Speaking of my AT, he is a very effective teacher. I can tell because the students come through with good, even great & creative work and with respect for him — and their own standards are high. Here are some of the things that he does that I am picking up on:
Excellent classroom management, through explicitly signalling and waiting: He firmly yet politely asks for students’ full attention before beginning to speak, and he waits for that moment of focus. As I learned this week (the hard way), you have to wait one step further than just when the voices stop, you have to watch for their focus.
Positive reinforcement: He thanks those who are on task and ready to learn, a great positive reinforcement method, rather than naming those who are off-task (-at least at first). He has the class repeat routines again if they mess up the routine, and praises them for the improvement.
Engagement: His tasks are well-explained, high-level and creative. His expectations are high and he holds students accountable for their work. He is firm and demanding, yet kind, patient and supportive. He has a blog where he posts the homework expectations and due dates, as well as links to resources.
Student-driven learning: The students are accustomed to a lot of independent group work. Sample activities include a language initiative (set up by the principal) called word builder. The class gets into their 5 “word builder” groups and daily rotate among 5 game-like tasks such as Boggle, letter combo, book ends/ word scramble, vocabulary, and one newly introduced task such as prepositional poems. He works with the group doing the new activity. The tasks are fairly complex but because they have a routine around it and a clear “accountability” piece built in (i.e. they all have to turn in their workbooks at the end of the week with every activity filled it), they work very well independently.
Community-building: Every week starts with a full period of “Freddie time” when they pass around a stuffed frog and tell us about their weekend. The students are reminded to be inclusive when selecting whom to pass to. He tells me that the time taken for this routine helps with classroom management and his awareness of students all the rest of the week. He also takes into account their input, for example building independent reading time into the week on their request. And they all pull out their books and read happily when that time comes.
Building self-assessment skills: He has students provide the success criteria for assignments and then marks them on that. For example, after writing a quick first draft of a persuasive essay, he asks them to tell us some of the things that make a good persuasive essay and writes them up on the board. Then he asks a few sample students to volunteer to share the first sentence of their essay, and the other students are invited to give constructive feedback based on these criteria. He also has them complete a self-assessment sheet on learning skills and work habits before their report card, then takes their self-assessment into account when making up the final report card. (He does adjust since some are unduly hard on themselves, and others are pretty easy.)
Cass's 
Cass,
I have learned a lot from your AT without ever meeting him. Love the idea of Freddie time and how this class meeting sets the tone for the week and equips your AT to best understand and guide his students. It makes so much sense. Does he do this in a circle?
Waiting a moment after establishing silence is also such a great strategy. I’m going to count three seconds in my head after everyone has stopped talking and check that all the children are focused before I speak. My issue is that I don’t want to waste time. I have to learn to slow down and that even though classroom management takes time, it’s a win win for the students and teacher alike, because the quality of every aspect of teaching and learning and simply being improves. I remember learning in my Montessori training that we should count 25 seconds for a child to come up with a response. Exactly the same strategy was reiterated in the classroom management class that I’m taking at OISE. I just need to remember all of these wonderful tips and apply them!
Thanks for your thoughtful comments.
Freddie time happens in a sort of oval around some tables. I wish there were room for a circle in there – but the room has other advantages that compensate for lack of circle-room (a skylight, an additional glass-walled room where kids can go to work independently ,etc.)
I wish I was taking that class you mention. Do you have any suggestions about resources where I could pick up some of what you are learning? Or would you be willing to give me a 1/2 hour crash course someday when we’re back at OISE?