My co-op let me teach my classes without her in the room on Thursday. This was an eye opener for me during my second class. The first class has always been very quiet and needs little or no discipline. The second class I teach, however, can get loud and rowdy without my co-op in the room. As soon as my co-op exited the classroom, the students acted as if they had permission to talk loud and misbehave. I was able to control the class the entire period but it was difficult to concentrate on my lesson plan while I had to continuously raise my voice in order to get their attention. After about fifteen minutes of this, it became evident I had to do something other than raise my voice. I stopped the class immediately and stood directly in front of the boisterous students and said, “Although I am a student teacher, I have the same authority to ‘write you up’ or send you to the office”. I remember that line from our previous Monday night class and it seemed to work for most of the class period. The noise level started to increase toward the end of class. I was about to stop class again when my co-op entered the room. It was amazing how the students eventually calmed down after my co-op returned to the room. This is valuable to me because as a teacher and especially a student teacher, I realized I have to be ready to be ready to manage the class effectively in order to create a positive learning environment.
I introduced driveofyoulife.org to both of my classes this week. It was a fun and interesting activity for every student. I used this web site many times this week in order to prepare for any questions the students might have. However, the minor problem I would like to changed would have been the introduction of the web site. When I first logged on to driveofyourlife.org at home, I was asked to register my name, name of school, city and state of my school and my user name and password. But every other time I logged on I simply had to type in my name and password. Well, I logged on to the web site so many times with my user name and password I forgot to explain the registration directions to the students when I started class. The students looked lost for about thirty seconds until I realized my mistake. I quickly backed up and began with the registration page. This was not a major mistake but this experience proved to me I must to pay "attention to detail".
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The students just seem to push and push to how much they can get away with. Its like day by day they try a little bit more. You handled it well and may have to yell at them in the future or move their seats. I am going to change the seats of my 4th period class because they talk constantly and don’t get anything accomplished.
ReplyDeleteYou might have a bit of a disadvantage with these set of students because you haven't spent the same amount of time as the rest of the us have with the students. The switch to a different school might have played a minor part but it seems like you are getting it corrected.
ReplyDeleteI used driveofyourlife in my class this week and the students seem to like it a lot. I had the students who had finished their work early go to the site at the beginning of class and I told the students who normally took their time that they can't go to the site until their work is done. It became a motivatio for the slower students to hurry up and finish their work because they were so interested in what the other students were doing.
Hopefully by next week, you wouldn't have the same problem with the students again. Just keep doing what you are doing and you will soon get their attention.
I can relate to doing something so frequently that it becomes second nature and I forget to explain it. I find myself asking 'why don't they know what I'm doing?' Then when I start over and slow down and go step by step, I realize that I never fully explained it. I'm glad to hear that I'm not the only one that does this. I think this is a major part of our learning experience as student teachers. And the fact that you recognized immediately and corrected it, is testiment to your learning how to teach!
ReplyDeleteI think as beginning teachers we never realize the impact good classroom management has on our teaching and our students' learning until it becomes an issue. Thank goodness for Dr. Gates. He is a great resource for all aspiring teachers at Bloomsburg University!
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