If you're a teacher, then you know kids do the darnedest things! We know they are innovative and creative not just because they get the opportunity to show those characteristics in our classrooms but also because they can get innovative and creative when it comes to evading work!
First, let's be honest -- we can all identify, right? We are all human, after all -- we all have had days where we didn't feel like working or had things to do that we just didn't have the heart for. We've all had moments where we have tried to evade our own work, too. So we can at least empathize with our students when they can't get focused, either.
But we don't get a free pass to blow off our responsibilities, and kids really can't either. But they will try! One common thing students do is have extra open tabs or windows on their computers with sites they like to go to -- maybe it's a game site or their personal email or a page where they can make a shopping wish list or even just another Google Doc where they can "chat" with a friend. This becomes a problem when students are more focused on the fun than the work. What can teachers do about this? It's a problem that's not going away.
One thing to do is simply to ask the student, "How come you're doing X instead of working? Are you already done? Are you not understanding what to do? Did you run into some problem?" By asking questions, we can try to ferret out why the student isn't engaged and work from there.
But what if this becomes a real problem? Of course, we need to continue to redirect students to get them pointed in the right direction, but you might also have to pull rank sometimes. In the start of the year slide deck I shared, you'll find information there to tell kids that even though their school account has their name on it, it's not theirs; it belongs to the school district. It's also monitored. The Chromebooks are also district property until they graduate, AND students have signed an AUP where they agree to use their accounts and devices according to school rules. That means, if needed, you can do some investigative work.
One thing you can do is check the student's current open tabs. You might need to move the mouse to the Chrome icon to see if there are multiple Chrome windows open. Sometimes they hide one set of tabs behind another.
You can also check the history for recently visited sites. Do that by clicking on the 3 dots in the upper right corner and then moving your mouse to History.
Finally, you can also re-open any recently closed tabs by using control+shift+t to reopen those tabs.
Obviously, we don't want our students to feel like we don't trust them or that we're spying on them. But sometimes, we might need to do a quick check to make sure our kids are with us during lessons. Trying to approach off-task behavior as a way to build a relationship of communication and collaboration instead of mistrust is the goal we all have! We've been dealing with off-task behavior as teachers for a long, long time! Remember these?
