Tag: classroom management

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Introverted, Perceptive Students And How To Teach Them

This is part of a series of using Myers Briggs personality types in the classroom. For more information, click here. For information on how to figure out your student’s MBTI type, click here. 

Introverted 
Sensing 
Feeling 
Perceiving 

ISFP students are reserved and dedicated students. Their introverted personalities have a hard time working with others in big groups or spending too much time being social with friends. Their time alone is precious, but also never wasted. When given the opportunity of alone time, they are working on creating and building. 

These students are feelers, making them very sensitive to everyone’s emotions. They want everything to always be harmonious and struggle in classrooms full of contention or hard feelings towards each other. Their learning can be incredibly hindered by the emotional state of the room. 

Learning in a linear, organized way is not necessarily important to them. ISFPs can take in information sporadically and piece together what they are given, as long as it is given at a moderate pace. They also need space to be creative and use hands-on material. This is how they work best, by holding and utilizing the material presented. Math manipulatives are a powerful resource for ISFP students. 

When an ISFP student struggles with the information given to them, perhaps one of the most effective resources for them is alone time. This gives them the needed alone time to work through the material at their pace and how they process it best. 

ISFP students will end up in careers that are creative and don’t place them in a box. Experimenting is their passion, so scientific jobs are where they tend to lead, however, long-term goals may be hard for them. Making it through multiple degrees in college or certifications can be hard because they want to feel in the moment and go with what their gut is telling them right then. Freelance work is excellent for this personality type because of this. 

What are some ways you help your ISFP students in your classroom? How do ISFP students enrich your classroom environment? 

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How To Teach The Entertainer Students

This is part of a series of using Myers Briggs personality types in the classroom. For more information, click here. For information on how to figure out your student’s MBTI type, click here. 

Bubbly, energetic, social, and outgoing. Does this describe you or one of your students? ESFP students tend to have these personality traits. 

Extroverted
Sensing 
Feeling 
Perceiving 

ESFP personality type is nicknamed “The Entertainer.” They are social and thrive in group situations. Sitting in a typical classroom with the desks in a straight line and a teacher lecturing in front of the room is the fastest way for them to lose focus. ESFP students are hands-on learners, needing plenty of manipulations and visuals to fully grasp new concepts. 

These students are affected by their surroundings, they love bright, happy atmospheres and struggle with dark, not aesthetically pleasing rooms. The subjects they are drawn to are drama, dancing, painting, and other artistic studies. 

Improvisation is an important trait these students have. They don’t play by rules, traditions, or schedules, they would rather feel and change based in the moment of what feels right. When they are not understanding new material, they do not revert back to the procedures taught, instead, they look at how the material makes them feel. If it is something that makes them anxious or feels boring, they may leave it behind for lack of interest. However, if the material excites them or has an emotional pull they are more likely to dedicate themselves to studying said material to gain comprehension. 

Having a positive relationship with teachers and peers is important to these extroverted students, they constantly want to feel important to others and be in good standing relationships. Not having this type of relationship with a teacher can make or break success with an ESFP student. They can also feel hurt by criticism, especially at young ages where they cannot see a big picture of how the feedback can potentially benefit them. 

When you’re teaching an ESFP student you are teaching future veterinarians, hosts of any sort, or nurses. They tend to steer towards the careers where they can utilize their people skills while helping in their communities. However, these career paths are typically unknown to them until the time is down to the wire to choose because long term planning can be difficult for them to do. 

What are the tools you have for fostering a successful education in ESFP students? 

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Loyal, Dedicated, Supporitve, and Organized: Teaching ISFJ Students

This is part of a series of using Myers Briggs personality types in the classroom. For more information, click here. For information on how to figure out your student’s MBTI type, click here. 

Do you have students stressed by last-minute changes? Or maybe you know someone who is extremely supportive of friends, family, or peers? Loyal, enthusiastic, and hard-working are also traits they may possess. These students may be an ISFJ personality type. 

Introverted 
Sensing 
Feeling 
Judging 

ISFJs need linear learning. Sequence and order are important to their comprehension of the subject. When they can see the beginning, the middle, the end, and how it applies to where they will use it later in life, they can fully grasp the concept. There is nothing that infuriates an ISFJ student more than a teacher who jumps around or doesn’t stay on track with the material. 

This personality type often is given the nickname “The Defender” or “The Nurse” and for very good reason. These students are known for dropping everything to help a friend or family member. ISFJ are some of the most selfless people, constantly giving and assisting others with everything they can. However, burnout can happen to them when they start to feel underappreciated. This is most likely the cause of the majority of their problems with their peers. 

ISFJs are most likely to have the best grades and excel in school. They are naturally great learners and love the idea of school and learning. It makes sense that their future careers most often end in education, with nursing and counseling falling shortly behind. They strive to choose careers that assist and help in any way that they can. 

When it comes to group work, these students do well. They feed off of ideas from their peers and will do everything they can to make sure everyone’s voice is heard and valued. Larger groups can be hard for ISFJs because it feels less personal and it can be intimidating to speak up in front of so many peers. 

ISFJs are a great balance of sensitive, yet practical. Always in tune with others’ feelings, but likely to make a list of steps to deal with said feelings. They may not be the student with the most friends, but the friendships they do have run deep and are genuine. 

How can you use the deep feelings of an ISFJ student to their academic advantage in your classroom? 

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You Probably Have An ESFJ Student In Your Classroom- Here’s How To Foster Their Personality

This is part of a series of using Myers Briggs personality types in the classroom. For more information, click here. For information on how to figure out your student’s MBTI type, click here. 

Dedicated, loyal, social, and personable. Does this describe a student of yours? If you have an ESFJ student, this could be a great explanation of their personalities. ESFJ students are your cheerleaders, your star football players, your student council leaders. They like to be the ones who set the stage and lead others to success.

Extroverted 
Sensing 
Feeling 
Judgment 

When you’re teaching an ESFJ student, you are teaching a future nurse, teacher, or child care worker. Their careers lead them down a path to take care of others because that’s what they do best, therefore it only makes sense that group work is where they work best. In a group work setting, they are the ones to look over everyone, making sure each person is involved and participating. 

They learn best when the material learning is systematic and organized in a manner they can visualize. Having the study material beforehand to access helps them vastly succeed. They also thrive on hearing different angles of how to accomplish what they are learning. For example, it would be very beneficial to teach them two or three different processes for long division, instead of sticking with one. This can help them fully connect the concept in their minds. 

ESFJs don’t handle criticism well and can be uncomfortable in a classroom where they have been criticized in the past. They need to feel validated and will flourish in an environment with a happy, comfortable culture.   

How can you use this information to better teach the students in your classroom? How do you teach your ENFJ students? 

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Why I Decided The Clip Chart Wasn’t For Me

Oh, the dreaded clip chart. You know the one I’m talking about. “So-and-so” is being great! Move your clip up! Oh, Jonny, that wasn’t appropriate! Move your clip down!” It’s no secret that teachers have become outraged by these classroom management resources. One quick google search will show you just how unpopular they are. 

The first three articles to come up when googling “Clip Chart”

The first day I walked into the classroom of my long term sub job, I noticed one thing right away on the whiteboard- a clip chart. The public humiliation display. The does-more-harm-than-good tool. I did my best effort to keep the clip chart during my first week taking over the classroom, but I soon realized why it didn’t work. 

  • It was used for negative reinforcement more often than positive reinforcement. It was easier to use it for students misbehaving than to remember to reward those that were behaving. 
  • It didn’t change the behavior of the students who were constantly dropping into the negative. They quickly became numb to it, they didn’t care about moving their clip down, or up for that matter. 
  • I felt like our whole day revolved around the chart. Because I realized how often it was used for the misbehaving kids, I put in extra effort to use it to praise students for good behavior. It took too much time and effort. The best way to manage a classroom is to have an effortless, mindless, mostly positive plan in place. I needed a classroom management plan that was easy and natural for our classroom. 

So what did I do once I realized it wasn’t working? I stopped using it, slowly over time. I moved clips less and less, never making it a big deal or a spectacle that the clip chart was non-existent. I forgot about it and so did the kids. In fact, not a single student ever asked about it after we had fully stopped using it. Even the star students that were always at the top every day didn’t mind me phasing it out, no one wanted their behavior displayed to the entire classroom, including all of our visitors. 

Here’s what we did instead. We started our money unit, so a coin system was easily put in place. Each student had a container for their money and was solely responsible for it. Not very often was I taking pennies from the students, it was used more for positive reinforcement, which made everyone happier. It was incredible the drive the students had to clean up the floor at the end of the day when I would announce, “I have one nickel for every student who brings me ten pieces of trash!” I think we could have won awards for how clean our classroom was each afternoon. The money earned was used to pay for extra bathroom trips, new pencils, and a teacher store at the end of the year. 

We did a group point system on the board. I numbered each group, wrote the numbers on the board, and gave them points for being on time as a team, working together, and having their whole table quiet and ready to learn. It promoted teamwork and gave them an incentive to do better.

What did the point system on the board go towards? Here’s the magic of it- nothing. The points went towards nothing. Once the tallies made it to roughly 10 points per team, I would erase and start over. They were working hard simply for tallies on the board! I had one student ask quietly what the tallies were for. There were plenty of other side conversations happening at the time, so I chose to focus my attention elsewhere. I never heard any questions again after that one incident. 

Since I was teaching first-grade students, passing around a tiny sticker to hard workers was a huge motivation for them. I also kept a box of Cheerios in my cupboard to pass around one Cheerio to quiet, on-task students. After one or two times of doing this, they learned fast. As soon as the box was in my hand to pass them out, every student would be working hard. It amazed me how motivating one piece of cereal can be. 

Clip charts clearly are not a classroom management win. It may work for some and could possibly be excellent personal behavior management tucked away in a desk for one or two students that need it. But as a whole class approach, there are better options out there. Positive reinforcement has been proven to be the most effective for changing behavior, and clip charts do not promote this. Let’s all take a minute to put down the clip chart and pick up a more positive approach for our student’s sake. 

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Is Handpicking Your Children’s Teachers Really Benefitting Them?

How often do you hear as a teacher or a parent in a school, “Oh, Sally Sue is in Mrs. Smith’s class because her mom requested her to be there.” Or, “I would never let my child be in that teacher’s classroom, the principal knows this.” 

Is there a benefit to choosing your children’s teachers? There could be because you know your kid best, you know how they work, if they can handle disorganization or not, their interests, and how those line up with the teacher.  

But, could you be doing a disservice to your child by handpicking their teachers? Someday, your kids may not have the opportunity to pick and choose their employers and especially those they work with, they will have to know how to handle different personality types. 

One excuse I hear often from teachers is that their kids do not do well in disorganized classrooms, they are too Type A to handle it and their grades would be affected. But here is a question we all need to consider. Is it better for your child to struggle and learn coping skills in 5th grade, or in college with their professors? Or roommates? What about their first boss? 

Also, let’s dive into the teacher’s perspective. First, it can be slightly offensive to them when they hear a student cannot be in their classroom because their parents had a hand in who educates their child, it can make the teacher feel inadequate or unappreciated. Maybe an unorganized teacher has had a Type A student in the classroom before and they know what tools to use to help these students. 

Maybe you’d be surprised at what students can accomplish in circumstances that are less than ideal for them. Maybe they will struggle for a time, but then know how to learn in various ways, a tool they will need for the rest of their lives.

So maybe we shouldn’t handpick teachers for our kids. Maybe we should let our kids grow and learn outside of their comfort zones. 

 Do you choose your children’s teachers? Teachers, how does it affect you when you find out parents choose their kid’s teachers?   

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Be Firm and Be a Friend: How to Handle Those Difficult Students

I have stepped into many different classrooms with countless students over the years. Each room of kids seems to follow a similar pattern. The students that just want to help, they do everything they can to be the favorite. Then there are the students who sit in the back, keep to themselves, and try not to draw any extra attention. The ones listening intently to every word, but maybe not saying much. There’s always the students lost in their own thoughts of Minecraft or Fortnite, and the students fidgeting with things in their desks. There are so many different kinds of students you will run into in any given classroom, but there is always one student you will find no matter what. The kid that pushes your buttons and limits as far as he or she possibly can. 

I still remember the first encounter I had with one of these students, it was only a few years into my undergrad. I was in front of a fourth-grade class teaching a writing lesson, one of the very first full lessons I had ever taught. I was nervous as I stood in front of them, then took all of my excitement in me to exclaim, “Today we are going to do some fun writing!” 

A few students tuned me out, I knew it. Others paid a little more attention. One student, sitting on the front row smack in the middle as if he was purposely placed there to torment me yelled out, “WRITING SUCKS!” and had the whole class laughing within seconds. 

My little, tender, pre-teacher heart could not handle this. I choked back tears as I continued on with the lesson, ignoring his comment like I had been taught in my classroom management courses. “Class, who can tell me how many sentences make up a paragraph?”

“NONE BECAUSE WE DON’T WRITE ANYTHING FOR ANYONE.” 

His words crushed my soul. I made it through the lesson without crying, but their teacher could tell I was struggling because she pulled me aside at recess and asked if I was okay. I told her I struggled with this particular student and his comments. She sat me down and explained how he was testing my limits, what he was allowed to get away with around me. She told me the most important thing was that I needed to be firm, but also, be a friend. 

I took her advice and applied it the very next day. During the second part of my writing lesson, he thought it would be fun to hop onto his chair and dance for the class. I had to stand my ground and tell him that behavior was not appropriate in my classroom and that he would need to sit down. 

He didn’t listen right away, it took days and days of me repeating my expectations, removing him from the classroom, and calling on other teachers to assist. But slowly, we made improvements, he saw where I stood and started respecting that. Once we had somewhat mutual respect for each other, the friendship started. 

“Hey, Mrs. Ross, do you like football?” 

I can still remember him asking me that question in the hallway after school one day because it was the first interaction we had that wasn’t a power struggle between us. 

We proceeded to have a full discussion about football and he told me about his favorite college football team, BYU, and his favorite player, Taysom Hill. I asked questions and learned more about his passion for watching this game that I had never quite understood myself. 

He and I would chat often about recent games or the latest news with the team and even broaden our conversations beyond football at times. He would ask me about the latest news with my dog we were trying to convince our landlord to let us keep. At home, I would ask my husband the latest news on BYU and brush up on the current events with Taysom. Once we started building a friendship, the respect towards each other grew even further. 

This particular little boy was known throughout the school to be a tough student. Teachers in the hallways would try to reprimand him for bullying, running, and yelling to distract ongoing lessons, with no success. Eventually, I could give him one look, and he would know his behavior was not acceptable. Teachers throughout the school would ask me often what my secret was, how was I bribing him to behave? 

The truth was, no bribery was needed. This little boy needed one thing. Friendship. His teacher was in tune with him and knew which is why she advised me to do two things. Be firm, and be his friend. 

As I continued through my teaching career, I quickly found out that he wasn’t the only student like this that I would encounter.  I met many other students who attempted to push my limits and nearly bring me to tears, but at the end of my time with them, they always ended up being one of my favorite students because I spent extra time building a relationship with them. 

So next time you’re frustrated by that one student that always has a mean comment, or thinks it’s okay for her to crack inappropriate jokes during lessons, remember that it could be their cry for attention and love. 

Find out what they are interested in and truly care about it too. Ask them questions about the games they play and the friends they have. I’ve learned about college football, famous YouTube stars, Fortnite, JoJo Siwa, and more. They are all topics that have never been on my radar and most likely would not have if I hadn’t talked with them for a minute. Dude Perfect turned out to be more interesting than I ever would have expected!

At first, they’ll push you away and resist any relationship, it’s their defense mechanism because deep down they know they cannot continue to be the class clown if they start respecting you. But keep trying, be persistent, and just truly care about them and each of your students. 

I look back and think about these students often. I wonder how they are doing in school and genuinely hope that they have been passed along to other teachers that care about them as much as I do. I hope that they have someone to talk about BYU football and famous YouTube stars, because I know that’s the conversations they need to be having in order to learn about Shakespear and y=mx+b. I truly hope they are successful and that my short encounters with them made the smallest difference in their lives. In the end, that is the reason we are all teachers, right?