Student Contributor: M. Ohland
Quiet coyote is used to get the classes attention when they are working on an assignment and it may be loud in the classroom. It is an easy signal to show that their eyes need to be on the teacher, their ears are open and listening, and their mouths are closed. This is used if you need to tell the class something quick and then they get back to work. This tool is not really a transition tool.
To form quiet coyote, you place your middle finger and ring finger on your thumb. You then put your pointer finger and pinky finger up in the air. Your thumb, middle finger, and ring finger form the mouth of the coyote. Your pointer finger and pinky finger create the ears of the coyote. Quiet coyote is an easy attention getting tool. When I was in elementary school, my teacher used this tool to get our attention. It worked really well because everyone knew what it meant and what to do when they saw it. Nothing is better than a cute coyote to get the classes attention.
The theory that best fits quiet coyote is the preventative phase. You need to start using quiet coyote at the beginning of the year so that the students can learn it and understand when and why it is used. Once they understand the purpose of quiet coyote they will use it with confidence. This tool could relate to the supportive phase because that is when you use quiet coyote. However, it would not fall under this phase because in order for it to work in the supportive phase, it needs to be taught in the preventative phase. The way this tool would relate to the corrective phase would be teaching this procedure again if the class seem to not be using this tool effectively. Quiet coyote falls under the Student Directed and Collaborative theories because every single person in the classroom has to buy into this tool in order for it to work.
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Tool Source: I got the idea of quiet coyote from my 5th grade teacher, Ms. Anderson.