Sometimes the best teaching strategies are the ones that take little effort. Case in point, greetings students individually as they arrive to class. Sounds simple enough, no? You say, "Hello, Jane." and a positive statement or question such as, "It's great to see you today." Or, you say "Hello, John. How was your track meet?" Minimal effort, big payoff.
Don't believe me? Read this
study by R. Allday and K. Pakurar. Greetings students individually increased students' on-task behaviors. Another study by S. Patterson confirmed similar results (sorry, a free full-text article isn't available for this one on the web; check the e-databases at your school for the full-text article using this
abstract).
Bottom line: Greet students personably as they enter the classroom and see the difference in their on-task behavior.
Just wondering....Do you think this would work at my house? How about at the gym?
Whole Foods?
Try it the first week of school - and all the other weeks thereafter.....
Jen
