Ten Classroom Practices
1. Morning Meeting
The morning meeting gives classrooms a chance to come together as a whole group at the beginning of the day and start the day on a positive note. A typical morning meeting consists of a greeting, sharing, activity, and morning message. Some teachers may choose to do only certain parts of the morning meeting and others do all parts. The morning meeting is a great way to build community in the classroom and make students feel like the classroom is a safe place. The idea behind the morning meeting is that if students social and emotional needs are supported, their academic achievement will be boosted. In my future classroom, I definitely will be incorporating some sort of a morning meeting into our daily routine. I believe that the morning meeting runs best when it is done first thing in the morning. This seems like it would be obvious, but I have seen it done later in the day as well. The most important part of the morning meeting for me is the greeting. I want the students in my class to feel comfortable greeting each other and talking to one another. The sharing aspect of morning meeting is great for community building as well. Even if a student wants to share that they went to target with their family last night, the confidence that they get from standing up and sharing with the class is so valuable. 3. Interactive Modeling
Interactive Modeling is a step-by-step process that is designed to teach students a routine, procedure, or new skill. When using interactive modeling, students get to observe what their teacher is modeling and then are asked what they noticed about what their teacher modeled. This process discourages teachers from telling students what to do. The students get the opportunity to watch their teacher and classmates demonstrate the skill or routine, and then are offered practice right away. Interactive modeling is effective because the students are actively engaged. The students know that they will be held accountable for knowing the skill because they have practiced and seen several examples. The reason I believe interactive modeling is important is because of the time saved later in the year. Some teachers may believe that spending the extra time on interactive modeling is a waste of time, but the mastery of these skills will actually save time later in the year once routines are established. During my six week placement I had the opportunity to observe interactive modeling for teaching first graders how to line up at the door. The students got to observe a few of their fellow classmates lining up at the door, and then able to comment on what their classmates did right. After getting to see an example, the students as a class practiced lining up at the door. The first time there was some talking and they weren't able to do it correctly. We had the students try it again. Once the students lined up at the door correctly we applauded them for being awesome first graders and they were excited they did it correctly. The extra time spent teaching the students how to line up correctly saved us countless times of having to correct their behavior later on. 5. Logical Consequences
The purpose of logical consequences is to let the student learn from their misbehavior and fix it without being disrespectful of their dignity. The three types of logical consequences include: "You break it, you fix it", Loss of Privilege, and Positive Time-Out. The "You break it, you fix it" type makes the student take direct responsibility for fixing the choice they make. The Loss of Privilege type is used when a student does not meet a pre-set expectation. The consequence is that the student will sit out from an activity or privilege for a period of time. When using this consequence, the activity taken away from the student must be directly related to their misbehavior. The Positive time-out is used to keep misbehaviors from becoming disruptive to the entire class. Students can self-calm in a time-out and then re-join the class when ready. My belief on these consequences is that each of them can and should be used in different situations. It depends on what grade you are teaching, what the situation is, and what type of student you are working with. For example, I think a time-out is a great consequence in a younger grade. In my placement I had the opportunity to see my cooperating teacher utilize a "take-a-break" chair in her classroom. The point of the chair was not to punish the student, but to give them a couple minutes to think about what they were doing wrong and come back to class ready to be on task. When first introducing the take-a-break chair to the students, the teacher made every student sit in the chair for 30 seconds. This helped the students to not be afraid of the chair, and realize that sometimes we just need a break to get ourselves back on track. |
2. Rule Creation
Rule creation is an essential step when beginning the school year. It is important that the students be involved in creating the classroom rules. The teacher may brainstorm ideas with students, and write them on the SMART board. The teacher should encourage students to create rules that are positive, and lean away rules that start with "don’t". Once students create a long list of rules, the teacher will group the rules into similar categories. The final set of rules should be to the point so that the students remember them easily. The final set should cover the big ideas from the initial list created by the students. The rules should be posted in the room for the students to read whenever needed. Sometimes, teachers may find it more useful to have the students sign something saying they will follow the set rules. That way, if there ever becomes a conflict, the teacher call pull out the contract and show the student that they said they would follow the rules. I had the pleasure of teaching the rule setting lesson during my first six weeks clinical. It was a great experience that I will pull from in my future classroom. I read aloud the book "No, David!" by David Shannon. The story is about a boy named David who gets into all sorts of trouble and is constantly getting told no. After the story, and the kids are done laughing, I asked them what sorts of rules we could set for David so he wouldn't make such a mess. I also asked them what our classroom would look like if we treated it the way David was acting. The book sparked the students' thinking and we were overall able to come up with a solid set of rules for the school year. 4. Positive Teacher Language
How we speak to our students can have a direct effect on how they perform in the classroom. The words and tone we use while teaching are powerful teaching tools. As teachers, we can easily use reinforcing behavior in our classroom. By simply noticing and stating positives that we notice in our classrooms, we can reinforce positive behavior. It is important that we remember to use details of what our students are doing well, and not only using the universal "good job". For example, if I were correcting a paragraph a first grader wrote about baking cookies with his mother, I may write "Yum! Sounds tasty, this is wonderful writing!" instead of a universal comment. When using reinforcing behavior, teachers should sound warm but professional. Positive teacher language also includes how a teacher addresses his or her class. If the teacher is constantly addressing their class as "cuties" instead of "first graders" the students could possibly not feel respected by their teacher. I would like to make it a personal goal that for my ten week student teaching experience I use more positive teacher language. If a student is not receiving positive feedback at home, they should be hearing it at school. 6. Guided Discovery
Guided Discovery is the process of introducing classroom materials using a format that encourages independence, creativity, and responsibility. A teacher can use this process for almost any new material he or she would like to introduce to their students. During my clinical hours in a primary classroom I have seen this process done with introducing how to use certain math materials. The students were split into groups of 4-5 and were able to rotate to 4 different stations in the classroom. The materials we had at the stations were stencils, pattern blocks, geoboards, and base ten blocks. The students were free to explore at each station for 15 minutes with the materials. This was more of an exploration activity, but if a teacher would like to do it more structured there are 5 different steps in doing a guided discovery. The first step is introduction and naming. The teacher will show the students what they will be discovering that day and will tell them the name. The second step is generating and modeling students ideas. In this step the teacher will ask the students what they think the material may be used for, and will then model for the students these ideas. The third step is exploration and experimentation. In this step the students are able to experiment different ways of using the materials without teacher input. The fourth step is sharing exploratory work. During this step, students will share as a class what they used the materials for. The teacher may facilitate a discussion about what the students think about the materials. The class should establish some common norms for the new material and how it should be used. The final step in the guided discovery is to go over how to take care of the materials and properly clean them up. Guided discovery helps bring excitement about learning into the classroom. It creates norms and routines for materials that may or may not be used often in the classroom. Lastly, guided discovery is important in helping students find their independence in the classroom. |
7. Academic Choice
Academic choice is increasing student learning by allowing students teacher-structured choices in their work. One way that I have seen this done in a classroom is having a goal for a lesson set by a teacher, and then letting the students decide the task order of how they want to accomplish that goal in the given time limit. The goal doesn't have to be specific either. If I were to get a teaching job in a primary classroom, I would incorporate academic choice into our language arts time. I believe the daily 5 system is the perfect way to to this. Students are all working on the same reading and/or writing goal, but they are able to pick the way they accomplish this. I believe that academic choice can be a great way to get students with behavior problems to cooperate in class. For example, there was a boy in my first grade clinical that hated reading and felt that he was not good at it. It was difficult for us to get him to participate when it was reading time. After giving him the academic choice during daily 5, we realized that he liked to write more than read. It boosted his self confidence that he was able to do something he felt he was better at, and it improved how his day went behaviorally. |
8. Classroom Organization
Classroom organization is the setting up of the physical room in ways that encourage students' independence, cooperation, and productivity. I believe that the classroom set up needs to be productive for not only the students, but for the teacher as well. I don't believe that all elementary classrooms need to look like they have been decorated based on a magazine. It is about making the students feel that they are in a comfortable place to learn and be productive. Desks are often what is given to teachers, but many times you are not required to use them. If possible, in my future classroom I would like to utilize tables so that my students can work in groups or helps each other if they are stuck. I feel that in elementary school the students should feel like they are apart of a team and sitting alone in a desk will not help that goal. I would also like to have one or two different carpet areas where the students can all sit together for a lesson. Because reading is such an important stress for elementary school I would like to have a reading area in my classroom. If I were working in a primary grade, I may have a small classroom library space. The goal for the physical organization of my classroom will be for my students to feel that they are in a safe and comfortable learning environment. |
9. Working with Families
Working with families consists of creating avenues for hearing parents' insights and helping them understand the school's teaching approaches. I believe that it will be crucial to my students' success that I get to know each and every family and have strong communication and common understanding. In my future classroom one of the first things I would like to do at the beginning of the year is send out an information sheet for the parents to fill out on their child. It won't be everything, but this way I can get a small sight into how their parent views them and how they are at home. I also think that a communication sheet that gets sent between school and home every day is important. Not all parents are going to prefer email, and this gives them an easy way to let the teacher know if there is a change in pick up or if a student has not been feeling well. In my future classroom I would like to make it a goal that I send out monthly newsletters to the family. In these newsletters I may provide information such as if we were having a clinical student in our room, what topics we are covering that month, how behaviors are, updates on reading log goals, and more. |
10. Collaborative Problem Solving
Collaborative problem solving is using conferencing, role playing, and other strategies to resolve problems with students. Because elementary students are still developing their social skills, we can assume that there will be some conflict in our classroom during the school year. It is important that teachers use collaborative problem solving to maintain lower stress levels in the classroom. I believe that one-on-one communication when there is a behavior happening is important. If the student has a paraprofessional, I would let the paraprofessional have a talk with the student outside of the classroom. If there was not a paraprofessional, I believe I would take a moment to get to the root of what is bothering this student. It is important that I have a common understanding with the student on what is going on. If a student is having an issue with another student, I have noticed that the "I feel" cards work well with primary grade levels. It is important that all kids that are part of the problem, also be part of the solution. If the entire class is having a problem, I would address the entire class for solution ideas. |