What are some "jobs" you have in your classroom?
Since I am interested in the younger grades K-2, I would like to hear some ideas for "jobs" that your students have or ones that you have seen. For example, I was in a classroom that had a student called the "supply chief" who kept supplies stocked at each table. In the mornings he would walk around and make sure all of the tables had pencils, glue, scissors, etc. What are some things you have seen that either work or don't work. I would like to know what will be a big waste of time too!
A.Peralez
Since I teach high school, I have never assigned classroom duties, but I remember some from my elementary school days. I recall our teachers assigning the responsible, quiet student with "line leader"; the energetic, lively student with "recess helper" who assisted the teacher with activities during recess; and another cooperative student with "calendar helper" whose duty was to update the classroom calendar each day with stickers and events. I think assigning various duties around the classroom and providing students with individual responsibilities is a great way to establish a sense of importance for each child. Assigning the duties based on students' personalities also can make a difference.
ReplyDeleteI am a future secondary science teacher, so for high school I think jobs are still used but not as much as younger grade levels. One job I can see is handing books out, alternate students to pass books out to the other students or any paper work that needs to be handed out. Maybe during a lab activity there is a student who passes out supplies, such as everybody having deionized water. In elementary school I remember students having responsibilities such as collecting snack money.
ReplyDeleteI forget how different secondary education is. A.Velasquez, those are great ideas for the high school classroom. I bet it is a time saver too having students pass out materials and books. Thanks for your input.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was in kindergarten I remember that our teacher had assigned a student to be in charge of waking the other students up after nap time was completed. This was not a good idea on the part of my teacher Mrs. Hartsell because the student would just run around screaming and yelling and would become overly excited and not be able to focus for nearly 30 minutes or so after the incident. I would not encourage a job like this to be encouraged but I have seen other jobs that provide for the students to get a taste of real responsibility.
ReplyDeleteI am going to be a secondary history teacher. But from what I remember in elementary school, like L. Miller said, we had line leaders, calendar helpers, etc. but I also remember that we had other students who helped make sure everyone was in line after P.E., art, or music class. In middle and high schools, we had students who would hand out papers, collect papers, and/or books, or special materials (i.e. dry erase boards in math) that we used. I had one teacher in high school who had the students sitting on the front row arrange papers that were passed up so that they were all facing the same way and then the front row of students would all pass left. This way the teacher got a neat stack of papers without a lot of time.
ReplyDeleteI will be teaching LD and special education students at the secondary level. i feel it is very important for them to have jobs in the classroom aside from just sitting in their desk. Many LD and Spec Ed students need to get up and move around at times, and by giving them a purpose, it cuts down on discipline problems that arise by students being off task. I build in "off-task" time into my lesson plans because it is immensely helpful in roping in excess energy and fidgeting.
ReplyDeleteAs a former kindergarten teacher, I kept my jobs simple. I had a daily boy and girl helper. I kept the names on index cards and changed them daily (part of calendar). The boy and girl helpers were line leaders/caboose, past out supplies, cleaned up at lunch, and general classroom helpers. The kids loved this because they were able to help many times and not limited because so many people were different helpers at one time.
ReplyDeleteK.Rozum,
ReplyDeleteI have had such a rough time with the "caboose" job. The kids fight over it and it became such a problem in the beginning. I always fought over being the line leader when I was young and now the kids fight over being at the end! Crazy!
A. Peralez,
ReplyDeleteI have the boy and girl helper swap and take turns. I know that you can forget who was where when but I promise that someone will remember and remind you. If you need more job suggestions for little ones, e-mail me and I can send you a file that I created for someone else.
When I was an undergrad, I developed an extensive list of classroom jobs (isn't Jayne Kennedy awesome?) but I find that I preassign jobs sparingly in the 6th grade. Rather than preselecting a particular student to perform a job for a set time period, I find that what works best for me is to select helpers as needs arise. I use job selection as a real-time method to reward good behavior or (less often) to occupy students who are struggling to stay on task.
ReplyDelete