Teach Like a Champion

  This is technique number 38. Strong Voice. Strong voice has five different factors to it. 

1.  Economy of Language.  Fewer words are stronger than more. 

2. Do not talk over.  Every student has the right and responsibility to hear you.

 3.  Do not Engage.

 4.  Square Up/Stand Still.  Show with your body using eye contact.

 5.  Quiet Power.  Get slower and quieter when you want control.

This is technique number 43. Positive Framing. This is a way to make correction or interventions  in behavior, in a positive manner. 

1.       Live in now.  Avoid harping on what they can no longer fix. (Say show me slant instead of you aren’t slanting)

2.       Assume the best. (Say some people seem to have forgotten to push in their chairs or whoops)

3.       Allow plausible anonymity.  (Some people didn’t manage to follow directions the whole way so let’s try it again.)

4.       Build momentum, and narrate the positive. (I see pencils moving.  I see ideas rolling out.  Bob’s ready to roll.  Keep it up Pat) Narrating your weakness only makes your weakness seem normal.  If you say, “Some students didn’t do what I asked, you made that situation public.

5.       Challenge. Challenge students as individuals or groups.

6.       Talk expectations and aspirations.  Keep their eyes on the prize by constantly referring to it.

This technique is number 44. Precise Praise. Positive reinforcement is one of the most effective tools you can have in a classroom. You need to use this. This  technique comes with suggestions.

• Differentiate acknowledgment and praise.  Praising students for doing the expected is, in the long run, not just ineffective but destructive.  Recent research demonstrates that students have come to interpret frequent praise as a sign that they are doing poorly and need encouragement from their teacher.

• Praise (and acknowledge) loud;  fix soft.  Praise as specifically as possible and focus on exactly the behavior and action that you would like to see more of.  Praise for working hard and not for being smart.

• Praise must be genuine.

This is technique number 30. Tight Transitions. Each teacher needs to have a quick routine transitions. This is when students move from one activity to the next or from one place in the building to another.  Each teacher needs to

1. Scaffold the steps, point to point. 

2. The steps need to be fast.

3. The steps can be done with or without narration by teacher.

4. They need to be consistently reinforced.