroom management texts, with chapters on building safer, more caring classrooms; working with families; using time effectively; motivation; working with troubled students; and violence prevention. It also addresses the managerial challenges involved in a variety of instructional formats, such as recitations, discussions, and groupwork.

"No matter what behaviour management approach they currently use, the content will help teachers to develop additional ideas and strategies for: minimising managing time and maximising learning time during lessons, defusing student power plays, responding intelligently to provocative and challenging behaviour, gaining (or regaining) assertive learning leadership in the classroom, recovering rapidly from stressful situations, designing a minimalist management plan and reflecting on their current practices."--back cover.

Most books about classroom management are filled with tricks and techniques that help the teacher to engage with his or her students in a better way. Like paracetamol for a chronic headache, these books offer a temporary relief for the symptoms of bad teacher-student rapport without addressing the root causes. The Quick Guide to Classroom Management: 45 Secrets That All High School Teachers Need to Know is not one of those books. In this new and updated SEcond Edition, effective classroom management techniques are described thoroughly using case-studies, fundamental principles and illustrations throughout. New features of the second edition include: 1. Questions within each chapter to support your study (with full answers on the author's website) 2. Extracts from the author's blog at richardjamesrogers.com 3. New additions, including tips for effectively using ICT in your teaching and methods to bring humour into your lessons. This book will teach you, through the hard-earned experience of the author and the contributors, the secrets of: 1. Working effectively with parents: your key customers 2. Enjoying productive relationships with your co-workers 3. Building and maintaining rapport with your students 4. Actively engaging your students in the learning process 5. Engaging your advanced learners (such as your 'A' - Level, SAT and IBDP students) 6. Managing student behaviour in a way that is non-confrontational 7. Using ICT to effectively enhance the learning process 8. Teaching overseas, and the special challenges this involves. Fully illustrated with infographics, images, diagrams and charts (and with extensive citations throughout) this book offers a 'breath of fresh air' for the pedagogical literature scene and provides a high-quality, accessible and essential guide for every high school teacher.

Based on extensive research conducted by the authors in more than 500 classrooms over the past 25 years, this best-selling book presents a thoroughly practical, hands-on approach to classroom management. It helps an instructor perform one of the most basic tasks for a teacher to develop a smoothly running classroom that creates an environment for encouragement and learning! Classroom Management for Secondary Teachers gives teachers the information and skills they need to establish classroom management systems. Provides practical, step-by-step guidelines that emphasize prevention through planning! Shows how the best teachers promote effective learning and get their classrooms to function smoothly. It's a reference teachers will turn to again and again. This book is organized so that it can be readily applied in the secondary classroom setting. It addresses the planning decisions teachers must make arranging the physical space, establishing rules and procedures, planning and conducting instruction, maintaining appropriate behavior, addressing problem behavior, using good communication skills, and managing special groups. All examples, checklists, case studies, and group activities are at the secondary level. For pre-service and in-service secondary teachers.