You will have students with different needs. It's important to pay attention to each student and make sure the learning environment is suitable for everyone.
I like the idea of putting students in smaller groups.
"All ambiguous behavior is interpreted negatively." Such a powerful quote from the Harvard professor. I'll be sure to remember this forever, and to keep it top of mind during my teaching work, so that I can avoid having an unintentionally negative impact on my students.
I have learned that there are a wide variety of challenging students. There are also a wide variety of options as to how to deal with these types of students. Center Stage Students for instance can be given "Use it Wisely" cards to help them think about the importance of their question or comment before they say it and waste that card for the class. The inattentive student seems to be the most popular in the groups of students that I have had the opportunity to observe. The strategies to divert their attention from playing on the phone or having side conversations are genius. I like the idea of flipping the seating arrangements as well as putting them in groups to encourage their contributions to the classwork. Minute papers are wonderful ideas to help with managing challenging students as well. The Apple Polishing Student is the type of student I saw when I was in class as a student and they really annoyed me because I felt that my professors were being taken in but I see now that they truly were not and this type of student did not get away with less work than I after all. I will employ any of these strategies that apply and search out other strategies as needed should I have a term in which I need to address a challenging student.
sometimes you have to give center stage students a job so that others may learn
There are a wide variety of students who may not be ideal, but being prepared for these types of students is best.
This was a great section, I learned a lot about student engagement.
