My Teaching Style And Classroom Discipline Methods

I am a 5th grade teacher at Mill Creek. I teach math, science, social studies, reading, and writing!

In the book, Ten Traits of Highly Effective Principals: From good to Great Performance, McEwan discusses the facilitator in chapter 4 (2003). She describes the facilitator as a leader with abilities to build strong relationships with parents, teachers, and students. One principal in the book, Bill, thought the students would learn more if their teachers are understanding, caring, and genuine as opposed with students who were taught by teachers that were not. This idea was tested and their findings were placed in a book entitled, Kids Don’t Learn From People They Don’t Like (Aspey & Roebuck, 1977). The results of the study described the book perfectly.

In an interview, Harry Wong stated that, “The number one problem in the classroom is not discipline: it is the lack of procedures and routines,” (Wong). Harry and Rosemary Wong support a system of classroom management rather than classroom discipline. The Wong’s believe that students need to be “taught the roles, procedures, processes, and routines” that they are expected to follow (Charles, 116). When the “teacher explains the procedures of the classroom to the students, and the students turn the procedures into a routine,” then the teacher will have better control over the class with less discipline issues (Wong). For the Wong’s discipline philosophy, the teacher needs to have a script for the first day of class with everything that needs mentioned and completed. The students need to be greeted at the door by the teacher, bell work needs to be placed on all of the desks (even on the first day of school), and procedures and rules need to be taught, rehearsed, reinforced, and repeated (especially during the first two weeks of school). The students need no down time during class, by allowing down time, the teacher is allowing the students to misbehave. The students will follow directions when given, raise hand before speaking, and use kind words. The teacher will take role while all students are working on bell work so that it doesn’t take time from learning.

Teacher’s roles as instructors are similar to those of a facilitator in the sense that both cater to their students. I speak from experience as instructor for at and alternative school for troubled youth I run my class like a teacher in a public or private school setting. Instructors are in charge of making up lesson plans, assigning homework, giving students test and quizzes, and also teaching students new materials. Another significant role for teachers as an instructor is to be a disciplinarian. “Teachers must be leaders in the classroom and in the school, earning the respect of students and setting a positive example” (Zeiger, 2016).

Evaluate how well you structured, directed and reinforced organizational and conduct expectations during this lesson. (5)

Education benefits individual mentally, emotionally and physically by placing them in better place than they were previously before. Everybody would agree that learning something new would take place throughout the life. Learning style defined as "A term that describes the variations among learners in using one or more senses to understand, organize, and retain experience" (Reid, 1987, p. 89). Furthermore, Felder and Henriques (1995, p. 21) explained learning styles as "the ways in which an individual characteristically acquires, retains and retrieves information". However, different learners possess different characteristics and different preferred learning styles to perceive, process, take in and understand information.

With the learning facilitator being a teacher as well, they will often have specialization in their area and age range of teaching. A learning facilitator’s specifications can at times be a hindrance to working with all staff members towards growth. Since teachers are not required to work with a learning facilitator, it may be difficult for a learning facilitator to facilitate the growth of all teachers in the building. In a school each member of staff has a significant amount of autonomy, with limited supervision from members of the administration team. The learning facilitator may in contrast spend significant time throughout the year working alongside staff members in the role of coach, co-teacher, or consultant. While a learning facilitator could report to the administration team on how teachers are functioning in their roles, this could undermine the relationship between members of the teaching staff and learning facilitator. While the learning facilitator is directly accountable to the administration team, they are held also by the S.T.F. code of ethics when dealing with communication between teachers. With minute authority and an onerous job description how might the learning facilitator function in this role of leadership within the organizational structure of the

Facilitator takes an active approach in coordinating the group process and leading discussion. This provides consumers with:

As a group facilitator, it would be difficult to work with behaviors that were overly talkative or talking over others. A hypothetical scenario would be a middle school student that takes up most of the group time by sharing stories of what is going on in school. Further, the student interrupts when others are talking about their issues or concerns.

In Mrs. Requenes classroom you could tell that routines were familiar, because the students knew what to from the beginning of class till the end of class. For example students knew that they were supposed to put up their backpacks in a specified closet before class started. When class ended the students knew to get their backpacks and to line up at the door to be dismissed. In my observation none of the students misbehaved and they were surprisingly well behaved for first graders. When a few students got loud during class would talk to them directly and tell them to use their inside voices, and she would tell them that if they continued to misbehave they would not have the privilege of enjoying recess that day. That seemed to work, because

It is a fact that classroom management and discipline has always been a challenge to pre-service teachers as they do not know and have not acquired the necessary skills to deal with unruly learners effectively. Often so, teachers in service use strategies that are incorrect or rather unacceptable; whether this is done intentionally or under certain desperation to gain control and respect of the learners. It is prevalent across the globe. Although the South African system has used corporal punishment for many years to maintain discipline and management in the classroom; there have always been other alternative ways which are effective and better as opposed to the harsh way of discipline. The Constitution of South Africa specifically banned the use of this harsh treatment because of the awareness that children are vulnerable and defenceless; therefore they are the ones who are at risk of being victims of crime, beatings and psychological trauma that are an ultimate result of being bullied by adults. My claim is that strategies used to maintain classrooms in public schools are not acceptable if they cause a negative effect to the development of our children. And I will argue that there are other alternatives that could be used to make sure that the classes run smooth and without causing any intimidation to either the learners or teachers in this industry, as the South African Journal of Education mentions that

Furthermore, as I read the assigned articles and viewed videos, I realized that my teachers obviously, followed Piaget’s, Vygotsky. Dewey, and Bruner constructivist view because they used the theory of assimilation and accommodation, e.g., the learning of a new experience and changing of a person’s worldview. I also discovered after deep reflection on this week’s assignment, how much of an impact my teachers had on my teaching style. Before retiring, I taught based on what my students needed. Therefore, much of my teaching mixed the theories of, Constructivism, Social Constructivism and Cognitive-Behavioral depending on the student.

In classrooms around the country today, kinesthetic students are not being taught based on their learning style, thus hindering their academic and even athletic abilities and not allowing them to perform to the best of their abilities. Learning styles are ways that individual students learn best. There are four learning styles: visual, auditory, reading and writing, and kinesthetic. Personally, my learning style is kinesthetic which gives me firsthand experience of the insufficient amount of attention accustomed to the kinesthetic learning style in classrooms. The kinesthetic learning style requires the student to manipulate or touch material to learn. (source) These “twitchy” or “anxious looking” students and are sometimes even shamed for it which only hurts the learning potential of that student.

Teaching, both as a teacher and as a student, has changed drastically over the years. Even as a student for the past 16 years of my life, I have found that even my classroom / learning style has developed as I age. Not only has my learning style changed, but the way that teachers teach has evolved over time. On another personal note, within my student observation classroom, I spoke with my cooperating teacher about her varying teaching style and how she incorporates all types of learning across various subject areas. Ms. F mentioned that she has had to change the way she teaches a variety of times depending on the learning capabilities of her students. Much like the psychologists and theorists of the past, Ms. F has come to base her

During my three years in the classroom, I have observed that all children are unique and are unique learners. Although some may categorize children into auditory, visual, and kinesthetic learners, I believe that there is much more to a child learning than placing each child under a specific category. Part of my job as a teacher is to discover throughout the year how each individual student learns best. Part of my teaching strategy for my students includes using not only cooperative learning activities, but also individual learning activities as well. An example of my large learning activities would include morning circle where we sing our good morning songs, assign daily jobs, and participate in calendar. We also learn our theme for the day in the large group. An example of individual learning activities would be our daily writing exercises. Whether we are working on writing our names or the weekly letter, it is more personal learning when it is just the teacher and student working on the task.