Thursday, February 3, 2011
Ideal Teaching Community
My goal is to be able to teach in a school that is not in an urban area, but still has a variety of learners. I feel that when I am in situations that are similar to urban areas, I am more concentrated on dealing with classroom management instead of being able to focus on my lesson. I know that classroom management can be an issue anywhere, but just from a few years of having different placements, I have observed that urban settings tend to need more "attention". As I mentioned earlier, I still like the challenge of having a variety of learners in my classroom. I think this helps the students and myself by keeping the lessons interesting and it ultimately reaches out to multiple students who may prefer certain types of learning. This course can help by showing me different ways to approach different learners and how to address/handle some things that I may not have thought about or have been too scared to touch. An example of this would be our discussion in class and the reading about the book The Lady in the Box. This discussion really helped me open up as a teacher because prior to this I would have never thought of going near those kinds of topics because I did not think that students would be able to handle it, but after talking with other classmates and reading about it, I feel more comfortable addressing those issues and pushing past my own comfort zone for the sake of my students. The biggest thing that I want to learn about literacy instruction is how to make it fun for students and all of the different ways to tie it in to school. I have noticed in my classroom that when there is a designated time for literacy instruction, some students have a negative attitude towards it, so I want to make it enjoyable for them when it is the "time" to do literacy. I also want to incorporate it into other subjects so children can see how important it is in all areas. I see some strong literacy learners in my classroom and they are always willing to volunteer to read or they end up finishing before other students. I know that it is easier said than done, but I think the students who are struggling need one on one help because they don't even know where to start or how to move forward. When I go into placement, the students who struggle are the ones that I try to pull aside, sometimes in a small group, and work together to make sure that they are keeping up with the rest of the class.
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I agree that classroom management is always important however in more urban settings classroom management can be even more overwhelming. This goes along with some of the readings we have done in previous weeks about urban settings. When your students have adult responsibilities at home it may be hard for them to take directions from you as the teacher because they are used to having all the responsibility at home. Also when children in your classroom are struggling with issues like poverty listening, participating, and learning seem unimportant in comparison. In my placement right now at Wainwright Elementary classroom management is an issue especially with substitutes. Many of the students struggle with taking direction and therefore every activity becomes a struggle. However, once management is controlled I think it is very important to remember to not be afraid to discuss social issues in your classroom even if it is out of your comfort zone as Kristy mentioned.
ReplyDeleteI think it is great that you also brought up the issue of substitutes and classroom management because that was something that I also recently observed in my first grade classroom. It was a completely different setting with the sub there and I almost felt like I couldn't even focus on observing because there was just so much chaos and the sub was putting more of her effort and wasting time in to trying to "control" the class instead of being able to teach. She seemed to get to a point where she felt defeated and just gave up.
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