Classroom Management

These past few months I have seen the importance of classroom management. I understand that it is needed to have an effect and safe learning environment. One thing I have really experienced and learned about it is making expectations clear to students. I feel that it is important for students to understand what their expectations are and why they have them. I have experienced many classrooms some having excellent classroom management and others having very little. Today I wanted to comment about how important it is to have expectations.

I feel that a well managed classroom will function whether the teacher is there or not. I have experienced a classroom in which I feel the lack of classroom management affects the students learning. I feel that the students are not respectful to their teacher or any other teacher that works with them. I believe that this is not their fault though. I do not feel like they have learned how to act or what is expected of them. The teacher does a lot of yelling in the classroom and I am 100% against that. I feel that it does not solve anything in fact it makes the problems worse. If a teacher is yelling the students one, are embarrassed and two, may not understand why their behavior is wrong. I have also experience very well managed classrooms where the students have high expectations in learning and behavior and the students understand those expectations. I have seen classrooms function with the teacher not there and they are well behaved and the classroom continues as it would if the teacher was there. In one classroom I was in there was a problem with tipping chairs. I noticed this and pointed out that they could get hurt and they need to keep all fours on the floor. The teachers plan was to have the students write their names on the board if they continued to tip. The students in this class were very honest. They would put their name on the board if they found their self tipping without me saying any thing to them. I feel that these students understood their expectation and wanted to help themselves by giving a consequence.

I have learned a lot from the experiences that I have had. I have learned what not to do as wells as good things to do in the classroom, as far as classroom management. I have seen why I believe in not yelling. I have seen that it does not work or solve any of the problems that are occurring. I want to help my students learn to interact with others and I feel the only way to do that is help them understand the correct way too interact.

Integrated Curriculum

Throughout the semester we have explored what integrated curriculum is. I have learned many things that are included in an intergraded curriculum that I did not know before. Integrated curriculum connects multiple subject areas. It means taking one subject area such as animals and integrating that into all subjects. It also helps the students see how subjects are connected. By integrating subjects students see how you can learn about something in many different ways. Integrated curriculum also involves personal experiences. It is important to connect to students lives to what they are learning. Integrated curriculum allows students to have being there experience to enhance learning. Learning is more meaningful to students when it is connected to real life experiences because they are able to see why it is important to them. Integrated curriculum involves a lot of planning. Teachers need to first look at their students. They need to understand their needs and interests. Then they look at standards and base their integrated units on the standards for that grade. They then will develop the key points that students will explore throughout the unit. Integrated curriculum also involves giving students choice. Students can choose the things they want to further investigate or how they want to learn about a subject. I feel that integrated curriculum is very important to use in the classroom simply because content areas such as science and social studies seem to be put on the back burner, especially in the primary grades. I feel that integrating science and social studies into a literacy lesson is the best way to solve this problem. Students can learn about science and social studies while they are gaining literacy skills. I believe that developing an integrated curriculum takes dedication but I feel that it is needed for students to learn to their fullest potential.

Classroom Management

Since writing the theories part of the paper I have looked at many different theorists ideas in depth. I had a hard time picking just a few because I feel that they all could be implemented into the classroom in some way. I have really pulled things from Alfie Kohn and Nelsen and Lott. I have realized that I value building a community more than I thought. After seeing how they works in a college classroom when only seeing each other in class once a week I can't imagine how they can be with a class of students that are with each other everyday. I feel that in a community students will be more comfortable and cared about. I feel that having a community built within a classroom can lead to less misbehavior. I feel like Alfie stated that creating a community helps meet the emotional needs of students which often is the reason they misbehave. After reading about Nelsen and Lott and class meetings I see how community circles can be turned into a discussion rather then just sharing. I feel that class meetings are also important because it lets the students know that they have the opportunity to discuss what is going on in the classroom comfortably.

Reflection/Appendices

After reading the Appendices I realized how much I have learned from this class so far. It discusses study trips and teaching context that relate to real life uses. I realized that I did this without even thinking about it in my lesson. I taught my lesson on Monday to the kindergartners. The lesson was on fall and leaves. I thought that the students would get more out of the lesson if they went outside and view fall so the students and I went for a fall walk. As we walked we looked for signs of fall. They looked for butterflies, falling leaves, leaves changing color, flocks of birds, fall and Halloween decorations such as pumpkins. We stopped at trees that changed color and discussed how it is different than in the summer or spring. The students all got a bag in which they collected leaves and acorns. They really enjoyed it and were very excited when they found a cool leaf! Then we went inside and they got to observe their leaves as well as their peers. We made a math lesson out it by graphing the leaves and deciding what we had more of. They also got to complete leaf rubbings of the leaves they found. We discussed what they do with the leaves and what others may do with leaves. They got to relate to the topic and experience fall in an educational way. I know they can go outside and see leaves everyday but I am sure they do not think about them changing color. I learned first hand how important being there experiences are. I feel that it wasn't a big "study trip" but it was something that can be done easily and still have a big impact on the students.

Part D Reflection

The little section about science as core really made me start thinking. This section discussed making science the core of your planning. I have always heard teachers say to start there but I did not know there was a reason based on the brain. This section explains that science is a great equalizer. Students’ differences in science backgrounds are not as expanded as they are in language. It also explains that science is the subject with the most sensory input therefore there is physiological change which means more learning is taking place.
As I thought about this more I realized how important it can be to start with science. Children are very curious and science is one subject in which they are able to explore their curiosities with hands on experiences. I believe there is so much to science that it would be very difficult not to start there. After reading this and learning how the brain works it makes more sense about exactly why integration should start with science. I also feel that it is great to use science as a core because it is a subject that can sometimes get pushed aside. If science is already integrated in to the curriculum then it will not be pushed aside and students will be able to have great hands on experiences.
I have already used science as a core for my unit plan. I started with animals and then I am going to integrate it with math and language arts. This will definitely be something that I use when planning curriculum in the classroom. I will first look at the science or even social studies standards and then I will base my units off of a few of those standards. This is a great way to plan units to make sure the students are learning the most they can.

Classroom Management

I have been substitute teaching on Fridays. It has been a great experience for me. I really feel that it is helping me prepare to become successful in classroom management. By going into different classes as well as different grades I am able to see how each classroom is managed. I am also able to see how it changes from early elementary grades to older elementary grades.
Since I am only subbing in one school district I do see one behavior plan that is used by many teachers. The students start off on a green card. If they misbehave they pull a card and they are on yellow which is just a warning. The next color is red, which means inside at recess, and the last card is black which means call home and visit to principle. It tends to work on most students but I find that it doesn't faze the students that tend to misbehave all of the time. I do not see this kind of behavior method in the older grades. The last class I was in the students had to write their names on the board but I was not sure what their punishment was if that happened.
In a first grade classroom I had a student that was misbehaving and I tried to discuss the problem with him. Like in the section in Chapter 5 “When Behavior Agreement are Broken” I explained that he is not going to be punished but I needed to understand what was wrong so that we could work it out. We talked about it and he seemed to do better for about two hours then something else happened and it was another thing to work on. I believe that if I was in the classroom everyday it would help this student because I feel he needs an adult to listen to him.

Classroom Management

I was excited to go into my classroom the second time because I wanted to see how the students had progressed. The teacher explained that they were going to be able to start a behavior system. She explained that the behavior system would include them getting a sticker if they were good for the whole day and if they got five stickers for the week they would get a piece of candy. If they filled up the whole chart they would get a piece of candy and a pencil.

Since I have learned to try to stay away from giving rewards like that I did not agree with this behavior approach. I also do not think that it will be effective with kindergarteners. I feel that they need something that is more short term. I also feel that they need something that needs to be done at the time the misbehavior occurs. It does not seem right to wait till the end of the day to tell them they have been good. I feel that Kindergarteners need to be explained what they are doing wrong (or right) and why it is not (or is) right to behave that way. They also need to be shown the proper way to act in certain situations.

Even though this is what I will be learning in this class I have an idea about how my management would be different. I feel that kindergarteners need to be taught why certain behaviors are not appropriate. In my classroom I would have something that the students would have to do right when the behavior occurred and then I would try to take a minute to explain to them why they were wrong. I do not feel it is right to take away their recess, which I know a lot of schools do but I do not feel I have learned enough to figure out a classroom behavior management plan.