Using Students to Manage your Classroom by Craig Sheehy

Craig is another great presenter with great ideas.  He gives just about every student a job so that they are all super engaged in what is going on in the classroom.  Oh man...he shared a million ideas for jobs. EDIT: I forgot to mention that most of these jobs were created through the PLC at Ben Slavic's blog, but I still appreciated Craig sharing.  Here are some:

1. Quiz writer: this person comes up with true/false questions that everyone who understood the story should be able to answer correctly.
2. Counter: GET A CLICKER for these students to count questions, repetitions, etc
3. King/Queen of Gestures: This person is the decider for which gesture gets used.
4. Captain Dictionary: looks up any word that is needed for the story
5. Cheerleader: Twice per class, this person stands up and says "Ready....okay!" and then shouts the structure/gesture with enthusiasm
6. Timer: how long do we stay in the TL?
7. Light/Gatekeeper: in charge of the lights and doors
8. Mail Carriers: pass out and collect papers
9. Notetaker: for absentees
10. English Abuser: If the teacher speaks for more than 7 seconds in English, they bang a drum and start chanting "Shut up...shut up..."
11. English Police: rings a bell or blows whistle if they hear a student speak in English
12. Expert/prof: decides details of the story when multiple options are given by students
13. Sound FX guru: makes the sounds for the story
14. Artist: draws the story in 6-box comic form
15. Door knocker: knocks each time someone arrives at new place "How many times did he/she knock?" to practice numbers
16. Actors: duh
17. English writer: translates story to English
18. French writer: writes story in French
19. Story ender Fairy/Wizard: when there are 5-10 minutes left in class, they stand up and wave a  wand and make a sparkly sound to alert teacher to wrap up the story
20. Reader leader: this person uses the lazer pointer when everyone is reading along.

Great ideas!  Not sure how many I'll be able to use.  Craig also uses a point system much like PAT time, but I've kind of gotten away from that.  I might re-instate it.  He uses a 20-point=music video break system that I'm pretty sure I could use and not waste a bunch of time.  I just felt like PAT left me with little class time because each Friday was for games (which didn't really meet any of my goals for class).  Guess I have a week or two to decide what to do...