Classroom Management 3

Module 3: The Classroom As a Place To Be

Restitution

Peer Interaction Task Week 10

Remember a time when you "wronged" someone.
Come up with a plan for restitution.
Remember to tie the action to a higher value. My higher value was that I wanted my daughter to know that I valued her time. Although she didn't have the big "job" in the family, her time was still very valuable.
Remember that it makes satisfactory amends to the "victim." Does she feel satisfied with my actions? In this case, she did.
Did it require effort on the part of the offender? You bet it did.
Was it relevant to the offence? It was. My time for her time.
Is there little incentive to repeat the offence? Well, I am awfully busy, and I can't afford to give away too many afternoons, so I'd better not make her wait too often. I did feel good about the restitution, but I don't think it falls in the category of enjoying it just because I could, rather than "paying her back." That would feel even better than restitution.

For this assignment, I want to share a story of one of the many argument I would have with my sisters. Due to our closeness in age, there was a point where everyone got their drivers licence and all three of us could afford a car. Our townhome only had 2 parking spaces, one was obviously occupied by our dad and the other created a huge confrontation and arguments about who deserved it more than the other. It may sound like it’s something silly to fight about but because we lived in a town home there would be times where the visitors as well as the streets parking spots would be full. Therefore, if you didn’t get that 2nd parking spot you would have to drive quiet far down the road to park which no one wanted to do. These fights of who was deserving, would often lead to exchanges of hurtful words, pointing fingers, and exploiting each other’s wrong doings.

If I had the chance to plan for a restitution instead of having these arguments I would’ve liked to have compromised. For example, instead of first come first serve the person who arrives home the earliest should try and see if there is any available spot in the visitor’s parking spot or a street parking spot that is relatively close to home. This will prevent the others who come home much later to have to find a parking spot further down the road. In addition, if someone had to get up super early the next morning, they should be able to park and switch spots with another. This will make it more convenient for that individual to get to their car in the morning and save a bit of time if ever they were running late. This restitution is all about consideration of others. We are all equally deserving, and this would’ve helped us work as a team so that we can all minimize the distance from the house to the next available parking spot.

Collaborative Decision-Making

Progress Log Week 10

Please read "Managing for Collaborative Decision-Making" by Larrivee (1999)(pp. 149-156, 162).

Discuss the "characteristics of effective classroom rules" from the point of view of "the classrooms I have been in and how they did or did not follow these rules."

For this week’s progress log we are looking at classroom rules and the effectiveness of the rules based on our own observation and experience. First and foremost, I appreciated reading the article Managing for Collaborative Decision-making by Larrivee (1999). I felt that the article was very informative, thought provoking, and enjoyed the example statements that I believe would be beneficial to apply to my own practice. The article begins by stating the two essential psychological needs of individuals, “to love and be loved, and feel worthwhile to self and others” (149). I am curious to know the percentage of the causes of misbehaviour because of the reason that we are not fulfilling the two psychological needs mentioned above. I can’t help but to question and reflect back on my short-term practicum or any situation where I am mentoring a group of individual on how many of those students were able to fulfill these needs under my mentor? How often do we as educators stop and take the time to reflect on how we are or are not providing the students the opportunity to feel loved in our class, or feel worthy?

On top of the psychological needs, Larrivee also provides a ten step for better classroom management when it comes to problem student. Reflecting on my own experience I can see how many of the rules I have observed worked and did not work based on how these rules aligned with the steps that Larrivee suggests. First there is Step 1 “commit to change your approach” (150). During my undergrad, I observed a science teacher who had issues with students constantly coming in late for class. To deal with this issue the students who were late had to do a set of push ups at the back of the class before taking their seat. Looking back now this strategy was very ineffective. In addition, I would imagine that the effect of this would be negative potentially embarrassing students and discourage students to come to class at all if they knew they would be late. In this situation, I would recommend steps 2 treat every day as if it’s a new day and step 3 “break the pattern of recognition only for misbehaviour” (150) by greeting students at the front door as they are coming in, and even thanking students for joining the class even if they are late. This can potentially create a positive student teacher relationship, and encourage students to come to class on time. Secondly, there is step 4 “quiet correction”(151). Some of the best strategies I have seen when dealing with disruptive behaviour aligns with step 4. For example, instead of calling students out in front of the whole class, I have had teachers start to talk in a slow motion or whisper quietly what they are saying. This makes students to pay close attention and students who are on task to hold those disrupting held accountable so that they can hear what the teacher is saying. Secondly, step 5 talks about persistence, following through, and insisting on a plan. During my short term practicum I was in a physical health and education setting and had issues with students bouncing, throwing, and shooting their volleyball before I gave the instructions. This also made it difficult for me to provide clear instructions and therefore took away time for students to actually spend time doing the activity. The next time I taught the class, I had a rule that when students were instructed to get a ball they were to not bounce shoot or throw, and if a sound of a ball bounced was heard everybody would have to put the ball back in the cage and re-do the whole process. The key for success for this rule was consistency, there were times when it was also painful for me to have to ask students to return the volleyballs and was at times contemplating if I should let a student’s forgetful mistake go. Lastly, step 7 suggests isolation within the classroom. During my short-term practicum, we had a guest taekwondo instructor who came in for several weeks. I remember having a conversation with him and asked him a question regarding students who are not engaged because taekwondo is an activity that is challenging to many. He replied saying that his goal for is not necessarily teach student the skill of taekwondo but provide them with self-defence techniques. He continued to say that there will be a lot of students who won’t be interested but instead of focusing on those students he rearranges where students stand by huddling in the centre removing or increasing the distance between those who are engaged vs. those who are misbehaving. This way he could prevent the engaged students from being affected or disturbed by the misbehaved student preventing a ripple effect of misbehaviour. Secondly, he stated that there is power in isolation, students naturally want to be part of the pack or the group if you separate them they will automatically gravitate towards the group and therefore fix the problem without even verbally addressing it.

These are steps and rules that I would want to try and apply in the future in my own classroom. I really appreciate how Larrivee suggest statements for teachers to follow as a guideline to implement these rules. In step 6 “conference time” Larrivee states the “I know you want to…I can’t allow you too…Can you think of a way to….”. This is a statement I would use because it allows students to reflect on their own behaviour and involves the student with planning on how to change their behaviour. In addition to all the steps, it is key for the students to be involved because it allows the opportunity for students to hold themselves accountable.

Gender Equity: Are we aware of our perceptions in the classrooms?

Assignment 3: Observation on Gender Equity in the Classroom

Find a learning setting (it could be your own class at university or a colleague's class at school) and observe the teacher/student inter-actions, paying particular attention to the gender of the students. Create your own instrument to measure the equitability of these student/teacher interactions.

Consider the following questions:

Who is answering the questions the teacher asks?
Whom does the teacher call upon?
Whom does the teacher talk with?
Which students ask questions?
Which students receive individual assistance?
Which students "call out"?
Which students are more off task?
Which students are more on task?

Consider your own experiences in school. Did you ever feel as if your gender worked against you in certain classroom situations? Write about your feelings regarding the experience. Summarize your observations and your memories.

For this week’s assignment on gender equity in the classroom, I decided to observe my EDUC 496 class. In this class, there happened to be an equal number of boys and girls, 8 boys and 8 girls with a total of 16 students. During this day, we had the freedom to do group work for our upcoming group facilitation assignment with only one hour spent on actual lecture. When it comes to answering questions the teacher asked, there was an even number where 4 Girls and 3 boys in total answered questions during class out of the 16 students. The teacher does not call upon any individual students. Instead we were given a specific written assignment to review within our group, which the teacher then called the group to share their findings. In addition, this was the same circumstance when it comes to whom does the talks with. The teacher took the time to go around each group asking the group in general if they have any questions, or discussing how we can develop our lesson even further for our presentation. Therefore, no individual assistant was given to a student, but assistance was provided to the whole group. During a student call out there was 1 girl and 2 boys out of the 16 students whom called out their opinion or suggestion during class. Lastly, because we are nearing the end of the semester and with a project worth a big chunk of our marks, I would conclude that everybody was working hard and on task, and no student was off task. We were free to leave at any time when the individual groups felt they were good to go with the project.

Since this is a class that have students with higher maturity level as well as a time where there is a lot of stress on getting work done due the amount of work everybody has on their plate, I believe that everybody was treated fairly and no gender unfair treatment was observed in the class. In addition, this education course we focus primarily on maker movement and maker pedagogy, and this type of pedagogy puts a lot of emphasis on student centered and driven learning, where there is a high value in student collaboration. Therefore, I would not expect that there would be a gender inequity in a class that focuses on these goals. When it comes to my personal created instrument to assist me in my observation. I really couldn’t find a better way on how else I can determine gender equality except for ratios. As the table shown above, majority of the questioned considered had a 1:1 ration, with only the first question where there were more girls whom answered the question by 1 point over the boys, and question 6 where there were more boys whom called out by 1 point over girls. In addition, to possible factors stated above, another reason why we got these results were because it was a small sample to begin with only 16 students in total, and there were even number of boys and girls in the class. For example, if it were a class where the total number of students was still 16 but out of the 16 there was only 4 girls and 12 boys. In this scenario, I would predict that we would see more boys “participating” answering questions, calling out, asking questions than girls. However, this doesn’t necessarily mean that the class lacks gender equality, it could just be due to the probability because of the higher percentage of boys in the class. Therefore, in the future I would suggest a better technique or strategy to observe gender equity in the classroom.

Throughout my school experience I have been lucky that everything was positive for me. I have never felt that my gender worked against me. During grade 9 I decided to take electronics for an elective, and surprisingly I was the only girl in that class. However, I didn’t felt like I was treated any less or any more than everyone else in the class. I also didn’t feel like my classmate treated me any differently. The one class I know a lot of people experience gender inequality is in physical education. However, I myself loved playing sports and was involved in many school sports and extracurricular activities. Therefore, I didn’t feel that the teachers perceived me as less competent than boys or anyone else. Even when splitting the class to play in different courts, it was never boys on one side and girls on the other, it was always the competitive side and non-competitive side and it was up to the students where they wanted to play.

Making it Comfortable

Peer Interaction Task Week 11

Take a minute to reflect on the relationship between the environment and your behaviour. Identify some settings where you feel comfortable. What is there about the setting that makes you feel comfortable?
What things about a setting attract you to it?
How do you feel when you are in settings that are cluttered or ugly?
What type of setting do you think is most appropriate for learning?
What do you think can be done to improve classroom environments to prevent problems and enhance learning?
Have any of you put energy into creating positive environments for some one else? A baby? A loved one? A grandparent? Students? What did you do? What made you choose those things? Share these experiences. The idea here is to become aware of the importance of putting energy into physical space beyond merely putting up a poster.
Answer this question. Would you permit students to sit where they want in your classroom? Why? When? Send your answer to your group. Discuss results.
Were you surprised by any of the answers? Did purpose play a role in your decision?

For this week’s interaction task, we are looking at the environment which to be honest I have actual never thought about or felt played a great role in the success of the students. Upon reading Arranging the Physical Environment, I started to reflect and understood the impact of the environment on the student. I know we are supposed to start with an environment we felt comfortable in, but to arrange my thoughts I felt it was better to start with an environment where I was not comfortable in. This unconformable place for me was during my undergrad, entering a new classroom for the first few weeks at the start of the new semester. That feeling of not knowing anyone, not knowing where to sit, and not knowing the professor was the greatest factors that made the environment uncomfortable. However, after reading the article I can reflect on so much more than just the unknown. For example, most of these classes didn’t have windows which contributes to negative ambiance such as not being to feel warmth of the sun. Secondly, most of the rooms are also painted with an ivory color and sometimes not even painted at all and just simply a grey cement. Again, these colors can be perceived as boring not welcoming and therefore lacks the sense of security.

For us to improve classroom environment and to prevent problems and enhance learning we need to take the time and effort to set up classroom to create a positive welcoming ambiance right at the beginning of the school year. As stated by Savage (1999) “initial impressions can facilitate the establishment of a positive learning environment” (63). A way we can have positive first impressions is first and foremost, we as the teachers need to be enthusiastic and welcoming every one of our students who walks through our classroom. This will help students feel welcomed and possibly reduce the anxiety that students may have entering a new environment and meeting new classmates. Secondly, provide your own touch to the room and be creative. I would like to up posters, pictures, and items that resembles my own personality and provides the students a little bit about who I am and my philosophy as a teacher. In addition, add items that you believe the students will appreciate and find comfort in. For example, one of the classes I have observed had a stuffed animal and a couch designated for the room. At any point students can feel free to use the stuffed animals while they do work, or utilize the couch during collaborative group work. Lastly, we need to set clear boundaries, rules, and expectation right from the beginning as well as provide illustration of these expectation are around the class so that students can start to feel a sense of security and feel that they are in a safe environment.

When it comes to arrangements of desk I feel that students should be involved. It is their room as much as it is yours. This includes getting to know your students, because their might be students who are more sensitive to the light or noise preventing them from concentrating. These students would then find more success in a space that is further away from windows and doors. I would probably plan for a seating arrangements in the beginning of the term. Ones I believe that students are taking the responsibility to meet the classroom rules and expectation I would then start to provide students the autonomy in where they sit. Therefore, I would not allow them to choose where they sit in the beginning but increase autonomy in seating arrangements later in the year.

An education setting that made me feel comfortable is the lab room. I believe this environment made me more comfortable because not only did it have windows, but it had all kinds of unique and interesting equipment that fosters a sense of exploration, discovery, and play. In addition, the lab room is a place where animals and plants can be observed that develops a sense of curiosity and warmth knowing that these plants and animals were being taken care of which connects to the feeling of a safe environment. In addition, the desks are also arranged so that students are facing towards each other and arranged in groups. This provides the sense of being in a place that encourages interaction and collaboration within students which I believe is one of the main factors that enhances learning. I believe that these and points stated above is what attracts students to an environment and a type of setting where I believe can enhance learning.

When I am in a room that is cluttered, I know I won’t be able to concentrate. For example, when I do homework I usually must clean my home first. This could mean washing the dishes, sweeping the floors, putting items back in their spot. This is my routine before doing homework because I know my mind will feel more relaxed, calm, and provides me with a sense of peace when I am doing work in a neat place. In addition, it takes my mind off the chores I must do later. If I finish my chores ahead of time I can put my whole focus on just homework which helps me work efficiently and effectively.

I don’t believe I have ever gotten the experience of putting the energy to create a positive environment for someone’s else. The closest encounter I’ve had was helping my cousin set up a ballroom for her 18th birthday party. We put up decorations, balloons that were white and blue grouped together as the table piece, and set up group table numbers. The reason why we had this was due to her theme of winter wonderland since her birthday was in late December. The decorations resembled her as an individual which included some of her favorite things. The table numbers directed people to where they were to sit. A seating plan made sure that all guest was comfortable and increased the chance of mingling by placing guests who are familiar with each other together, and placing them my similarity in age. Overall, the goal was to achieve a place that looked fun, but also resembled a sense of reason on why we were there and whom we were celebrating.

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