A Little Bit of This, A Little Bit of That

The article "Shouting Won't Grow Dendrites" listed many great ideas and below are the ideas I thought would be useful.
For attention getting behavior: 1. "Use humor when talking to them about their misbehavior. (p.17) 2. "...give them the attention when they are doing what is expected of them."(p.18) 3. Compliment them in front of their peers..."(p. 18)
For students who seek control: 1. "Put these students into positions of responsibility" (p. 18) Usually if I have papers to hand out, I ask students to help so they can get up and walk around.
For students who are bored: 1. I will create more activities that allows students to "move and meet with a discussion partner. 2. Once I have taught more vocabulary words, I would like to play "math hangman".
For students who feel inadequate: 1. I'm thinking of pointing out how far they have come along and point out the math they do know.


After reading "The Warm Demander" I found that it listed a few things I am attempting in my class. I am at the stage where I am trying to build relationships with my students. I make it a point to "high five them" as often as I remember, I smile, and I try to greet them by also saying their names, but I'm not sure where I stand as far as becoming a warm demander. I'm not sure if I'm clear and consistent with my expectations because I'm not even sure what they are. The paragraph that talks about providing learning supports mentioned that, "Students preferred teacher who explained material thoroughly and in multiple ways..." and I find that my class is split in half when it comes to this. Last week I introduced the class to the "plus delta" table and found that some students loved how thorough I am with the material and others wanted me to speed up. This is a huge dilemma because if I keep teaching "slowly" a few students will be bored, and if I speed up I'll lose other students thus leading them to feel inadequate.