Reddit reviews Fred Jones Tools for Teaching: Discipline, Instruction, Motivation

Hey you. http://www.amazon.com/Fred-Jones-Tools-Teaching-Instruction/dp/0965026329/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1262059116&sr=8-1

Fred Jones Tools for Teaching: All first year teachers should get this book. Writing is engaging, realistic, practical and useful tips married with a solid pedagogy.

Book: https://www.amazon.com/Fred-Jones-Tools-Teaching-Instruction/dp/0965026329/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1474497518&sr=8-1&keywords=tools+for+teaching

Video Overview (2.5hrs): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wwb15NwjCl4

Great books to help you out, written in an easy to read way: tools for teaching http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0965026329/ref=mp_s_a_1?pi=75x60&qid=1344739213&sr=8-1
And the first days of school
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0976423316/ref=mp_s_a_1?pi=75x61&qid=1344739284&sr=8-1

Essentially, imagine what you want to look like to your students. What teacher do you remember standing out to you? Can you model them? Managing your demeanor and classroom like them will help you a lot.

Write a parent letter home for the different grade levels.

Sketch out what you plan on teaching for big ideas each month. September is identifying and correctly saying the computer parts (monitor, keyboard, etc) and.... If you do that for each level, you'll have expectations of where you want to go.

I completed my student teaching in April. I taught 7th and 8th grade Social Studies. I don't have a real teaching job yet, but my related experiences my be helpful to you.

Students and administration may not care, but that doesn't mean that you should stop caring. Especially in regards to the students: they will know when you don't care, or stop caring, and it will be completely demoralizing to them and you will definitely lose them. The best thing you can do is start off with high expectations and continue with high expectations, for all students. I had one particularly difficult student, and I never faltered on my expectations of her behavior or academic work. She may not have ever met me halfway, but at least I can say I put in the effort. The best thing my student teaching advisor said to me was, "I can tell you have high expectations for them," in regards to my worst behaving, worst performing class. It was seriously the best compliment.

I also learned when to push and when to let go. I have a habit of wanting to control every little thing, but it's really not possible when you're working with human beings, which you must remember that you are. Don't yell for every little thing -- tapping a pencil, laying their heads down on their desk -- because the ones who are trying to derail the class will have won, and the ones who just need a minute with their head down will think you don't care about them. You must learn how to pick your battles if you want to be successful. Learn the art of non-verbal communication, it is ridiculously effective in curtailing undesirable behaviors. Eye contact, a stern look, placing yourself near disruptive students, a simple tap on the shoulder or desk... these are effective because it doesn't cause a disruption to the entire class and does not embarrass the student, but they know you are aware of what they are doing and they need to change their behavior.

Here is a quote I read in a book that I thought of every single day, especially before my rougher classes: "It takes one fool to backtalk, it takes two fools to have a conversation about it." Never engage a student who back-talks. Let them deflate. I used to think it was important to defend myself against back-talkers... but it's actually the worst thing to do. Keep it simple: tell them what they have to do, tell them the consequences if they don't, and walk away.

A lot of this (and much, much more) I learned from the book Fred Jones Tools for Teaching, which I highly recommend. It is a quick, easy read, not a textbook-style, heavy book full of jargon and useless information. I took what I read here and applied it every day while student teaching, and I can say that it was effective (when I did it right).

Bio teacher in a low income, high poverty school with about 75% Hispanic students, quite a few are from Honduras.

As far as how my students grasp concepts here seems to be the trend with them

Hard concepts: Cell bio, prokaryote vs eukaryote, some organelles(cell wall vs cell membrane, lysosome, ERs), viruses and their life cycle, DNA replication, transcription/translation, mitosis vs meiosis, 6 kingdoms(Animalia/plantae are easy, protista, fungi/archaebacteria/eubacteria are hard), sex linked inheritance, DNA/genetics some parts


Easier concepts: Plant anatomy/structure/function, photosynthesis vs cellular respiration, ecology, human body systems, punnett squares, mendelian inheritence, some organelles(Chloroplast, nucelus, ribosome, cytoplasm, cytoskeleton)

Honestly though the content is only like 5% the battle. If you have never been in a classroom before I would observe all I could before I started.

I suggest reading

Harry Wong's "The First Day of School" - Helped me for the first day and having my shit together

Fred Jones' "Tools for Teachers" - Helped me in random areas of my teaching I had not totally thought of, like getting kids into higher levels of thinking

and finally Doug Lemov's "Teach Like a Champion" - THIS BOOK! I Love this book! Some of the ideas in it are fairly simple and some are even "no duh!" moments but they have helped me out tremendously. Ideas like no opt out, 100%, and other questioning techniques really helped me out.

Know what you are doing for the next 3-5 days at least otherwise you will end up being swamped and doing more work than necessary. Be tough, be consistent, have a clear set of rules and consequences when the rules are impeded, have high expectations even if they are the stupidest kids you've ever seen. On the high expectations note, it is amazing how even the worst underachiever starts to tread water on his/her own. But only when high/tough but reachable goals with rewards that matter to the individual are set before them.

Feel free to pm me if you have any questions that arise. Also I'd be willing to send you an extra copy of Fred Jones' "Tools for Teachers" if you want it, pm me your address if you do. I bought one before my first job to read over the summer with Harry Wong and then the school district provided me one for free.

Also a (sort of) first year teacher here. I highly, highly recommend reading Fred Jones' "Tools for Teaching". My dad sent me a copy when I was teaching abroad (hence the "sort of"), and the change in my class was literally immediate. I thought of it because the first thing I thought when I saw your classroom was "that desk layout is a disaster waiting to happen." One of the cool things about the book is that it's all really concrete (eg. what do you specifically do), and it's all labor saving right out of the gate instead of investing a bunch of time up front.

Get this book: Teach Like a Champion. There are a thousand details that you have to get right for a classroom to work at all, and this book doesn't have all of them, but it has more than most.

Fred Jones is excellent as well.

Pace yourself - all of your biggest challenges are in the second half of the year.

Mind, brain & education for the neuroscience behind education, Tools for teaching which focuses on reducing stress by being proactive and effective, and any Nurtured Heart approach books to help you build positive relationships with your students.

These aren't specific towards college or adult education I guess, just my go to "education" books.

I have a couple of books to recommend--you should be able to find used copies on paperbackswap or amazon for very cheap:

Tools for Teaching by Fred Jones. Look for an older edition or ask your adviser if he/she has a copy you can borrow until yours arrives. I love this book because it's simple, direct, and very practical. You can't know what you need to know until you already needed to know it, but this is a good start.

The First Days of School by Harry Wong. This one is a little bit wordier but it really can help get you psyched up for what you need to do to prepare for the first days of school.

This is more aimed at middle school and up but most of the ideas can be applied to elementary: http://www.amazon.com/Fred-Jones-Tools-Teaching-Instruction/dp/0965026329

I used to have a huge problems with classroom discipline/management. I would tell myself "For the love of GOD if I can just finish writing this sentence on the board I can take care of whatever is going on when I finish." It was about the worst way for me to go. The stress of dealing with it was draining me to no end. The best decision/thought that allowed me to get into a better frame of classroom discipline was "If I let it go on a little bit then it's the same as telling them it's ok to do it all the time". I will stop in the middle of writing a letter on the board, and slowly... painfully slowly turn around and stare at students who think it's ok to talk while we are doing note taking. By the time I'm staring at them for 3-8seconds the other students in the room are scolding them for me. Works great.

The Book I learned this from was this one by Fred Jones: https://www.amazon.com/Fred-Jones-Tools-Teaching-Instruction/dp/0965026329

The videos might come off as a little corny but 10 years later of using this stuff I still stand by it and recommend it to anybody.

Sorry man, if you let the kid get away with that, then you have brought it on yourself. Passing the buck onto the a Dean/Asst. Principal is a sure-fire way to show kids that you can't handle it. Unless it involves drugs, fighting, or other felonies, don't ever send kids to the office. Handle it yourself.

Do you have a posted list of consequences? Is it approved by your principal? Follow it. When you send a student to the office and you have a list of the things you have already done to address the behavior, then you get a whole lot more support from admin. If you continually send kids to the office for minor infractions, then you will get zero support.

I'm really not trying to jump down your throat, but I'm having flashbacks to a team member I taught with a decade ago. I was the department head and on my recommendation, the principal fired him at semester. Why? He couldn't teach and students couldn't learn because he didn't have control of his classroom.

Get this book: http://www.amazon.com/Fred-Jones-Tools-Teaching-Instruction/dp/0965026329/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1450286630&sr=8-1&keywords=fred+jones

It will help.