Some students misbehave because they are trying to attract teacher attention. Surprisingly, many students who value adult attention don't really care if it is positive (praise) or negative attention (reprimands)--they just want attention!
Unfortunately, instructors with students who thrive on teacher attention can easily fall into a 'reprimand trap.' The scenario might unfold much like this: First, the student misbehaves. Then the teacher approaches the student and reprimands him or her for misbehaving. Because the student finds the negative teacher attention to be reinforcing, he or she continues to misbehave-and the teacher naturally responds by reprimanding the student more often! An escalating, predictable cycle is established, with the student repeatedly acting-out and teacher reprimanding him or her.
Teachers can break out of this cycle, though, by using 'random positive attention' with students. Essentially, the instructor starts to ignore student attention-seeking behaviors, while at the same time 'randomly' giving the student positive attention. That is, the student receives regular positive teacher attention but at times unconnected to misbehavior. So the student still gets the adult attention that he or she craves. More importantly, the link between student misbehavior and resulting negative teacher attention is broken.

Motivating a reluctant student to complete schoolwork is not easy. In a typical classroom, students can choose from a number of sources of potential reinforcement (Billington & DiTommaso, 2003)--and academic tasks often take a back seat to competing behaviors such as talking with peers. One way that teachers can increase the attractiveness of schoolwork is by structuring lessons or assignments around topics or activities of high interest to the student (Miller et al., 2003).In fact, with planning, the teacher can set up a 'trap' that uses motivating elements to capture a student's attention to complete academic tasks (Alber & Heward, 1996). Here is a 6-step blue-print for building an academic 'motivation trap' (adapted from Alber & Heward, 1996).

Good two-way communication between families and schools is necessary for students' success. Not surprisingly, research shows that the more parents and teachers share relevant information with each other about a student, the better equipped both will be to help that student achieve academically. Opportunities for two-way communication include: (1) Parent conferences; (2) Parent-teacher organizations or school community councils; (3) Weekly or monthly folders of student work sent home for parent review and comment; (4) Phone calls; and (5) E-mail or school Web site. This paper presents ideas for building parent-teacher partnerships.

Since the first version of this book came out in 2005, the field of computer-assisted language learning (CALL) has grown and changed. This update is the result of some of those changes. Our intent is to place pedagogical goals before technologies, as the literature advises but is not always followed in classrooms. In revising this book, as in the original, we assume that good teachers teach well because they bear in mind certain principles about how they can best help learners to learn language. Placing these principles at the center of attention makes it much easier for teachers to concentrate on the question of what constitutes effective computer-enhanced pedagogy and why.

This book takes as its organizing principles both the system of conditions that are known to support effective language learning and the goals that a variety of standards in the field have set out for us and our students.

Examples throughout the book underscore the need to consider theory in every aspect of the teaching and learning process. Some of the points in this book we have made in other places; other we discovered during the revision process. All told, this text provides a brief picture of what CALL classrooms can be like today. Of course, that could change tomorrow.

Through funding provided by Georgia’s Race to the Top initiative and in partnership with the Georgia Department of Education, new self-paced common core professional development course Mathematics teachers.

The Georgia Department of Education has developed two flexible, ready-to-use courses intended to support Georgia educators in the understanding and effective implementation of the CCGPS.

The courses may be used by individual educators, professional learning communities, or by districts or schools. The time required for the courses may be customized for a variety of applications by expanding the amount of time spent on the activities and in discussion.

Each course contains hands-on activities, related readings and research, recommended topics for discussion, web and video resources, and self-assessments.

The content of the courses was developed under a grant from the U. S. Department of Education. However, the content does not necessarily represent the policy of the U. S. Department of Education, and endorsement by the Federal Government should not be assumed.

Through funding provided by Georgia’s Race to the Top initiative and in partnership with the Georgia Department of Education, new self-paced common core professional development courses are available for Mathematics teachers.

The Georgia Department of Education has developed two flexible, ready-to-use courses intended to support Georgia educators in the understanding and effective implementation of the CCGPS.

The courses may be used by individual educators, professional learning communities, or by districts or schools. The time required for the courses may be customized for a variety of applications by expanding the amount of time spent on the activities and in discussion.

Each course contains hands-on activities, related readings and research, recommended topics for discussion, web and video resources, and self-assessments.

The content of the courses was developed under a grant from the U. S. Department of Education. However, the content does not necessarily represent the policy of the U. S. Department of Education, and endorsement by the Federal Government should not be assumed.

Through funding provided by Georgia’s Race to the Top initiative and in partnership with the Georgia Department of Education, new self-paced common core professional development courses are available for English Mathematics teachers.

The Georgia Department of Education has developed two flexible, ready-to-use courses intended to support Georgia educators in the understanding and effective implementation of the CCGPS.

The courses may be used by individual educators, professional learning communities, or by districts or schools. The time required for the courses may be customized for a variety of applications by expanding the amount of time spent on the activities and in discussion.

Each course contains hands-on activities, related readings and research, recommended topics for discussion, web and video resources, and self-assessments.

The content of the courses was developed under a grant from the U. S. Department of Education. However, the content does not necessarily represent the policy of the U. S. Department of Education, and endorsement by the Federal Government should not be assumed.

Students can sometimes have emotional outbursts in school settings. This fact will not surprise many teachers, who have had repeated experience in responding to serious classroom episodes of student agitation. Such outbursts can be attributed in part to the relatively high incidence of mental health issues among children and youth. It is estimated, for example, that at least one in five students in American schools will experience a mental health disorder by adolescence (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 1999). But even students not identified as having behavioral or emotional disorders may occasionally have episodes of agitation triggered by situational factors such as peer bullying, frustration over poor academic performance, stressful family relationships, or perceived mistreatment by educators.

Teachers strive to develop partnerships with parents to support student learning. Strong communication is fundamental to this partnership and to building a sense of community between home and school. This article provides a range of communication opportunities available to teachers, including the emergency use of technology. Barriers to communication are considered in conjunction with potential solutions.

he teacher's most important objective when faced with a defiant or non-compliant student is to remain outwardly calm. Educators who react to defiant behavior by becoming visibly angry, raising their voices, or attempting to intimidate the student may actually succeed only in making the student's oppositional behavior worse! While the strategies listed here may calm an oppositional student, their main purpose is to help the teacher to keep his or her cool. Remember: any conflict requires at least two people. A power struggle can be avoided if the instructor does not choose to take part in that struggle.

As classroom managers, teachers regularly use commands to direct students to start and stop activities. Instructors find commands to be a crucial tool for classroom management, serving as instructional signals that help students to conform to the teacher's expectations for appropriate behaviors.

One of the greatest frustrations mentioned by many teachers is that their students are often not motivated to learn. Teachers quickly come to recognize the warning signs of poor motivation in their classroom: students put little effort into homework and classwork assignments, slump in their seats and fail to participate in class discussion, or even become confrontational toward the teacher when asked about an overdue assignment. One common method for building motivation is to tie student academic performance and classroom participation to specific rewards or privileges. Critics of reward systems note, however, that they can be expensive and cumbersome to administer and may lead the student to engage in academics only when there is an outside 'payoff.' While there is no magic formula for motivating students, the creative teacher can sometimes encourage student investment in learning in ways that do not require use of formal reward systems.

Teachers can feel overwhelmed when faced with students who are unmotivated to learn. The task becomes less daunting, though, when teachers realize that they can boost student motivation in five important ways: by (1) making positive changes to the learning environment, (2) fostering a sense of community in the classroom, (3) enhancing the interest of classroom activities, (4) responding to individual learning challenges, and (5) building in additional outcomes/pay-offs for learning. Here are some ideas:

The significance of relationships between the parents and teachers of preschool and kindergarten children is well established. Teachers and schools are presumed to be responsible for lack of parent-teacher collaboration. Early childhood teacher education programs recognize this and offer support related to parents and families.

Teachers and students come to school bringing a wide range of backgrounds, languages, abilities, and temperaments. Get things off to the best start by asking them to respect their differences and make the most of their similarities. By sharing information on their lives and dreams, students and teachers can build community in the classroom that will support literacy instruction throughout the school year.

The Good Behavior Game is an approach to the management of classrooms behaviors that rewards children for displaying appropriate on-task behaviors during instructional times. The class is divided into two teams and a point is given to a team for any inappropriate behavior displayed by one of its members. The team with the fewest number of points at the Game's conclusion each day wins a group reward. If both teams keep their points below a preset level, then both teams share in the reward. The program was first tested in 1969; several research articles have confirmed that the Game is an effective means of increasing the rate of on-task behaviors while reducing disruptions in the classroom (Barrish, Saunders, & Wolf, 1969; Harris & Sherman, 1973; Medland & Stachnik, 1972).
The process of introducing the Good Behavior Game into a classroom is a relatively simple procedure. There are five steps involved in putting the Game into practice.

Students who regularly complete and turn in homework assignments perform significantly better in school than those of similar ability who do not do homework (Olympia et al., 1994). Homework is valuable because it gives students a chance to practice, extend, and entrench the academic skills taught in school. Parents can be instrumental in encouraging and motivating their children to complete homework. This homework contract intervention (adapted from Miller & Kelly, 1994) uses goal-setting, a written contract, and rewards to boost student completion (and accuracy) of homework. Students also learn the valuable skills of breaking down academic assignments into smaller, more manageable subtasks and setting priorities for work completion.

Teachers skilled in classroom management are able to respond appropriately to just about any behavior that a student brings through the classroom door. While having a toolkit of specific behavioral strategies is important, the real secret of educators who maintain smoothly running classrooms with minimal behavioral disruptions is that they are able to view problem student behaviors through the lens of these seven 'big ideas' in behavior management.

While the long-term negative impact of poor readers can be enormous, the good news is that schools can train their own students to deliver effective tutoring in reading to younger peers. Kids as Reading Helpers: A Peer Tutor Training Manual is a complete package for training peer reading tutors. Peer tutoring answers the nagging problem of delivering effective reading support to the many struggling young readers in our schools. Furthermore, peer tutoring programs can improve the reading skills of tutors as well as tutees (Ehly, 1986) and - in some studies-have been shown to build tutor's social skills as well (Garcia-Vazquez & Ehly, 1995). Young children tend to find the opportunity to read aloud to an older peer tutor to be quite reinforcing, adding a motivational component to this intervention.

Basic Education teachers in developing countries are faced with extreme limitations in resources. For both pre-service and in-service training, this instructional tool can help bridge varied learning styles and uneven prior learning of students and break through to help tool students for critical thinking and lifelong learning