Teaching Responsibility in the Middle School Classroom

 

Middle School students, in general, tend to struggle with how to be responsible students.  They want good grades but seem to struggle with the responsibility part that makes those grades happen.  So I set out on a mission to teach responsibility to my middle school students.

1.  The first step in teaching responsibility is to set the stage with expectations and small tasks.

At the beginning of this year, I organized my students into teams and began learning about the "Traits of Excellence" such as unselfishness, dependability, integrity, knowledge, tact, judgment, and endurance.  These traits were the things that would help us be most successful in school. I taught each trait separately with lots of discussions so that we were all on the same page. 

Students earned points for their teams every time they demonstrated one of these traits in the classroom.  It worked very well for most things IN my class - but out of my class, well that's been a different story and the reason for this post.

2.  The next step in teaching responsibility to middle school students is to review each person's role in the classroom.

Teaching the "Traits of Excellence" started us down the road of responsibility but it has become obvious that students need a bit more support in using these traits outside of my classroom.

So I began by asking the students what they believe their job is at school. I received responses like these:

-Do my work

-Pay attention

-Give my best effort

Then I asked them to list what they believe my role is.  They said things like:

-Teach us what we need to know

-Be helpful

I wrote all these down on a poster that I keep in my room because afterward, we had a big discussion about how these jobs don't stop once we walk out the door.   In middle school, these jobs (and traits) need to go with us everywhere we go.  When we know we have homework, we need to follow through at home.  Or when we don't have homework but need to study, we need to follow through at home.

The key here is the follow-through.

3.  The third step in teaching responsibility is to show them how to take what they know and generalize it.

This is the follow-through part.  I gave each of my students a "flashcard book".  This is one of those index card books that has a spiral binding on it.  (My school paid for them. If your school can not I would suggest using any kind of notebook or pad you can get your hands on!)  

I had the students copy critical information into it from their ELA and Math classes.  Then I went over studying again.  We practiced in class.  I told my students that they needed to set a timer for 5 minutes and study that night at home because the next day they would have to answer one question about what they studied for a grade.

At first, some were still resistant.  Some even tried "losing" their books.  But that didn't stop the strategy because now they were just required to write the information in whatever notebook we could come up with.  There was no getting out of this task!  :)

Soon everyone was on board because not only were the rewards for studying starting to roll in for my class through team competitions, but they were starting to see improvements in their other classes.  ("Hey this studying thing works!")

We gradually increased the information in the flashcard books and the time on the timer.  Later on, we added History and Science too.

--------

I think students (and parents) were equally amazed at how such a simple strategy taught them how to be more responsible. It had never occurred to students that they might not remember something from class and that they should do something about that.  

Using this strategy, we will surely be as ready as we can be for those state tests too.  Here's to finishing the year strong!  

Thanks for stopping by!

Pin this post for later:

Don't spend hours searching for this great idea that you just found!  Pin it to your favorite classroom Pinterest board so that you can easily come back to it when you're ready!  You'll be glad you did!