Entering a public school for the first time in 2002, I noticed that there were way more white faces walking the halls than any other race. I taught in a department with 14 other individuals and I was the only black and issues such as diversity and social justice were not on the agenda. Excellence was at the forefront of discussion and the expectations for students was high. I stayed in that school until I realized that the students would be fine without me. At the end of my final school year, I had acquired a position at a school that was on the news for having a gang fight in the bus parking lot, and I wondered if I was moving my career into a war zone. As I transitioned to my new job, I entered the urban school with preconceived notions. The culture made me ask the questions presented by Schramm-Pate, Lussier, and Jeffries (2008), do the people here portray this school as a place of despair or a place of tender hope? Student achievement was at an all-time low and teaching and learning was considered top notch if one could keep an administrator from managing the classroom. It was if the teachers felt that the future of the many black students in the building rested on how well the white teachers chose to manage them (Blackmon, 2008). The students in the building were experiencing several facets of oppression as examined by Young (2013). Being a high minority school, the students were powerless in the classroom and received low level experiences through direct instruction. I can remember observing a 10th grade English classroom where the teacher pulled out sentence strips to have the students put together simple and compound sentences in the hallway. Students who were one, two, and three years behind in school experienced marginalization in the classroom because the teachers and administrators felt they were of no use. One of the administrators told me in the office that there was no point in me worrying about putting students in college prep classes because the students here were not going to college. Students were not being pushed so they could see their potential and more often than not, many students saw no value in school and ended up dropping out. It was truly a place of despair and there
My time spent in the Clinical setting, so far, has been extremely inciteful as to how to become a better educator in a classroom setting. Through the data I collected I was able to connect Borich’s Seven Variables of learning to the students. By being in the clinical setting for nearly two months, I have been exposed to new ways of thinking when it comes to structuring a classroom and instructing a classroom. Within this reflection you will find out how I would better plan an effective lesson for the pupils in my future classroom. You will also discover what I will do about certain issues in the classroom and how I will address/fix them.
A third consideration I gained from this course was regarding my beliefs about young students being exposed to issues about of race, privilege, and power. Prior to our class, I did not think it was appropriate for elementary students to discuss, address or explore topics about race, stereotypes, biases, and privilege. However, my feelings have changed because I realized I was underestimating the power young children in the classroom. Wolpert (1998) argues that young children are very much aware of racial differences. The literature on multicultural and cultural responsive (Gay, 2002; Souto-Manning, 2013) elaborate about student voices in the classroom. In fact, it is through this exploration that I recognized how as an educator I could wield the power and privilege. My beliefs that young children could not engage in anti-bias curriculum or racial issues encourage me to ignore suck topics them in the classroom. However, not anymore because I believe there is great positive power in making these conversations visible in my classroom. I plan to engage students in anti-bias conversations because it is through these experiences that “children learn to be proud of themselves and of their families, to respect human differences, to recognize bias, and to speak up for what is right” (Derman-Sparks & Edwards, 2010, p. 1).
During my first year of teaching the steps I have taken up to this point are organizing a detailed plan, from before school started, of our daily procedures and routines. Every single day I greet my students and let them know they are welcome into the classroom. Once the students enter the classroom, they know to put their things away, backpack on the back of their chair, and lunchboxes in the cubbies. They then know to open up their bell work journal and begin the bell work question or worksheet that is provided for them at their desk. My students will know that every morning they should have 3 sharpened pencils in their pencil box and one pink eraser. They have finished work in their green folder and unfinished work in their yellow folder. By being
During May 2016, School of Visual Art and Design Professors Amanda Wangwright and Mary Robinson led a group of Honors students on a ten day Global Classroom Program to Japan. Professors and students travelled to the historic city of Kyoto and the modern metropolis of Osaka in addition to day trips to the smaller cities of Nara and Uji. While in Japan, the class visited World Heritage Sites and studied firsthand Japanese cultural and religious practices and architecture. Furthermore, the class produced their own art while abroad at a washi papermaking workshop at the Kyoto University of Art and Design and at modern artist Haruka Furusaka's printmaking studio.
Throughout this English course we have created two different projects thus far. Our first project consisted writing about our literacy sponsor and allowed us to think back to how we developed our literary skills. The second projected consisted of finding a rhetorical statement from a source that affects the Charleston population. Our final project was taking one of the two projects above and changing the medium of it. My rhetorical statement was about how technology should be used in the classroom for younger generations to improve their learning development. Having this topic, I automatically thought about an interesting way to change the medium versus the topic from my first project. I created an article that would be found in a parenting magazine.
My fourth period’s classroom resembled a computer lab. The five students (who sat on the back row) kept me tip-toeing on pins and needles.
When I arrived to my classroom today, Mrs. Beach’s students were still at their special. This gave us about ten minutes to talk about my upcoming less. Mrs. Beach would like me to teach my lesson on October 24. I am not certain which standard I will be teaching, but I do know that I will be teaching students how to solve story problems using the standard subtraction algorithm. I am excited to teach this lesson, but I am also very nervous because I don’t know exactly how to introduce this topic to the students. At 10:10 A.M., the students returned to the classroom, grabbed their math baskets and sat down at their desks. I am constantly amazed at how well behaved these students are. I cannot to learn more about the management strategies that Mrs. Beach implements in her class.
Question 1. How do you make work more meaningful to your students? What motivators are you currently using with your students? Examine the climate in your classroom. What would you change to make it better?
My passion about teaching and my students motivated me to learn more about teaching. So, I really have to admit that I enjoyed this course a lot and I was so excited to take this course to know more about the teaching strategies used and the techniques of the classroom management.
LP 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9 are evident in this teaching session.
This paper will describe on why a certain lesson should be adapted before it is delivered to different audience at the same level. This lesson was taught to university students in the USA where the majority of the students were English native speakers. At some points in this lesson, the depth of discussion is not really appropriate to be taught to foreign/second language learners because the nature of English proficiency between English native speakers and foreign/second language learners is absolutely different. The finding in this paper will be based on observation of the writer and elaborated with the reference from library research.
While not every teacher teaches the exact same, there does exist a few, fairly common similarities between those I was able to sit in on. Of these commonalities, there were positives and negatives. Typically, one of the first things I noticed during observations of a “good” class was that from the moment students entered the room they knew what to do. Out of the ten observed classes, eight used some form of bell-ringer that was displayed before and during the ringing of the first bell. Yet, of these eight, only four classes successfully engaged in the bell-ringer. Of these three, there was only one that required the teacher’s full input, which came in the form of reading the question. Even still, the four classes that successfully started off the classroom’s time with learning did so out of routine. The two classes that did not use bell-ringers while I was observing did so voluntarily. One was because the students were to be engaged in a Science project within the class, and the other was because they were expecting to leave to take student yearbook pictures. Excluding the Science outlier, classes that did not start off with a bell-ringer or some form of question/activity at the bell tended not to transition as smoothly into lecture or the next planned activity.
The sixth section was curriculum compacting. This allows students that already understand the material to move on to harder concepts at their own pace. I do this in my classroom using IXL. I think this how is progressive pockets can come in handy, but again, I do not think it should be a file box at the front of the room, but rather assignments from the teacher directly to the student to advance his learning.
across all the classrooms was the rapport that has been developed in each classroom between not only the teacher and students but the students with each other. It was evident that students are comfortable working in groups and helping each other learn. Students spoke to each other in respectful ways and offered help to each other. The teachers communicated with students in positive and respectful ways that encouraged students’ participation. Another pattern I noticed was that the students were involved in their own learning. There were not teachers giving lectures at the front of the room and students just sitting in desks taking it in. The teachers of this school understand the value of letting the students explore, create, and discover for themselves. There was evidence in each room that the students were taking an active part in their own learning through small group work, independent work, discussion, creating things and using technology. These walk-throughs gave me a view of the school that this is a positive learning environment where students’ best interest is at the forefront.
On December 5, 2017, I spent my fifth session with class 3-213. As a prospective student teacher, this day provided me with a plethora of information regarding questioning. For my first few weeks of observation, I focused on the differing forms of instructional planning, assessment, and interdisciplinary instruction. However, this week I listened carefully to the types of questions the teacher asked the students. Mrs. Diaz is truly a remarkable teacher, who carefully plans her questions to execute informal assessments. She uses these questions to measure student performance, while simultaneously stimulating collaborative and encouragement in the classroom. Based on this idea, Mrs. Diaz continuously asks questions throughout the duration