These observations focus upon classroom management and maintaining a healthy classroom environment. Also included with my observations any interesting or useful tools I picked up that I can use in my teaching career. During my teaching experience, I was allowed to visit as many classrooms as I wished. For this reason I will be comparing and contrasting different levels such as Kindergarden to Sixth grade.
Each class had a different set up of how the student';s seating were arranged. Some sat in rows or circles while others in clusters or in a U shaped formation. The different designs of the classrooms, demonstrates a teacher philosophy of teaching. For example, children who sat in clusters generally worked together while students who sit in rows were given a teacher directed lesson. Students seemed most interested when sitting in clusters. Sometimes they became talkative, but overall they showed much more enthusiasm during the learning process. When I observed a classroom that had students sitting in rows, I saw how the teacher at first had their attention, but quickly lost it. When teaching a lesson, there are different periods of times that the teacher would involve the student. For example, when completing a review with the multiplication table, the teacher would go around the room in order to receive an answer to a math problem. She did this very fast, thinking that this would keep the students engaged. The teacher, however, went so fast that the students could keep up and gave up on paying attention to the lesson. The Basic Skills class and Resource Room have the students sit at a U shaped table. The U shaped table enables the teacher to have students close for individual help. The shape of the table also makes it more feasible for students to work in a group. The ESL classroom has one rectangle table as well as four chairs set up in front of four computers. Here the students move around the room to work on the computer and complete art projects as a group on the table. This teacher does this to keep students interested. She feels that they won't be bored easily if they keep moving. The environment, meaning where the teacher and students seats are arranged, meet the need of the fourth standard in Instructional Planning and Strategies. The different environments helps the students learn from a variety of focuses.
On a different note, I noticed how teachers took direction. Throughout the different grades, direction is accomplished in many ways. One thing I saw was that in the younger grades there was a more teacher directed environment than the higher grades. The Kindergarden teacher told me that she uses teacher directed lesson because if she didn't, then the student would never learn. She also added, "The students in the class want to play all day which makes it hard to teach them. I ask them a few questions before starting a lesson, but then for the class project I need to tell them what to do". Just a few grades higher, in the second grade, there is already a slight change which moves the students from a teacher directed environment to a student directed environment. Students worked in groups for different assignment (such as Math, Art and English) which they completed every day. The teacher would ask them questions that would stir their brain, and would help the out with an answer if they were really stuck. By the sixth grade, I saw a totally student centered classroom.
I was very impressed with many of the teachers' control and management of their classrooms. In each classroom, there hung a poster of class rules. Each teacher, however, handled managing their class a different way. One teacher used the "I "method to control the class. For example, "I need everyone to bring their textbooks to me. I need everyone to be quiet so everyone can hear". While another teacher brought the students back to the learning by shouting, "Guys its time to work, please stop talking". Finally, another teacher brought the students back, by having them excited and interested. She'd day, "You will never guess what we are going to learn now. It¢â¡Ás going to be so much fun. You'll love it".
Out of all these ways of controlling a classroom, my personality matches with the last teacher. This teacher is a living example of what I want to be like when I am a teacher. I had a first hand look on how this teacher taught when I was about 8 years old. She indeed was my second grade teacher. Till this day, this teacher had made such a big impact on my educational experience. Her fun, energetic, and explorative way of learning capture my heart. I want to create a classroom that is similar to hers in many ways. I want my students to leave my classroom remembering the experiences of that year for the rest of their lives, like I will with my memories of my second grade teacher and that class.
Another classroom that I hold dear to my heart, is the Resource room. The Resource Room was very new and enjoyable to me. This class resembles a Basic Skills class in that it is primarily group oriented, since there are such a small number of students. Each student takes a turn reading a problem, reading instructions or giving answers. If a student answers a question incorrectly the teacher would say, "Don't worry we all make mistakes. We just need to learn from them. Continue". The teacher in this classroom, however, is different from the teacher in the Basic Skills room. While the teacher in the Basic Skills classroom acts as a strong facilitator of knowledge, the Resource Room teacher bears a resemblance to a parental figure. What I mean by this is that the teacher wants to hear about their day, laugh at a joke, gives them a hug when they are feeling sad and supports them in all their endeavors. The students learn the same amount of knowledge as the Basic Skills class, but here the students have a very strong student to teacher relationship. I know many teachers care about their students as much as this teacher, but sometimes I think they get too worried about completing a lesson or finishing a chapter. I think this attitude toward the students will create a sense of security and community in a classroom. The teacher meets the need of following the sixth standard where she creates a positive learning environment for her students.
The main thing, these three classes have in common, are their relations with the NJCCCS. When the standards were enacted, the teachers equally said that their lesson plans generally touched all of the standards. A few items in the lesson plans had to be adjusted, but over all it wasn't a big change. One change they did make was to the student's report cards. Instead of just receiving an A, B, C, D or F, the students have to understand or gain skills in a certain area that coincides with the standards.
