This is my 4th classroom management video. For this assignment, I lead a guided reading group. My classmate and I lead an enrichment/advanced reading level group.
This week was like every other week, but then again so different. It seems like we do the same things every day, but each day is so different. New things happen, different situations pop up which make every day unique. This week, we got a new student and we had to work on getting her adjusted to our routines and procedures of the classroom. There was also a cute Veteran’s Day program where students made decorations, sung, and some veterans were invited to speak to the students.
In my Emergent Literacy class, I was reading out of Reading with Meaning by Debbie Miller and one of the quotes went along with something that happened in my classroom. “When students self –reflect, track, and share their learning, long-term retention and motivation increase. These student actions help children see their growth over time, and instill what Peter Jackson calls agency – the sense that if children act, and act strategically, they can accomplish their goals” (73). Sometime during the year, we did a performance activity and some of the students didn’t perform as well as they could have. Realizing this, one of our students went up to my CT and asked how she could improve her work so she could score better on the next performance task. This student engaged in some of these actions like, reflecting on her work and tracking her progress on the next task. In doing so, she is developing agency, taking charge of her education, taking in my CT’s advice and putting her reflection into action by performing better. Now that I have read this, and know what agency is, I am beginning to think of other students in my class who have been doing this, and it’s amazing that second graders are able to reflect on their work and improve it. As a teacher, I have to find ways to encourage students to develop agency, motivating them to reflect on their work and improve every day.
In my seminar, we have been reading Kindergarten by Julie Diamond and this quote really stuck out to me “I was beginning to grasp who he was, and this would make it possible for me to teach him” (168). As teachers, I feel that learning who our students are and how they learn is an essential part of being able to effectively teach our students. And just like in the book, we can’t begin to teach unless we know our students. In my class, I was listening to my CT have a conference with a parent. She was explaining how it is easier for her to teach her students because she knows them as individuals and as students. She was telling the parents of our student that she knows her learning style and how she completes her work, so she knows how to effectively help her improve her work.
I am also learning that the more I get to know a student, the easier it is for me to help them improve their work. One way I can get to know a student is through the data I collect from them, which is what I learned from my PRT. As I look at and analyze their work, I can see where they are excelling or struggling, and help them from there. I can pick out work and form my instruction from their data, assigning work that can help them improve the areas they need a little extra practice with. One of my classmates and I lead a guided reading group and we have been able to practice collecting data, analyze it, and instruct from the data we gathered. We did an activity where we wanted the students to predict what would happen in the next chapter based on only the words. The first time they did this activity, they used more than just the title to predict, they used the background knowledge they had from the previous book and the information from the previous chapter. This is an excellent strategy for predicting, however, we wanted them to narrow in and focus on just the title. My classmate and I talked about how the students did on this activity and we decided that they needed more practice. So they next time we met, we had them predict what was going to happen in the next chapter using only the words again. This time, they improved a lot! They used more of the words to predict and less of their background knowledge of the book. I have learned that data-driven instruction is one of the best ways to help the students really improve on their work. It allows us to narrow in on their weaknesses, and provide instruction to strengthen their skills.
In my Classroom Management class, I was reading out of Principles of Classroom Management by Levin and Nolan about when it is time to change the pace of the classroom activities. Levin and Nolan said that “if students are getting too noisy or off-task during a particular interactive learning situation, the teacher might decide to change the pace to a more individual seat work activity” (206). I had a situation like this happen in my classroom. I was having the students work on a partner activity where they had to do a word search and unscramble some fall themed words. I let them work on it around the classroom, but after a while, they were just getting too rambunctious. Their noise level was way too high, and a lot of them were just going from, group to group and walking around the classroom. I them decided to end the activity and have them do some silent, independent read to calm them down. From this, I’ve learned when is the right time to switch the pace of activities in the classroom, and to notice the cues of the students as to when to change the activities.
Overall, this week was a successful week. I’ve learned a lot of things and am looking forward to practicing them in the classroom.
In my Classroom Management class, we did an activity called Exploring Individual Management Platform of Beliefs. For this activity, we first had to fill in the statement "Classroom Management should be...". For this, I wrote that it is the most important part of a classroom. Without an effective classroom management program, the most effective teachers with the best lessons may not get their lessons across to their students. The rules and procedures that make up classroom management should be taught in the beginning of the year so that students know what behavior is expected of them. These rules and procedures should also be reinforced throughout the school year, keeping the students in check with their behavior.
After this writing activity, we were all handed a Play-Doh container. Our teacher told us to make a model of or classroom management platform using Play-Doh. The whole class looked at her with confusion in their eyes. As it turns out, trying to express your beliefs through Play-Doh is quite challenging. My interpretation is the picture above. Before reading on, what do you think my beliefs are based off the Play-Doh model? Feel free to leave your guesses in the comments section. I tried to model a classroom based off what I wrote, one that is organized, where the students know how they are expected to behave, and where there are little to no behavior problems.
After the class made Play-Doh models, we went around and looked at each others models. We were supposed to guess what our classes beliefs were based off of the one word that came to our mind when we looked at their model. As I was looking around, I was surprised at the amazing amount of creativity my class had. Some of their interpretations were easy to guess and the class got them right away. Others weren't so easy. Some of the responses left on mine were: teamwork, organization,
group centered, collaboration, thoughtful, structure, classroom all together, and communities. I was surprised at the accuracy of the guesses because I thought that mine would be quite hard to interpret.
The one thing that surprised me was that all of our beliefs were similar. Although all of our models were different, we still arrived at the same beliefs. Most of us wanted to instill a sense of community in our classrooms, wanted them to feel like home. We want to encourage higher level thinking, friendship, and organization.
Overall, although I found this activity to be quite challenging, I enjoyed trying to model my interpretation out of Play-
This is my third video for my classroom management class. For this video, I practiced the morning procedures. For my classroom, this includes greeting the students as they walk, making sure they are on task, which includes either reading, writing, or on iStation, or independent reading. I also take attendance and fill in our perfect attendance competition sheet if we have perfect attendance that day.
This week was a really great week. It was neat to see how the school integrated Halloween into the curriculum, along with letting the students have some fun.
In my Emergent Literacy class, I am involved in a PLC that focuses on the needs of my inquiry student. We discovered their needs based on the test results of FAIR, DRA, a spelling inventory, and our own observations. My student needed instruction in fluency with some vocabulary knowledge. In preparation for working with our particular students, we read some articles that listed strategies we could use to help our students with these skills. I was reading an article on how to increase vocabulary knowledge called “Bumping Into Spicy, Tasty Words That Catch Your Tongue”: A Formative Experiment on Vocabulary Instruction, and it gave examples of some of the things my CT does in the classroom which include “provided multiple experiences with new and interesting vocabulary by reading aloud regularly, allocating considerable time for self-selected independent reading” (110) to increase student’s exposure to new vocabulary. One of the ways to introduce students to new vocabulary, as listed in the article, is to teach individual words, and I have seen my CT do this in the classroom. Before read a book, my teacher will pick out some words that she thinks the students may need to know, or she uses the vocabulary already provided in the story for sources of words, Before reading, she will introduce the students to the words, or she will address them when we get to them in the story. She will tell them the meaning and have them do activities to help them comprehend the meaning. She will have them write a sentence using the word and draw a picture on a sticky note, or she would have them act it out, which is a strategy listed in the article. Then the students would use the words in their weekly writing or homework writing. I often find them using the words weeks after learning about them, which is great. I think that this is a pretty good way of exposing students to new vocabulary, and I found that they like to be actively involved in learning about the words, and that their favorite activity was acting out the word meanings. As future teacher, this makes me think about what other ways I could have the students become actively involved in learning the content, instead of having them just sit and listen to me tell them.
In my internship seminar, we have been reading Kindergarten by Julie Diamond. In the book it talked about teaching to the standards and how teachers are given handouts with the standards they are supposed to be covering that year. Diamond stated that “rather than thinking about planning by beginning with our real children in their actual environment, teachers feel they must teach to the specified, listed goals” (80). Teaching this way may take away from the interests of our students and just focus on the goals. Diamond showed that we can still reach the desired goals of the standards, but also keeping our students interests in mind. In my classroom, My CT has to teach the students certain standards too. But she also does this in ways the spark the children’s interest and allows them to have fun. One of the standards was that students have to be able to retell a story. One of the ways my CT had them display this skill was to cut and paste the events of the story in order and put it on construction paper. They really enjoyed doing this, and they were still able to demonstrate that they could retell the story. This was a change-up from them just writing the retelling like they normally do. As a teacher, I think it’s important to consider fun and creative ways to meet the standards. Children will enjoy doing activities that spark their interest, and may even learn more doing activities this way.
In my Classroom Management class, I was reading out of the Elementary Classroom Management book about responding effectively to problem behaviors. One of the principles for dealing with inappropriate behavior was “decide whether or not a particular action constitutes misbehavior depends on the context in which it occurs” (339). In my CT’s class, we have a student who barely completes any work, and normally just sits in class having no expression on his face. One day while we were walking in line, he was jumping in line, spinning around, and talking. Normally, my CT wouldn’t condone this type of behavior, but since he doesn’t normally do any of this, and he was actually doing something instead of just sitting there, my CT didn’t punish his behavior. She was just happy he had some kind of activity level. She didn’t want to discourage him from having the same type of energy level in the classroom, hoping that he would transfer this energy to his schoolwork. As a teacher, we have to realize that deciding when an activity is a misbehavior depends a lot on the context. In situations like this, telling him to stop may not have been the right thing to do, especially if it shut him down for the rest of the day.
This week was the week of Halloween and the school was having an event called Book-O-Ween. For this, each class reads a book and paints and decorates a pumpkin as a character from the book. For my CT’s class, we made Hally Tosis from Dog Breath. To get the students involved, I had them paint the pumpkin brown. As it turns out, our class got second place! I thought this was a really great way to encourage reading throughout the school. The students all had a great time and I would like to do activities like this in my classroom, not just for special events. However, I can make more of an assignment about it, like having them describe the character. I think it’s really important for the students to enjoy reading, and hopefully doing projects and assignments that get them involved and excited will motivate them more to love reading.
Overall, this week was great! I am learning so much from being in the classroom, and I am beginning to figure out how I would be as a teacher. I am trying to apply what I learn in the classroom to my actual classroom of students. I am looking forward to next week and seeing what more I can learn!
This is my second video for my classroom management class. For this video, I performed 2 read-alouds. At first, I read Dog Breath by Dav Pilkey. The second book I read was The Great-Great-Granddaughter of La Cucarachita Martina by Alma Flor Ada.