How can I explain the difference between Level C and D?
QUESTION: What is the best way to explain the difference between internal and external motivation––in other words, the difference between DWS Levels C and D? I am having trouble with this. RESPONSE: Initially I use very concrete examples connected directly to the classroom. I describe Level C as the level where students do the right [...]
Making learning an option – The “Principle of Choice” at work!
After first reading Marv’s DWS book more than ten years ago, I started to become conscious of the importance of deliberately planning for “choice” in my teaching. Certainly, as I took on a job at a local Alternate High School six years ago––working one-on-one with sullen, illiterate and often, ashamed teenagers––providing choice was a [...]
Who should create the procedures? The teacher or students?
QUESTION: Who should make the procedures? Is this something the teacher dictates or something the kids come up with? For example, I have been thinking about how I want to teach my first grade class to “turn and talk.” I want them to: Find someone who is nearby (rather than go across the room to [...]
The Importance of Believing in Others
Featured this week on TED.com is a rare 4 minute video clip taken from a 1972 lecture by Victor Frankl, author of Man’s Search for Meaning. You may remember that in the early pages of the DWS book, Dr. Marshall mentions Victor Frankl. Dr. Frankl, a Holocaust survivor, dramatically demonstrated through his own actions and [...]
Looking for a quote to encourage good choices
QUESTION: I want to make an banner for my room. Do you have a good quote that would encourage students to make good choices? DR. MARSHALL’S RESPONSE: Here’s one I used in my classes: Responsibility finds a way. Irresponsibility finds excuses.
Dealing with an uncooperative student
In our second year of working with DWS, my teaching partner and I had a student with special needs. Chronologically he was old enough to be in grade three but emotionally and cognitively grade one was a much better placement for him. At that time I wrote about one experience with this boy that taught [...]
Using DWS to deal with younger siblings visiting in the classroom
Throughout this summer, I’ve been emailing back and forth with one teacher in my province who wants to learn how the reading program my partner and I have developed, works in our grade one classroom. She is also quite interested in a program our K-6 school has instituted called “The Whole School Read,” in which [...]
Choice-Response Thinking – In a Poem!
Recently I came across this poem by Portia Nelson. AUTOBIOGRAPHY IN FIVE SHORT CHAPTERS by Portia Nelson I I walk down the street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk I fall in. I am lost … I am helpless. It isn’t my fault. It takes me forever to find a way out. [...]
How do I teach students to ignore a misbehaving classmate?
QUESTION: I have a 3rd grade student who is demonstrating increasingly disruptive behaviors. I have all kinds of support with him – my principal, school counselor, behavioral specialist – we’re all involved, every day. This boy can work elsewhere when he can’t manage in the classroom. My question is this: How do I teach the [...]
Choose your teacher–just for the day!
QUESTION: I recently signed up to be a substitute teacher. As such, I don’t really have enough time to fully explain all the procedures and levels of Discipline Without Stress. Classes at middle and high school are only 50 minutes long. What can I do as a sub, in order to manage the class and [...]
