Students in the classroom are well managed and have a
somewhat respectful relationship with one another. It’s relatively positive
environment and each student seems to be friendly with one another. Along with
this environment, the students have a respectful relationship with teacher; one
where students feel comfortable in the classroom to be themselves, but also
respecting the teacher when he asks to students to be quiet, or with
disciplinary actions. It is very clear the amount of respect the teacher has
for the students by how they talk in a stern, yet caring tone. The care the
teacher has for the students is clear as well through the teacher checking in
with students during class and having those one-on-one conversations when
needed. I think through this care and respect modeled through the teacher, the
students have often reciprocated that care and respect.
Through observing the classroom, I’ve observed various
classroom norms and routines such as signals for quieting down with voicing “3,
2, 1” with an expectation of the class being silent once the teacher says one.
Another norm is each student at the beginning of the semester was given a job
in which they are responsible for over the year. This is seen through routines
such as one of the students passing out folders at the beginning of class, and
another student collects the folders at the end of class. Another routine I
observed was at the beginning of class is that the students start on the
warm-up and when the teacher enters the classroom, all students will be silent.
Some of these are enforced by points and others are enforced by the teacher by
reminding the students of his expectations. This is somewhat related to rules
of the classroom of being respectful and following instructions. The
disciplinary system is somewhat unclear since the classroom I am in hasn’t had
too many issues in this area.
When interviewing my cooperating teacher we acknowledged
these norms and routines I had observed in the classroom, and mentioned
earlier. One they emphasized was having students having jobs that they are
responsible for. He said it really helps with completing small tasks such as
passing or collecting papers, and transition times are decreased as well
because the teacher can focus on the next item in the agenda. These jobs and
norms are established during the first week of class, where the teacher doesn’t
do any math material each class, but instead focuses each day around procedures
in the classroom such as the “3, 2, 1” routine. These procedures are displayed
through modeling and reminding, which is also how they are enforced.
My cooperating teacher talked about their management in the
classroom and the use of PBS, otherwise known as Positive Behavior Support,
which is used throughout the school. They also mentioned getting to know your
students helps with management; that care and respect for one another creates a
safe and effective classroom environment. Some management problems my teacher
has run into has been “letting things slide” because they were more focused on
having a relationship with the students. Management is something that’s hard
for teachers like this because it they can “get walked all over.” Their advice
was to establish a genuine relationship with your students, and then you have
the authority to take disciplinary action when needed, without worry of
completely damaging the relationship.
Based on observation and the interview with my cooperating
teacher, I would hope to have a classroom environment where I can form genuine
relationships with the students, but have students respect me. One thing I
would use from my cooperating teacher is spend a good amount of time
establishing classroom norms and routines. Creating this clear imagine of how
your classroom will run will help I
think my future classroom achieve its goals.
2 comments:
Erika, there is a lot of really interesting stuff in here! One thing that really struck me was that your CT spends an entire week JUST doing classroom norms. I'm very curious as to how class time is spent during this week and whether or not it makes it harder to get started with the math content the following week since students begin to expect an easy class without math. I also find it very interesting how many posts have said that their CT uses relationship building in classroom management. My CT stated a very similar thing that I think that's so cool because it is not usually the first technique that comes to mind, but is clearly vital in maintaining a healthy classroom environment.
Thank you for sharing your observations, Erika. As part of your conversation did you talk about specifics from that first week of instruction? That could be useful information to have when you think about setting up your first week in your classroom. Routines set the tone for the day and they can set the tone for the year. It seems helpful that you are in a classroom where you can observe techniques that you can see yourself using in your own classroom. When we talked about middle level vs high school, are there some techniques you see being more useful at certain levels?
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