Section 3 : Ways of taking responsibiity Copyright 2014 The Open University
Contents Section 3 : Ways of taking responsibiity 3 1. Working in groups 3 2. Sharing responsibiity for the cassroom 5 3. Working in groups to agree cassroom rues 6 Resource 1: The benefits of cassroom principes 7 Resource 2: Using monitors 8 Resource 3: Asking chidren to agree rues 8 2 of 9 Monday 13 June 2016
Section 3 : Ways of taking responsibiity Section 3 : Ways of taking responsibiity Key Focus Question: How can you ink home and schoo knowedge to hep schoo achievement? Keywords: group work; discussion; taking responsibiity; achievement; home inks Learning Outcomes By the end of this section, you wi have: used inking activities at home and at schoo; used group work and discussion to identify how beiefs and vaues reate to cassroom behaviour; heped pupis make their own rues for cassroom behaviour. Introduction Heping your pupis to want to take responsibiity for their own earning is an important task. Part of this means invoving pupis in managing the cassroom and its resources. In this section, you work with your pupis to make the cassroom a more effective pace, by expaining and then giving out particuar responsibiities. You wi aso encourage pupis to deveop their own cassroom rues, by showing how their beiefs can appy to their behaviour in the cassroom. Having these rues wi benefit both you and them. Showing respect and trust in your pupis wi have a positive infuence on their attitudes as peope and earners. It may hep to read Resource 1: The benefits of cassroom principes before starting this section. 1. Working in groups Every community has different beiefs and vaues, guided by the customs of the oca society. These beiefs and vaues hep to determine what behaviours are acceptabe in that community. Pupis wi first earn these standards at home, and this can be usefu to you. You can draw on their famiies expectations to hep identify the ways pupis and staff are expected to behave at schoo: in the cassroom; in the payground; towards the teacher; towards each other. 3 of 9 Monday 13 June 2016
Section 3 : Ways of taking responsibiity Deveoping the principes of good behaviour with your pupis wi assist their concentration during cass. They are more ikey to isten to what is being said and treat each other respectfuy. In addition, by finding out ideas from your pupis, they wi fee that they have agreed to any expectations of behaviour. They are more ikey to respect these expectations than if you had just tod them they must behave in a certain way. Doing this successfuy invoves some carefu panning and can take some time to deveop. At each step, you shoud isten carefuy to your pupis ideas. Case Study 1: Cassroom rues Mrs Aber is a Grade 4 teacher in Uganda. She has 63 pupis. During orientation week, at the beginning of term, she asked her pupis about the behaviour expected of them at home. As she has a arge cass, she put the pupis into desk groups of eight, to compare their famiies expectations. She asked them to ist four rues common to a of them. The cass gave many exampes of behaviour their famiies expected many of which were the same for different chidren. Mrs Aber wrote some of these up on the board. She then asked if there shoud be the same rues for behaviour in the cassroom as at home. In groups, they chose which home rues coud be used in the cassroom, and why they wanted to use them. They then shared their ideas as a cass. Mrs Aber was peased, and used these ideas to estabish some principes for behaviour at schoo, covering: how we treat each other; how we behave during essons; how we behave during paytime; how we treat our things. They voted on six rues that they wanted to adopt. Activity 1: Understanding rues This activity can hep expain why we have particuar rues, and how they benefit everyone. Organise your pupis into groups. Ask them to identify five rues at home and five rues at schoo. Get one exampe of a home rue and one exampe of a schoo rue from each group. Write them on the board. Ask the groups to discuss: why they think we have each rue; how each of the rues heps them. Discuss their ideas as a cass. Prepare to ask questions that wi hep them think more about their answers. Draw out the different principes behind rues, by questioning the cass: e.g. safety; respect; heping others; heping ourseves. Ask them to ink each rue with one principe. 4 of 9 Monday 13 June 2016
Section 3 : Ways of taking responsibiity Ask pupis to each write a paragraph about why we have rues. Make a dispay of these. How suitabe were their suggestions? 2. Sharing responsibiity for the cassroom It is important for your pupis to understand that, ike their teacher, they have responsibiities within the cassroom. Firsty, you must be a good roe mode. Show respect for your duties: be punctua; pan and attend essons; mark homework etc. If you do not fufi your responsibiities, you cannot expect the pupis to do so. Secondy, invove them in maintaining standards in the cassroom. This incudes them: ceaning the chakboard; keeping the cassroom cean and tidy; ooking after books and furniture, and so on. If they ook after the cassroom themseves, they wi start to take pride in it. Thirdy, invove them in organising their own earning through the activities that you give them. This incudes them: demonstrating the difference between work time and pay time; organising group work and study sessions; checking each other s work, and so on. The usua way to start doing this is by appointing pupis as monitors and group eaders, responsibe for ooking after different tasks. But they aso need to understand what is needed for each task. For more information see Resource 2: Using monitors. Case Study 2: Skis and responsibiities in the cassroom Mr Sambawa is a senior teacher with a arge mutigrade cass. He has a group of monitors from the top grades who do sma tasks around the cassroom and aso hep the younger pupis. The monitors check their groups are ready at the beginning of each esson, they ook after the textbooks and they cean the chakboard each day. They are very usefu indeed. On Friday, the cass cean-up day, Mr Sambawa asks his monitors to work with their groups from the ower grades to ist which areas need action. Each group makes one suggestion, which is written on the board. Each group vounteers to take one activity and, supervised by the monitor, work on it each Friday break time unti the end of term. At the end of the week, each group expains to the cass what they have done and where they have put things. They aso give the cass suggestions for next week to make the tasks easier or hep sove probems. At the end of term, they review each group s progress and vote as a cass for the best achievement. 5 of 9 Monday 13 June 2016
Section 3 : Ways of taking responsibiity Activity 2: Appointing monitors Pan how you wi introduce monitors to hep in cass. Introduce the idea of monitors to the whoe cass. Expain how a system of monitors wi work, and how it wi benefit everyone. With your cass, discuss and write a ist of a the cassroom tasks that need to be done at the beginning, midde and end of each day. Identify which tasks have to be done by you, and which coud be done by the pupis. As a cass, decide how many monitors are needed and then think of a way to seect the monitors. You coud change monitors every week so that everyone gets a turn and deveops responsibiity for others. Appoint the first set of monitors and expain their tasks. At the end of the first week, review their work with them and with the cass. Ask them to suggest new tasks they coud do. Once the monitor system has been running for a itte whie, take some time to think about how it is working: What impact does having monitors have on the behaviour and work of your cass? Do the pupis ike the system? Does it need to be reviewed and perhaps modified by the cass? 3. Working in groups to agree cassroom rues In this section, you wi use pupis ideas about good principes of behaviour to hep them deveop their own cassroom rues. Heping pupis make a set of rues for the cassroom is one way to strengthen participation and responsibiity, especiay if they write the rues themseves. Estabishing their own rues wi hep them understand what is expected. There are two sets of rues to think about. The first are socia rues. These cover the ways peope interact with each other and behave towards each other. The second are study rues. These cover how pupis behave during esson time and what they can do to hep everyone study and earn. By organising pupis to work in groups, you wi aow them to share ideas and gain respect for each other more. It is important that the rues appy to the teacher as we as the pupis. You need to be a good exampe for your pupis. If you respect them in the cassroom, they wi earn to respect you. One teacher describes her experiences in Resource 3: Asking chidren to agree rues. Case Study 3: Deveoping rues for behaviour Ms Okon asked her Primary 3 cass to think about the principes of behaviour they had identified earier and how these might hep them deveop their own cassroom rues. She asked pupis to think about their different responsibiities. What things coud they do to hep each other fufi those responsibiities? 6 of 9 Monday 13 June 2016
Section 3 : Ways of taking responsibiity They first taked together in pairs, and then as a cass. Finay, in sma groups, she asked them to write sentences using: We shoud She went around each group and asked them to read one sentence and expain why they had written it. For exampe: We shoud be quiet in cass because it heps us isten better. If pupis suggested negatives, for exampe Don t tak in cass, together they changed it to something positive: We shoud try to isten carefuy to each other. She was very peased with their responses, and coected their sentences in. The next day, they reviewed them a again and chose eight. Ms Okon then wrote these on the chakboard and the pupis copied them into their books for reference. Key Activity: Deveoping cassroom rues Discuss with your cass why we need cass rues for behaviour and for study. Discuss why they and not you wi write the rues. Let the pupis, in groups, discuss their suggestions for socia rues and study rues. Ask them to write five rues for each, using positive sentences. Coect each group s suggestions on socia rues and write them on the board. Ask them to expain to the cass why they are important. Organise a vote: ask each pupi to choose six to eight rues from the board. Too many is unnecessary if you have good rues. Read out each rue, and count the number of hands up for each rue. Write the numbers down and identify the most popuar. Do the same for study rues. Organise the cass to make a poster of the written rues. Dispay it by the door of the cassroom to remind everyone as they come in. Monitor how they work over a term and review the rues if necessary. How woud you and they modify them? (See Key Resource: Assessing earning). Resource 1: The benefits of cassroom principes Background information / subject knowedge for teacher There are many benefits to having we-estabished principes in your cassroom. A cear set of guideines about what is good and unacceptabe behaviour in the cassroom heps you manage the cass better. By capturing these as rues, you are abe to refer to them if it s needed. However, for rues to be effective in a positive way, the pupis aso need to understand why a particuar rue exists. These guideines hep the pupis understand what is expected of them. They know what is appropriate behaviour during essons and during break time. They aso have some idea of how to interact with each other and why. A set of rues for behaviour makes it easier for you to organise the pupis when doing activities in the cassroom. They wi know when to isten, when to tak, how to respond to questions, and so on. Having guideines on behaviour means that the pupis wi get into the habit of treating each other we. This makes for a peacefu and cooperative cassroom. 7 of 9 Monday 13 June 2016
Section 3 : Ways of taking responsibiity By aowing the pupis to write their own rues and take responsibiity for cassroom activities, you wi be encouraging them to take pride in their schooing. They are aso more ikey to foow those rues they have written themseves. The above wi a contribute towards a positive earning environment in your cassroom. You wi be abe to spend more time on teaching and ess time on controing and organising the cass. The pupis wi isten better in cass and concentrate on their activities. They wi aso earn to hep each other and support themseves in their studies, which shoud resut in higher achievement. They wi fee better about themseves as peope as they make progress in their earning and you wi enjoy teaching them more. Resource 2: Using monitors Background information / subject knowedge for teacher As a teacher, you can use pupis to hep you with the day-to-day management of your cassroom. There are numerous simpe tasks that you can ask them to perform on your behaf, and this serves two benefits. It aows you to spend more time preparing and deivering good teaching, rather than managing and tidying up the cassroom; It gives the pupis sma areas of responsibiity, which encourages them to take pride in their schooing. There are a few issues you need to think about when seecting monitors. You want pupis who wi do their tasks we, and who wi be wiing to hep you and others. You aso want pupis who are responsibe and interact we with others. Sometimes, pupis might see being a monitor as a position of power over others, and they might misuse it. It is important to hep them understand that they have to carry out the roe responsiby, and you wi be a roe mode in this. A pupis shoud be given a chance to take on such roes. If you ony choose the same pupis each time, others wi fee ess vaued. You wi need to provide guidance and support to the monitors. Some wi need more support than others in the eary stages. You wi need to think ceary about each of the jobs before you give them out. If there is not a reguar daiy task to do, the pupis wi get bored and negect it. There needs to be a cear purpose for the task as we, rather than something to fi time. Finay, you wi aso need to provide cear instructions. It is important to share the jobs around and give each pupi a turn. If some pupis are not invoved, they wi stop taking an interest and may even start disrupting casses to get the attention that is going to the monitors. If possibe, et pupis choose the jobs they coud do to hep. You can aso hod reguar cassroom meetings where pupis can suggest different tasks. Finay, you wi aso need to monitor and support them. Give praise where you can and give guidance where it is necessary. Resource 3: Asking chidren to agree rues Background information / subject knowedge for teacher I woud ike to share some stories that happened in my cassroom. In the first few days of schoo, one of our activities is to get together and tak about the cassroom and 8 of 9 Monday 13 June 2016
Section 3 : Ways of taking responsibiity payground rues. In the beginning, I tod the chidren the rues and we taked about them. I wondered if they are too sma (4 5 years od), to come up with the rues but ast year I decided to et them generate the rues. To my surprise, it went OK, and my chidren were even stricter than me, and generated more rues. My cass reay enjoyed this activity and they foow the rues they have generated themseves vountariy. Using the chidren s misbehaviour/mistakes to teach them how to behave we is a good theory. When a chid misbehaves in our cassroom or during outdoor activities I frequenty try to make use of the opportunity to tak about it with the chidren during cass meeting ater that day. We tak about what happened and I ask the chidren to find a soution, not a punishment for the probem. It s true that sometimes my chidren do suggest siy ideas, but graduay, more often than not, my kids find a good soution to the confict. As expected, it takes time and persistence from the teacher, especiay with itte ones, to show the way and make the kids understand that they have the power to decide how to sove confict on their own peacefuy, but it is extremey rewarding in the end. Thank you, Zsuzsanna Nigeria Return to Life Skis (primary) page 9 of 9 Monday 13 June 2016