One of the classrooms that I observed was a fifth grade class at Mt. Hall Elementary school. The class is comprised of 21 students who are spread out between six tables, with three to four students per table. When you first walk into the classroom you are greeted by a wall of self-portraits of the students. One wall is dedicated to math. Posters about math rules and concepts along with student created math concept posters align the wall. Another wall is dedicated to language arts. Grammar and writing rules along with student created stories align this wall. On the back wall, state content standards are laminated and colorfully displayed. On the front wall, the weekly and daily agenda are clearly displayed and written in a student friendly way.
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The teacher has a saying on her class procedures poster, “when the music is off, you listen and when the music is on, you can talk.” The music is her launch button, so when she activates it the students know they must get to work. This also indicates that they can collaborate. I found this strategy highly effective. Students would actively work on their assignment or projects while the music played lightly in the background. To make sure certain groups stayed on task, the teacher would wander around the room helping students or using proximity and comments such as “is this a productive use of your time?” When it was about time to stop, she would increase the volume for about ten seconds. This was the auditory cue for the students, and when the music was turned off, the kids were silent and focused on her. During my time in this classroom I did not observe any behavior problems that required individual classroom behavior …show more content…
As prior military, I have a strong focus on consistent procedures. My students have a daily routine that they can count on. I have established an amount of time for each aspect of my lesson: presentation of new information, guided practice, and independent practice. I use timers to maintain the schedule, and I have timer setters and monitors as student responsibilities. Students know to transition when they hear the timer. I have multiple desk arrangements which I change throughout the day. We train at the beginning of the year to quickly re arrange the desks into the five patterns that I have devised. I train this procedure as a competitive game among the students to increase speed and efficiency. Now when I call out a desk arrangement like rows, three pod, circle, or four square the students can transition in under thirty seconds. Our school district has certain classroom management procedures that we are required to do so that we can reinforce clear and consistent behaviors from kindergarten through high
The teacher has a saying on her class procedures poster, “when the music is off, you listen and when the music is on, you can talk.” The music is her launch button, so when she activates it the students know they must get to work. This also indicates that they can collaborate. I found this strategy highly effective. Students would actively work on their assignment or projects while the music played lightly in the background. To make sure certain groups stayed on task, the teacher would wander around the room helping students or using proximity and comments such as “is this a productive use of your time?” When it was about time to stop, she would increase the volume for about ten seconds. This was the auditory cue for the students, and when the music was turned off, the kids were silent and focused on her. During my time in this classroom I did not observe any behavior problems that required individual classroom behavior …show more content…
As prior military, I have a strong focus on consistent procedures. My students have a daily routine that they can count on. I have established an amount of time for each aspect of my lesson: presentation of new information, guided practice, and independent practice. I use timers to maintain the schedule, and I have timer setters and monitors as student responsibilities. Students know to transition when they hear the timer. I have multiple desk arrangements which I change throughout the day. We train at the beginning of the year to quickly re arrange the desks into the five patterns that I have devised. I train this procedure as a competitive game among the students to increase speed and efficiency. Now when I call out a desk arrangement like rows, three pod, circle, or four square the students can transition in under thirty seconds. Our school district has certain classroom management procedures that we are required to do so that we can reinforce clear and consistent behaviors from kindergarten through high