Team Building

This fall I have read two books that I feel have influenced my way of viewing education greatly. The first book being Accountability for Learning by Douglas Reeves. In the first few chapters of this book he speaks about how important it is to talk about what you are doing in your classroom and be able to express your ideas in a healthy manner with other instructors. That is my favorite part about using this blog. I get so excited about what we are doing here in the sixth grade and I feel like this is such a healthy way to express and share ideas with instructors and parents about what we are doing here in the sixth grade.


Now with that lengthy introduction out of the way, I would like to share a new positive behavior strategy in our classroom. This strategy is based off of the second book I have read this semester, Classroom Instruction That Works by Robert Marzano. In chapter seven he speaks of five expectations that are vital for every student in order to be successful. These expectations are: accountability, attitude, helping others, trust, and communication.

In my science classes I introduced this new team approach to education. We have three teams in our sixth grade, Team McClung, Team Hamm, and Team Drake. Each team is evaluated by me (in science class) on a daily basis based upon the listed expectations. Students can receive positive or negative marks based on how they work together in small groups, whole groups, or one-on-one in class. At the end of the week we total up all of the positive and negative checks and update our progress wall. Our progress wall consists of all five expectations listed and we use tiger paws to track our progress in all these areas. We will continue to do this every week until the end of the month. The leading class will receive a class party for their homeroom.

The whole idea behind this program is to promote a team atmosphere. Everyday we are looking to make our teams stronger by reinforcing positive behavior through team work, while also using a little friendly competition to help get us their.

With Christmas break around the corner, I felt this would be a prefect time to introduce this team approach. We will use the next two weeks as a trial run for this program. As always I will keep everyone updated as I test out his new system.

Mr. McClung