Tuesday, September 18, 2018

Physical Classroom Environment


               



In the classroom I’m in for my practicum, the students work at desks in which are arranged into groups of four. Each group has two desks side-by-side facing another two desks side-by-side. The practicum I’m in has a unique situation in which they do not have a classroom, rather teaches two classes during the day in different classrooms. Their office and desk is in a separate location and for class they have a cart which has all the materials they may need for their students or to help class run. The walls in the classroom we are in are not by the coordinating teacher’s decision, but include a number line, math vocabulary, posters in which the school requires in the classroom, and things about the teacher whose classroom we are in. Finally the technology in the classroom is there is an Apple Smart TV, and the teacher brings to class an iPad and a Mac computer to use with the Apple TV.





                






When talking to my cooperating teacher about their classroom, we had to keep in mind their unique situation and how they’ve adapted to this classroom environment. In thinking about the organization of the classroom, the teacher had to work with what they were given; which is teams of 4 at desks. How the teacher had organized their classroom in the past was similar, but instead organized the students into rows with partners, but would have students form groups of four when needed. Having this different set up this year has made the teacher think more about management with their classroom and putting more thought into how the classroom would run. The teacher explained to me that the public schools require certain posters on the wall such as positive behavior posters and rights & responsibilities of students. With deciding the rest of the posters and things they put on the wall usually, the cooperating teacher likes putting positive posters and more specifically positive math posters. Some examples of these ideas could be a bulletin board to display points for students or employee of the month or birthday calendar. Another important thing they include in the classroom is a schedule board for the week which includes objectives, homework, and the agenda. Technology in the classroom, such as smart board and chrome books are utilized to be engaging with students. The teacher did mention the preference to mix up the use of technology and interaction without technology being both important.  One thing the teacher has missed in their classroom this year is the smart board and really misses the ability to annotate easily and have students write up their work easier.

Based on my observation and conversation with my cooperating teacher, I started to gain some understanding on what I would want the layout of my classroom to look like. As my cooperating teacher explained in his classroom set up in the past, I would choose to have rows of students paired up with the ability for students to turn their desks to form groups of four for group work/projects. This will help me achieve my goal of having a lot of group and partner work to learn and master math topics. Another aspect of the classroom I would want to incorporate is a smart board projector onto the white board. This allows for interactive learning and is easy to demonstrate procedures to mathematical topics.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Your pictures beautifully show your CT's classroom set up. I love the idea of classrooms setups that allow for group and partner work; I think mastery and exploratory learning are very important. My CT also talked about how she misses her Smart Board, I'm curious as to why the district chose to do away with them and switch to the Apple TV's instead. From your interview with your CT, they seemed very intentional about the placement of desks, posters, technology, etc. All in all, this classroom seems very efficient and I'm excited to see what your future classroom will look like, Erika!

Lora said...

Thank you for sharing your thoughts, Erika! It seems helpful to have a perspective of a teacher that moves around to different classrooms as that is pretty common in this district. I appreciate that you are thinking about how the seating arrangement of students can impact learning.