Reflecing on Classroom Management

hey all,

'Classroom Management' was the topic which I have reflected upon during my last observation. During a particular lesson, a student was constantly misbehaving and the teacher had to stop every time. As a result, the teacher did not finish what was planned for the lesson. Moreover, whenever he stopped to gain back the attention of this student, the others started to talk between them. In my opinion, the teacher was 'too kind' towards the student's behaviour and did not have a good classroom management

I think that it is very important that students enter the room knowing the teacher's limits.

Reflecting back on when I was a secondary student, as a whole class, we paid more attention to those lessons in which the teacher had established a reputation and atmosphere of being both strict and consistent at the same time. In addition to this, the students should understand the expectations which would be set before hand.

All in all, I have reflected on the thought, and I will keep it in mind, that we teachers create the class we want, not our students.

Regards,
Daniela
XoXO

Visit 3 - Reflections

Hello everyone,
These are some things which struck me during this week's observation session:

At the very beginning, the Computing teacher told the students that whoever did not wish to follow the lesson is free to go and surf the net on the PC. There was only one student who went on the PC; the teacher did not reproach him in any way. Then, after about 15 minutes this student joined back the rest of the class. Personally, I don't think that this is a good pedagogical skill to possess; if I were a student I would have thought that the teacher is not interested in teaching the whole class and haven't found a way to interest all the pupils. If I were the teacher, I would have created multimedia activities (examples: Webquests, games, podcasts) which will hopefully entice all the students to take an active part in the lesson without getting bored. However, on the other hand this teacher's method was actually quite effective because the student, without being summoned to, joined back the rest of the class and behaved well throughout.

A good skill which I have witnessed in one of the teachers is the ability to translate what is going on in class in order to teach life values. For example, when the acronym GIGO was mentioned, the teacher used the analogy of life; if a person does not consider his actions and consequences, then he will end up making a mess of his life. In addition to this, the teacher told those who brought the file with them to share with those who forgot it saying, "It's Christmas time and we should be more considerate of others." In the future, I will try to create experienes during the lesson in which apart from the academic content, the students learn something which they can apply for their lives.

Thoughts about your thoughts

Just followed your two recent blogs and I must say that it feels really good to hear you speaking what you would do and how you would cope in different situations. I urge you to keep thinking as though you were a student, and the question would be: With foresight...and knowing what you know today, would you want to be taught in that way? It is good practice to do this same exercise when you are teaching - it's what is termed as being auto-critical. It's always good to see the positive, the negative and the risks...it's important to balance these out when you criticize yourself AND others.
Recently I was reading David Warlick's blog and I came across a citation from Seth Godin, which said "If you want to drive yourself crazy, read the live twitter comments of an audience after you give a talk, even if it’s just to ten people. You didn’t say what they said you said. You didn’t mean what they said you meant." - Basically what this is saying is that people (across every culture, irrespective of gender and age) will always interpret what you are trying to say in the context which appeals to their sense of belonging... you have to think in terms of how the people sitting in front of you in class, are thinking... otherwise there is no way that you will be understood as you plan to be.
Regarding practicality, and logistics in the classroom, my simple advice is 'think of the people in front of you as human beings and not as learning subjects...' They are not just your paycheck at the end of the month. You are the teacher - being a teacher means being passionate about your job, and compassionate with people. Nurture those ideals.
v.

Hey everyone,

During my observations, I reflected on the fact that the way a teacher deals with certain situations can have a huge impact on the knowledge gained by the student.

The lesson I was oserving was going to be a test. As I was entering the class, I heard the teacher saying to a student that since he has missed the previous lessons, some questions in the test would be difficult for him to understand. The teacher told him to revise the notes he gave them in class, and talk to him during the break if he finds any difficults.

If I were the teacher I would have acted differently. First of all, since the student had missed important lessons, doing the test would be irrelevant because it is obvious that the student will not do well. Secondly, it is unlikely that the student will revise the notes he had missed at home and talk to the teacher during the break.

As the other students were doing the test, I would have taken the opportunity to explain the missing topics to the student so that he would be on the same level with the other students. In my opinion, it is useless to asses a student when the knowledge of the topic is low. In addition to this, I would have given the test to the student as homework and asses the student on the work done.

Daniela,
XoXO

1st December 2010 Reflections

Hello everyone,
These are some reflections which I came up with related to today's observation session:

As is the case in the previous week, I noticed that the students automatically divided themselves into two groups. On one rectangular table, there were the "hard-working" students while the "uninterested" pupils sat around the other table near the door. Ms. X placed her things on the table where the hardworking students were sitting rather than on her own desk. Eventually, this led to her giving more attention and most of the time addressing the hard-working students rather than the indifferent ones as well. This observation has led me to decide that during my TP, it's best to put my things on the teacher's desk so as to reduce the risk of making eye contact with only one group of students.

Furthermore, during the lesson, Ms. X, touched upon 3 different topics on purpose (she explained to me the reasons behind this). Firstly, to try and direct their focus, she summoned them to work a Logic question. After the correction of this question, she posed questions about last week's topic (5 Generation Languages) and she revised the key concepts briefly. Then, she switched to the new topic, Inputting and validating data. Ms. X later explained to me that she did this on purpose in order to keep them on their toes. Personally, though I agree with this reason, however I don't think that this is an effective strategy since the students in 1 and a half hours had to switch their train of thought thrice. If I were a teacher, I would have revised last week's topic in the form of a game in which the class is divided into 3 groups of 5, give them small slips of paper with i) definitions of each generation language, ii) examples such as 100111111001, MOV A, 32 , int i = 0 and iii) the name of the generation language (such as first generation language, Assembly...) In this way, collaboration and sharing of knowledge between students would have manifested themselves.

However, Ms. X performed several seemingly insignificant actions which illustrate the meaning of passion for education. I admire Ms. X when she collected the homework - a question from a SEC paper - one by one so as to make sure that everyone had handed it in; she acknowledged those whose work was neat and complete. Even the way, she corrects disruptive students, rather than shouting and trying to show off authority, she reasons out and explains the consequences of their actions such as wasting the time of their classmates, growing into disrespectful and irresponsible adults etc. Another good pedagogical skill that Ms. X employs is that she explains using real life situations. As a case in point, when she was discussing data safeguarding, she mentioned the case of the American hacker who stole 1 cent from every bank account and the hacking of traffic lights in a film.

Since I visited another double Computing lesson, this time a Form 3 class of 11 students, I was able to make a comparison between the strategies employed by the two teachers. In these two distinct classes there were 2 students who had unacceptable hairstyles. The school's diary states that hairstyles should be according to the school's dress code. Now, Ms. X sent her student to the headmaster however, Mr. Y didn't do so. He satirically told him, "Qisek ghandek farrett f'rasek"; the student smiled back. In this case, I prefer to replicate Ms. X's approach - although undoubtedly, she wasn't well received by this student - because I agree that this student needs to work upon abiding by the school rules; this serves as a preparation for his working career in the future. Above all, by taking a disciplinary action, I will be setting an example in front of the students that I too respect my workplace's rules which are there to safeguard a harmonius environment.

In an ICT lesson with Form 1 students, Ms. X told the students who hadn't brought their pen drives to work alongside those who had brought it. On the other hand, Mr. Y didn't allow a student to work ona PC station as he was without his flash disk. Instead, he presented him with a crossword puzzle which he silently worked out. I'm still in two minds, which manouvre is the best since one encourages sharing and collaboration while the other is more punitive although it was effective indeed. Having said that, I do have my preferred method; I think that I would rather imitate Mr. Y's approach because I would be getting the message through that it's unacceptable to leave the material at home and at the same time the pupil is still cognitively active.

Another significant factor that I've reflected upon is the use of language. Mr. Y, unlike Ms. X, with colloquial expressions like "Aghmel wahda tajba, man", "Hemm xi problema halli jekk dak nieqaf inredden?" and "Istja, prosit!" created a very casual atmosphere and the students on their part seemed to enjoy his lesson. However, I firmly believe, that such language shouldn't be used in class even though the students seemed to relate to it. On my part, I will definately not use such language because I think it's the teacher's duty to act professionally.