9th grade students taking physics? that's weird. I do have
suggestion though. Have the radio playing during the lab.
Tell your students that if they cannot hear the radio, they are
too loud. Sometimes they do not know what is too loud.

On 10/22/09, JM wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I am a first-year high-school science teacher teaching 9th
> grade Physics First. This is my second career after
> working as an engineer in industry. I just started
> teaching September.
>
> Anyway, I love teaching, and I love my kids. Of course,
> classroom management in general has been my biggest
> challenge this year, but I'm getting the hang of it - with
> the exception of labs.
>
> One of my classes (I have three, 85-minute block classes)
> is just a bad combination of loud, boisterous kids. I can
> keep a lid on them when we are doing seatwork and
> lecture/class discussions. But when I run a lab, they just
> get REALLY loud. MOST of the talk is on-task, but the
> volume level makes it difficult for me to know for sure.
> I've tried switching lab groups around, but this is just
> one of those classes where, no matter how I group them,
> it's a bad combination!
>
> I've tried incentives ("The quietest group will get 3 merit
> points EACH!"), but overall I am not satisfied with that
> approach, because there ARE quiet kids, and they
> would "win" every time, which kind of leads the other kids
> to give up on trying to be the quietest. And my goal is to
> motivate the problem-kids, not reward those already working
> well!
>
> I've also toyed with the idea of just giving them ALL
> detentions for the day, but that seems unfair to the
> handful that ARE good....
>
> When I discussed the issue with my Principal (a former
> teacher), the way I put the problem is,"When they work
> individually, they're OK. But when I let them work
> together they get LOUD" His response to me was to say
> that, for now, I should make classroom management the
> priority, and that I shouldn't let them work together until
> they "earn" that privilege (even if it isn't "best
> practice" it's OK with him for now).
>
> Problem: You CAN'T do Physics without labs/activities, and
> I CAN'T do labs as individual work!
>
> Any suggestions from you veterans out there?
>
> - JM
>

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