Standard 5: Learning Environment
"A teacher must be able to use an understanding of individual and group motivation and behavior to create mathematical learning environments that encourage positive social interaction, active engagement in learning, and self-motivation."
A teacher must create a learning environment for his/her students that encourages a genuine respect for others' ideas, maximizes student opportunities to interact and collaborate with others, promotes active engagement, and offers opportunities to enhance positive emotion and intrinsic motivation.
A teacher must create a learning environment for his/her students that encourages a genuine respect for others' ideas, maximizes student opportunities to interact and collaborate with others, promotes active engagement, and offers opportunities to enhance positive emotion and intrinsic motivation.
Artifact Descriptions
One artifact I have chosen to represent Standard 5 is a copy of my motivational plan. This plan covers why I feel it is important to keep students motivated in my classroom as well as how I plan to do so. Key concepts of my motivational plan include academic choice, displaying student work, and keeping student participation high. I also included some tips for keeping motivation high in the classroom at the end of my motivational plan. Another artifact I have included to represent this standard is my classroom climate plan. My classroom climate plan includes information about the climate of my six-week student teaching experience classroom as well as goals for what I envision the climate of my future classroom to be. I discuss room arrangement, procedures and routines, managing student work, and rules and consequences within the room.
Analysis |
Synthesis |
I chose to include a copy of my motivational plan to address the learning environment standard because it shows my ability to understand what students need to be motivated in the classroom. Concepts such as active-engagement and self-motivation are directly addressed in my motivational plan. My plan also includes key ideas of activities that I can incorporate into my future classroom to maximize my students' motivation.
The artifact containing my classroom climate experience and plan demonstrates my understanding of what an ideal classroom climate looks and feels like. The experience I gained in my first six-week clinical was more valuable than anything I could have read in a textbook. Setting up a classroom and creating a positive work space provided me with experience that will better me as a future educator. |
The motivational plan I have provided is a thorough representation of a practical motivation plan for my teaching career. The plan covers topics such as academic choice, high student participation, and displaying student work. The motivational topic and ideas included in my plan will be something very useful to me as a first year teacher and beyond. I believe one area I could improve on in my plan would be to include a section for defiant students. As an educator, there will be bumps in the road. I believe it would be beneficial for me to have a plan in place to motivate students who are uncooperative.
The classroom climate artifact helped me grow as a beginning teacher by giving me a solid foundation of what a positive classroom climate is. The greatest strength of this artifact is the plan for procedures and routines. I am a firm believer that routines are crucial in teaching. Although they may take a bit more time in the beginning of the school year, they will make the classroom run much smoother for the rest of the school year. |