Why Do We Keep Looking for the Next Best Thing?

The next MJ.

The next LeBron.

The next iPhone.

The next band.

The next app.

The next activity for your kid.

The next testing platform that will address all of your district's needs.

The next extension that completes your productive workflow.

Your next car.

Your next house.

Your next job.

The next friendship that finally completes you.

The next ___ followers on your Instagram or Twitter.

The next thrill.

The next church.

The next meal.

IT'S EXHAUSTING SOMETIMES, RIGHT?

Let me drop this there-is-nothing-new-under-the-sun truth bomb on you from the writer of the book of Acts, describing the Apostle Paul's visit to Athens, Greece:

"Now all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new."

Now all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new.
Acts 17:21 ESV

https://www.bible.com/bible/59/ACT.17.21.ESV

Now all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new.
Acts 17:21 ESV

https://www.bible.com/bible/59/ACT.17.21.ESV

There's nothing particularly of moral or ethical weight to the statement on the surface; its simply descriptive of what the people of Athens often did to fill their time. Taken in some context, however, I see it as an indictment on the waste of what these men (and women) were filling their time with and giving their worship to. The beginning of this chapter states that the city was "full of idols," and as my pastor continued to preach last week, I stayed fixated on my own searches for "next."

I've spent a ton of time on this blog, in my classroom, in conversations with friends, scrolling newsfeeds and Twitter chats in search of any opportunity for "telling or hearing something new." In and of itself, new can be good. Innovation is obviously a great creative force. When the search becomes "nothing except," however, is where things go awry.

I put a ton of worth, identity, and effort in being known as a guy who is usually hip to new trends in education, new apps, new websites, new tech. Your thing might be bands, or sports, or cars, or styles, or celebrities. Whatever. There's an entire sub-culture on the internet and social media making people famous for knowing "next." People crave it!

And if people crave it, that means they worship it.

What's the mean for the classroom?

For me, worshipping the "next" thing in education leads me to neglecting what's right in front of me. Neglecting the kids in front of me. Neglecting the duties God has already called me to and made me responsible for. Maybe someday my job will be finding and sorting through "next," for educators to help them in their jobs. But for now, its important for me to be about not the next, but the present.

Next makes it hard for me to collaborate with others, because they might get more credit than me.
Next makes it difficult to have polished lessons, because you rarely use/do something multiple times to iron out kinks in your delivery.
Next makes me more time on my Twitter feed than in giving feedback to students and contacting parents.
Next leaves little room for someone else to have a good idea, because Next is best worshipped when I am the one who did that.
Next feels good when I get to share something new with a colleague, but instead of being helpful, Next just lords it over them.
Next needs an audience, so when I worship Next, I'm only content on a PD day if I am facilitating one of the sessions.

So....what?
Keeping abreast of new research and tools is obviously an important professional obligation, and my PLN keeps me going often when I need perspective outside my school/district, so I'm not suggesting that we neglect new things, or seeking innovations to improve our craft or our students experience. We must keep in perspective WHY we seek those things.  We seek innovation and change for our STUDENTS, not for ourselves.

Next must be more FUN - for STUDENTS.
Next must be more ACCESSIBLE - for STUDENTS.
Next must WORK BETTER - for STUDENTS.
Next must be MORE RELEVANT - for STUDENTS.
Next must provide MORE OPPORTUNITIES - for STUDENTS.

Otherwise, we're just spending all our time "telling and hearing something new."

Try Out These Military Leadership Principles with Your Students

Cleaning out my workshop tonight, I laid hands on a 12 year old notebook from my summer in Marine Corps Officer Candidate School (OCS). I flipped to the back, found a itinerary for one of our days on training, and then found a list I remember from one of our leadership discussions.

I think I traced around my thumb...?

These 11 leadership principles are used to train commissioned and non-commissioned officers in all of the U.S. armed services, but there is a lot crossover and truth that resonates with me as I lead my students in learning. Anywhere I included "students" or "class", the military's text says "subordinates," or "unit" but it works because you're the sergeant/captain/admiral/general/etc of your classroom - you set the tone, good or bad.

11 Leadership Principles

1. Know yourself and seek improvement.
2. Be technically and tactically proficient.
3. Know your [students] and look out for their welfare.
4. Keep your [students] informed.
5. Set the example.
6. Ensure the task is understood, supervised, and accomplished.
7. Train your [class] as a team.
8. Make sound and timely decisions.
9. Develop a sense of responsibility among your [students].
10. Employ your [class] in accordance with its capabilities.
11. Seek responsibility and take responsibility for your actions.

Notice, these have nothing to do with fighting war or handling weapons - they're principles to develop your own growth, to develop and enable discipline in your students, and to empower them to do the same by giving them responsibility and modeling (as the "leader") how that looks. 

My PBIS Lottery System

I initially came up with idea of using a lottery system in your class as a universal, Tier 1 support for PBIS one year ago this week, but never felt the "need" to implement it until this semester. I got to a point where I felt like I had a handful of students negatively influencing a large percentage of my class to act out in ways that they did not usually exhibit in one-to-one interactions with me.

Let me address some criticisms that I had to address for myself first:
1. Kids should not have to be rewarded for good behavior. 

While I probably still believe that's true, my PBIS lottery system (to me at least) was far less about the reward and much more about being able to catch students doing good. It changes my attitude toward my students when I'm walking around the classroom looking for opportunities to hand out a ticket, than when I'm patrolling for off-task things to come down on. I, the TEACHER, feels better about my class as a whole on the days I give out more tickets, and I think the STUDENTS feel better about their relationship to me.

2. I don't want to spend a ton of money on this.

I had a mixture of monetary and privilege rewards. Over the 6 or 7 weeks I ran the lottery this semester, I think I ended up spending less than 15 dollars on candy that I bought at the dollar store. On "normal" weeks (the weeks I remembered to do the drawing on Friday and/or I felt like I had passed out a "fair" amount of tickets), I gave out ONE $1 candy bar/box of candy between all of my students. There were 2 Fridays in which I gave out a box in each of my hours because I had missed one (or two) lottery drawings on previous Fridays. Buying it all at once sort of felt like a lot because I have a general policy of never buying treats for my students, but spread out over the entire semester, it was money well spent.

Privilege rewards started as one kid per classing winning the right to listen to music on their headphones all week (which is, sort of (?) against the rules in our building, but worth the trouble it may have cost me for ONE kid in the room). After the first week, I added in privileges that made the tickets work more like class "money," which I'll discuss in the next bullet.

3. Kids aren't going to care about a small chance at candy.

For some kids, this did end up being true, for a couple of reasons. I had some students that I think legitimately valued me noticing them more than they valued candy. They didn't increase their positive behaviors because they wanted candy - they increased because they wanted me to notice. Those kids were a total win for this. For the other set of kids, after the first week, I added in the right to a hallpass, or a brand new pen/pencil for any kid that needed one for the price of one ticket. This actually made the tickets much more valuable, and solved a huge problem for me that I don't like NOT allowing kids to have the freedom to use the restroom, but had set up an environment for myself in which I was making the decision for a kid dozens of times a day. For my own sanity and free cognitive capacity to actually TEACH, I let any kid go (during an appropriate point in the lesson) if they had a ticket.

So, should YOU try out a classroom lottery?
Yes, yes, you definitely should. There were several kids that I think the lottery ended up saving our relationship this semester from being terrible to at least civil, but more so, for the change in ME that I felt/experienced.

I felt a lot of joy being able to reward the behaviors/actions I was trying to encourage without feeling like I was taking money from my family or giving away too much of myself emotionally. I noticed a difference in my attitude toward my students even period to period if I forgot to have my tickets ready for one of my classes.

(As some of my students pointed out on my end of semester survey), it really gets under my skin some days when my level of care for my students' learning/character was much higher than their own. While I can hope that eventually those problems will iron out with wisdom and/or maturity, even if they never do, I can control MY attitude, and on many days, this lottery was the tool that got me through the hour with my sanity.

Logistical concerns:
The first thing I did was draw up some tickets with the design tool on Canva.com (which I also often use for graphics on this blog and my school's website. It's awesome.)

You can export from Canva as a PDF or PNG - the PDF version of this page provided a MUCH nicer product. The PNG wound up with a lot of pixelation.

To keep kids from potentially photocopying the tickets, after I printed a sheet, I numbered them by hand in series. A couple times I forgot what number I had left off on - that didn't really matter so much as that they were numbered at all. The two times I had no idea what number I was on, I just started at the next whole hundred. (I left off somewhere in 04**, but couldn't remember exactly, so the next time, I just started at 0500).

This is how they ended up looking when passed out.

For the drawings, I used a random Halloween bucket that a teacher had left in the back of my room at some point in the past. It wasn't secure, so I had to just take the tickets immediately before the drawing, but it was good for getting your hand in their and shuffling the tickets.

My Next Steps
I definitely plan to continue my lottery during summer school this year, although I may have to increase the frequency of drawings since the whole "term" is only 2 weeks for one of my classes.

The most PBIS-y component of lottery that was missing was that I never posted an official list of positive things students could do to earn tickets. Most students picked up on the implicit messages of "Do your work," "Volunteer for something," "have your scientific calculator," and "ask a good question," but posting a list was something that I know I SHOULD do, but never got around to. Its a matter of equity in knowing the classroom procedures.

Is YOUR School #FutureReady? Here's What Some Students Said -

I had to pleasure of "crashing" the St. Louis Regional Future Ready School Summit last week as a part of the volunteer team, so I've been reflecting a lot on my own practices, some of the decisions we make as a school that we do have control over, the decisions our district makes that I have no control over, and how all of that meshes together to affect the "future readiness" of my students (and figuring out what that really means.)

According to the Future Ready website from the +U.S. Department of Education, a #FutureReady school commits to...

• Fostering and Leading a Culture of Digital Learning Within Our Schools.
• Future Ready district leadership teams work collaboratively to transform teaching and learning using the power of technology to help drive continuous improvement. We work together to protect student privacy and to teach students to become responsible, engaged, and contributing digital citizens.
• Helping Schools and Families Transition to High-speed Connectivity.
• Future Ready districts conduct comprehensive diagnostic assessments of the district’s technology infrastructure and develop a sustainable plan to ensure broadband classroom connectivity and wireless access. Future Ready districts work with community partners to leverage local, state, and federal resources to support home Internet access outside of traditional school hours.
• Empowering Educators through Professional Learning Opportunities.
• Future Ready districts strive to provide everyone with access to personalized learning opportunities and instructional experts that give teachers and leaders the individual support they need, when they need it. Future Ready districts provide tools to help teachers effectively leverage learning data to make better instructional decisions.
• Accelerating Progress Toward Universal Access for All Students to Quality Devices.
• Future Ready districts work with necessary stakeholders to ensure that all students and educators across the district have regular access to devices for learning. Future Ready districts develop tools to support a robust infrastructure for managing and optimizing safe and effective use of technology, so students have opportunities to be active learners, creating and sharing content, not just consuming it.
• Providing Access to Quality Digital Content.
• Future Ready districts align, curate, create, and consistently improve digital materials and apps used in the support of learning. Future Ready districts use carefully selected high quality digital content that is aligned to college and career ready standards as an essential part of daily teaching and learning. Teachers are able to share, discover, and adapt openly-licensed materials and teaching plans.
• Offering Digital Tools to Help Students And Families #ReachHigher.
• Future Ready districts make digital resources available that help access expanded college, career, and citizenship opportunities. Future Ready districts promote ways to leverage technology to expand equity through digital activities such as completion of the FAFSA online, virtual counseling services, college scholarship search tools, and online advising access, all of which help to return America to the nation in the world with the highest college completion rate by 2020.
• Mentoring Other Districts and Helping Them Transition to Digital Learning.
• Future Ready districts work to design, implement, and share their technology plans. Future Ready districts join regional summits, participate in an online Connected Superintendents community of practice, and publish their Future Ready technology plan at a site such aswww.MyDistrict.org/FutureReady.

How is YOUR school doing on these measures? The Dept of Ed partnered with +AT&T and +McGraw Hill to offer a dashboard to district leadership teams for self-assessment, planning and data tracking. Its a great tool for focusing your team on the vague idea of "21st century learning."

After the first day of the summit, I was curious what my own students thought about that, so for my second day out, I left the following writing prompt for them:

Tomorrow my students will be argument writing on how #futureready their school is. #stuvoice #kidsgradehard pic.twitter.com/67t67JKViX

— Chuck Baker (@chuckcbaker) April 28, 2015

The way I wrote the prompt, the kids understandably took it down to their experience as students, but I was surprised to the extent that many of them said it was because their teachers didn't care about them. I don't know how different the results may have been with higher performing students (these were my juniors/seniors who have failed at least 1 semester of math and many of which will not move on to Algebra 2), or with kids from a different district, but rather than focusing on student use of technology and the lack thereof in most of our classrooms, the narrative I saw developing as I transcribed in the handwritten responses were that my school is failing students (in the sense of not fulfilling our mandate to prepare them for what's next) not because of irrelevant work, but mostly because teachers either did not care, were not good teachers, or both.

You can read the full text of student responses here.

The ones who DID respond positively usually referred to career and technical ed classes we offer (business, food, Project Lead the Way), or in offering the ACT or scholarship information, which almost hits on the second to last Future Ready principal listed above, but still discounts the technology that can be leveraged to enhance those opportunities.

I've also included a few word clouds trying to best visualize the narrative I saw developing. If you read the full responses, I think you'll agree none of these quite "get" it, but the ones where "don't" is most prominent come close.

So what do you DO with this information?
I'm pretty sure part of the discrepancy between their responses and the Future Ready principals was a combination of the way I worded the prompt and the students' own experiences. Obviously they wouldn't have anything to say about teachers' professional learning opportunities or mentoring other districts in digital learning.

What I DO take away from this is that a school's first priority should be in setting up procedures and systems that let students know implicitly and explicitly that they are cared for and who they are and will become matters. The Summit welcomed Dr. Tiffany Anderson of +Jennings School District, a district close to mine that has taken the pledge and seen a significant turn around from unaccreditation to accreditation in the last several years to tell the Jennings story.  Dr. Anderson laid out three principles they use to guide decisions in the district: relationship, pedagogy, and curriculum. I think its easy to tighten up pedagogy and curriculum - those are processes and fixed by training. Relationship is harder because relationships get hard and ugly sometimes. Relationships are made of people and people mess up.

The day can best be summed up for me and my students in what I tweeted just as Dr. Anderson was wrapping up with her experience guiding the students through understanding and expressing their feelings surrounding the Michael Brown and #Ferguson protests in our community last fall.

I just want to give Dr. Jackson a hug. WOW. @JenningsK12 is evidence of power of trusting your kids #moedchat #FutureReady

— Chuck Baker (@chuckcbaker) April 29, 2015

5 Ways to Respond to a Students' Phone Being Out Besides Smashing It

You've seen a video like this, right?

I don't want to get on a high horse and pretend there hasn't been a time or two through the years that it hasn't been a dreamy proposition, but is this ever justifiable when you're awake, and of sober mind?

I had a Facebook friend propose this should happen to any student that has their phone out. Who does this help? Is there a follow-up to this video where the student whose phone was destroyed (or anyone else in the room for that matter) comes to see the errors of their ways and begins proselytizing in the name of luddites everywhere?

I had one of my "good" students in a class of several that cause me trouble who I caught FaceTiming with her friend. Was I frustrated? You bet. Does she need a consequence? Of course! But the only thing an over-reaction does (even a referral, I think) is take a student that is much more often than not an ally in the room and turn her against me. So I had her shut it down immediately when I found it, then as she was about to leave for lunch, I called her over to conference with her and asked her what she thought her consequence should be. (Believe it or not, I did not yet have one ready for "FaceTiming in class instead of working on guided practice" LOL)

So, I'm still working out what exactly this students' consequence will be for today, (although I'm leaning toward some kind of essay on appropriate tech use/PSA/fix all the iPads backgrounds back to normal work), but until then, here's a few other ideas. 

1. Treat it like you would if the student were your own child. Especially if its an isolated incident, do your best to laugh it off, tell them to put it away, and move on to the next battle.

This is easier if you actually ARE a parent, but teachers are great at empathy, so I'm sure you'll make due. Besides the fact that you probably would have had a hand in paying for that device (or the replacement), you would also have to parent and have a relationship with this teenager after your moment of phone-smashing passion. Its tough to recover from things you say/promise/or do in moments of frustration. 

2. Call/email home and let the parents know that their son or daughter is using class time to Insta-tweet-book instead of asking a question about the course content or getting in extra practice.

 If your student is obsessive about it in your room, their parents are probably equally annoyed by the behavior and they will no doubt have your back. Make sure you back up the threat, but in my experience, kids will do a lot to avoid an effective call/email home. 

3. Have a charging station in your room away from everyone's seat. 

I have a strip by my desk where kids can plug in their chargers and put it in a box.  Time/space to charge a device is a hot commodity in my buildings, and when its in the box, its not a student's desk, distracting them with notifications every 3 minutes. 

4. Give them something to do USING IT PRODUCTIVELY.

Recording audio notes, setting a reminder for homework, responding to a backchannel discussion, pulling up a video related to their work, sending them to a page like thatquiz.org with some readymade practice (math, science, and geography). Redirecting their thumb swiping to a positive activity is an easy redirect.

5. Start a conversation about your favorite educational/learning/productivity app.

Once I put the TED app on my class iPads, my favorite question has always been from students assuming it was related to a Seth McFarland movie by the same name. :) People don't know better until they know any better - maybe your student will delete one of their 5 messaging apps and make space for your recommendation. 

What else have you done effectively? Leave a comment!

What You Say When You Listen (When I Learned How Wocca Flocka Sold Out)

Are you better suited to speak, or to listen?

photo via +David Robert Bliwas 

I don't spend much uncommitted time outside of work, home, or my church, but when I do, its seems like this happens to me.

Having a conversation at Firestone about rappers who sold out and coke heads in STL. Guess I looked approachable today. LOL
— Chuck Baker (@chuckcbaker) February 16, 2015

While waiting for my car's safety inspection at Firestone this afternoon, a 22 year old "kid" (Gosh, how old did YOU feel when you were 22? I would have been mad at someone 10 years older calling me a "kid.") struck up conversation about how the stretch of St. Charles Rock Rd across the street from us used to have a full strip mall and how Northwest Plaza a couple blocks down from us used to so vibrant of activity when he was a kid. That moved on to his (and his friends') experiences with coke heads from in old neighborhood of Baden (on the northeast edge of the city of St. Louis.), the corruption of the St. John police chief who used to be a school resource office at his middle school in the Ritenour School District, and that his favorite car is an 80s-era Honda, particularly a Prelude, for the flip-up headlights. Somehow this all led into his lamentations that his favorite rapper, Mac Miller, ("I mean, he was reppin '92, just like me") has sold out and would rather just produce music than stay true to the art of freestyle and that Wocca Flocka has betrayed Gucci Mane and the rest of his crew from Brick Squad.

Did I lose you? Teachers, ask your students tomorrow. If you're just a friend of mine that reads this blog, (Bless you!) then you'll probably just have to YouTube that.

Granted, this kid (there I go again), seems to be just a talker in general, but engaging in that conversation far from my comfort zone then led him to open up about his relationship troubles with his dad after he took the 1st call in a month and a half from him, his relationship troubles, and what its like to be a 22 year old father of a toddler that also is responsible for taking care of your fiance's other child from another relationship. Assuming everything he's said about his background is true, he's dealing with a much "heavier" life than I do with less emotional and spiritual capacity to cope with it. All things considered, thinking of myself as a 22 year old, it almost seemed heroic.

I can't say I looked like my "normal" self today (I changed the brakes on my car in the driveway in the snow before going for the inspection),

but I know that letting this guy know that I wasn't going to blow him off while we both sat in the Firestone waiting room for 2 hours said a lot about how I care for people.

When you listen to your students talk about "nothing," it sends a signal that you'll be ready to listen to the real issues whenever THEY are ready. Think about about it on a personal level - how often do you just jump into a hard conversation with your spouse, a friend, or a co-worker? Why do expect different social exchanges from our students?

I believe that if you want to affect a students' life (or anyone's for that matter), its not so much important how much you know, or how well you do your job. No one ever claims "favorite teacher" on the grounds of their excellent lesson on systems of equations or the theme of friendship in A Separate Peace. They're not mutually exclusive, mind you, but when you're in the business of growing people as much as you are minds, you've got to win a kid's heart, first, and let them know that you're #upforwhatever they might throw at you. 

Alpha the Betta Fish

I've never had a class pet. Its not really something that I've had much of an interest in. I do have a paper cutout of "Morty the math ghost" (a promotional cardboard cut out from Apperson Prep), and picture of a fox that says, "Very Clever."

So, in other words, lame attempts at class mascots.

This semester, as I push the idea of being "beta learners," I opened on the first day with, "What is beta?" A handful of kids had a vague idea of software improvement and an unfinished, product, and a few kids said something like, "a fish?" I tried to steer away from the fish and focus on growth mindset and perpetual improvement, but I had a student who kept focusing on the fish.

"Can I buy you a beta?" she asked a couple of days later.
"Well... I guess." I wasn't resistant exactly to the idea of having a fish in the room, its just that I've only had a few students who ever offered to bring in something for the class. I was mostly just puzzled. This girl was buying more into "beta" than I could have really hoped.

Yesterday, the student finally brought in the fish. And wouldn't you know it, but he is amazing! Several of my colleagues asked today, "Why do you have a fish?" "Why did a kid bring you a fish?" "What do I have to do to get a kid to buy me something?" As I was explaining more to another math teacher about how I'm stressing "beta" to my students, Alpha the Betta started to seem like he might fit in nicely.

He's actually a bad analogy of being a beta learner in and of itself, but he IS a conversation starter, and a visual reminder of the class culture and educational philosophy I'm trying to get these kids to buy into.

"Why do we have a fish in the classroom?" is more than just a question - its a chance to talk about goal setting, perpetual improvement, life-long learning, and having a growth mindset. 

Have You Heard of "Twice Exceptional" Students?

I read this account (via Quartz) of a NYC public school student who is exceptionally gifted intellectually, but (in part because of his intellect), was really struggling with attention on class, interacting with and understanding his peers emotionally, and otherwise doing "school" activities. Ordinarily, these behaviors would sound alarm as a child probably in need of an IEP and special accommodations, but because of his strengths elsewhere, the necessity for services and supports are either masked or compensated for by the student, or ignored by his teachers.

This boy's experience was a representative anecdote for what educational psychologists are calling "twice exceptional" children - children who may be traditionally "gifted" in one area, but in desparate need for interventions and supports in areas of the school environment. (Special Ed Manual from Idaho Dept of Education) This boy's story went on to recount bullying the boy ended up enduring even in a "gifted" classroom and a general dislike and failure of school. He had taught himself to read before he was 4, but was regressing in a classroom setting he struggled to adapt to and cope with.

Do you have any students like this?

Have you ever assumed that a bright student must also work well and lead in a group setting? If you've seen the Steve Jobs biopic or are familiar with his story, you've experienced this fallacy)

Have you ever been surprised that a student on your IEP list in a co-taught special ed classroom might be need the most support emotionally or behaviorally, but ALSO be the most gifted intellectually? (That IEP stigma can stick hard, can't it?)

Do you ever find yourself giving "gifted" students a free pass on other aspects of learning and growth? 

Thinking through my own experience working with these students (and maybe even reflecting on myself as a student), let me share with you some tips for supporting the needs of "twice exceptional" students and engaging them in your classroom.

1. Don't assume that your "smart" or "honors" students must also have the best behavior.

Honors students may need your PBIS measures and expectations reminders, too.

If you're struggling with a student's behavior, you may be particularly frustrated that he or she isn't being a "leader" for the others. Thy may really WANT to be "good," but be unable to for some reason (and this probably frustrates the student, too.)

2. Focus on educating the WHOLE student. 

Kids that are exceptionally gifted in one subject math give up or accept that others are (and will always be) weaknesses. As the student stresses one and ignores the other, the divide between strength and weakness will only widen. Find nuggets a student can mine and go further. If you really believe that your students should be life-long learners, then no matter how bright your student may be he or she STILL has things to learn - things to learn from YOU.

3. Have a conference with parents early I'm about ways they would like to see their child receive extra support or be challenged to improve. 

Whether or not they can EXPRESS it in edu-speak, they have goals for their child's interventions. One of the most shocked/delighted reactions I can remember at parent-teacher conferences was when I told the parents of a student with a 36 on the math portions of the ACT that I was really wanting to work on his writing and communication of all the math he could perform operationally. 

4. Let the genius/crazy happen as it wants to.

Resist the urge to fit your twice exceptional students into whatever mold you want to see them in as "successful." If they're introverted, don't force group work on them. (But find ways to force interactions on them in more digestible nuggets). If your student has noise or sound sensitivities, be prepared to adapt your lecture/lesson to that student being able to isolate themselves when they're overwhelmed, but still continue learning activities. Give a student's work time to bloom and come to a full realization before you shoot it down. I've dismissed several "bad" drawings from my 4year old in this manner that after I listened to her explain it, I saw her reasoning and artistry more clearly.

5. Be proactive in your support. 

Conference ithat he student and acknowledge that you understand and are aware of their needs, but also that you have a plan of x, y, z for them as a student in your classroom and in your subject. Engage them in that journey.