Author: athurley

Classroom Management Plan (2017)

The thing that I take away most from this article is that we should not force standards of perfection.   I know that I am not at an Ivy League school, but I am at a good university and it is difficult sometimes to fit everything in.   I can’t say much about social media showing everyone being happy, because I don’t use social media, but we have to remember that nobody is perfect.   A “bad’ grade is not the end of the line for anyone, and if the grade is truly not passing, there is always retaking the course.

My parents support me in whatever I choose to do, and they know that I will do my best to get where I want to go in life.   They never pressured me into choosing a major (mostly because I’ve known I want to be a teacher since 4^th grade), and they are always there to talk to when something goes wrong (like if I get a B when I thought I would grab an A).

It is catastrophic sometimes to find that work you thought was really good wasn’t considered good by the professor’s standards.   Sometimes no matter how closely you think you have gotten to those assignment sheet requirements, the professor ends up telling you that you fell short.

When I teach, I will not ask for perfection.   I will ask that the students do their best, and look at the requirements for whatever they are doing.   I will make a safe environment where they can ask questions without feeling like they are the only one with that question.   The requirement sheets will have a fair amount of detail so that the students know what I want to see from them.   I also want the students to feel like they can come to me if they are having problems, nobody in my classroom should feel like they have to put on a “happy mask’ if they are not happy.

The teacher I observed with started a lesson about vocabulary from the play that the students were going to be reading.   He assigned one word per student, and told them they could use their phones to look up definitions and parts of speech, or they could use the dictionaries that he keeps in the classroom.   During the lesson, he allowed them to talk to each other about how to put the definition in more understandable terms.   He gave them about 10 minutes to do this, and then he called attention back to the front of the classroom.   The students presented their word to the class, and everyone wrote it down, as these would be the terms they need to know for the play they are reading.   He let about seven people present their word, because he knew if he went through all 29 terms the students (10^th graders) would lose interest quickly.

A few transitions I noticed were when he used the pregnant pause to get the students to stop talking, when he announced they were going to the computer lab, and when he put time limits on things and called the class back to order when the time was up.   These transitions worked very well, and the teacher I observed with made them part of the routine from the beginning of the semester so the students knew what to expect, and how class was going to run.   He didn’t take any guff from anyone who didn’t follow the transition, he would just use the pregnant pause until their classmates told them to be quiet.

I really liked now the teacher used the pregnant pause when he wanted the students to listen.   He made it part of the classroom routine from day one, and it worked very well.   I would apply this in my classroom the same way.   I would make it a routine thing from the beginning of the year, and let the students know my expectations.

I think not seeing the kids as data points, and looking at them as kids who need to be taught is a good thing to implement in my future classroom.   I know from teaching three-year-olds how to swim that you will have days where you dream of quitting.   One way that I have to combat this is to look at pictures of cute baby animals after a particularly hard night of teaching.   It’s been four years, so I think this strategy has worked out well for me.

To create a safe environment, I will do my absolute best at making all the students feel like they can be great, and encourage them to do their best work every time they have to turn something in.   I want to form relationships where the students feel like I am not constantly judging their work as not good, or as not enough.   I will always point out the positives, and give constructive criticism that doesn’t sound like I hate them.   If the whole class had trouble with a certain aspect of the requirement for the assignment, I will tell them all that everyone had a few struggles with the requirement.   I’ll go over it again, and have them talk to each other about if they understand the concept or not.   I want my students to feel like they can turn in their work, and it won’t be marked up with red pen, and the comments will not be negative, but constructive.

This is the website I found with a few tips on classroom management: https://www.brighthubeducation.com/classroom-management/3318-top-5-strategies-from-veteran-teacher/

I believe that personalized learning can work for some students, but it is extremely difficult to implement for every student.   Opening the door to letting the students have options in how they do projects is a wonderful idea, and is also a form of personalized learning.   The students are allowed to personalize the assignment themselves, with broad requirements. As long as the requirements given are met, there is no reason for the student not to get a passing grade no matter how they chose to do the project.

Personalized learning is supposed to be the next big thing in education, but the teacher I am observing with doesn’t agree.   He believes that there shouldn’t be mandated personalized learning.   It is basically impossible to come up with an individualized plan for 140 students that are all in different courses.   He does, however, give some very open projects that can be done any way the students choose, so long as they get the requirements in it.

I wholly agree with the article I have chosen to share.   The article speaks to how personalized learning has become just another term people use when they talk about education.   It is almost impossible to implement for every student there is, and no one can really pin down a straight-up definition.   Having open projects, as I have seen from my teacher, works.   The students are able to take into account what they want to do, and they know from previous feedback what they need to work on.   From what I have seen, the interest in doing the project their way also keeps them on task.

https://educationnext.org/personalization-future-learning/

Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) is a really important government program.   I disagree with cutting it.   It allows child immigrants to be educated or work to make a good life in the United States. The people using this can continue to renew their DACA status because you cannot age out of the program.   If Trump and Congress take away this program, they will be taking opportunity away from deserving people.   They will also be losing tax dollars because DACA receivers pay income taxes.   Phasing this out will require a new way to protect these people while they are making better lives for themselves.   I do agree with Trump and Congress letting all of the DACA certified workers continue working and being educated until their permits expire.   Hopefully by that time there will be a new legislation in place to help and protect these people.   Here is my link: https://www.cnn.com/2017/09/04/politics/daca-dreamers-immigration-program/index.html