Follow the Leader

This was a great week for me.  I was able to spend the first 2 days in my classroom as a student teacher.  I was introduced formally to the students I will be working with,  I was able to get comfortable with the layout of the school (definitely want to know how to navigate the campus) and start building a relationship with students to make my transition to fulltime student teaching successful.  I have taken thousands of mental notes as well as digital notes on my iPad of ways in which I would like to develop my personal style, classroom management plan and what type of lessons I will be able to do with my particular students.  We all know that differentiation and integration are KEY in today's classroom.  So it is important to find what works best with your group of students.  The other thing that I noticed is how important integration will be to cover all areas of subject matter to create well rounded students and to get them to see how all subjects are interwoven into our lives in one way or another.




But where do you start with all of these concepts?  How do you get their attention? (not JUST their imagination, but their mental and physical attention)  This is one thing I have really focused on learning about this week.  There are many tricks and methods to capturing a room.  If the students are not into what you are teaching, it will be hard on you.  If you give them too many directions at once it will be hard on you as an educator.  If you let them do what they want without some type of structure, you can lose their respect and it will be hard on you.  Now I am not saying they should never try things independently, I am saying do not neglect to give them some form of direction.  My age group to work with is 4th grade, so they are becoming more independent, but they still need guidance and assistance to an extent. 




Here are a few methods I have learned from my CE as I have observed;


--From the classroom:

• To get the attention of a noisy room, the CE would alternate signals such as: "Class, if you can hear me clap once, class if you can hear me clap twice."  She would do this with them to let everyone know that they need to stop what they are doing and pay attention.  There are other call out type methods such as thumbs up, touch your ears, nose, etc... I was able to try some of these ideas and hope to develop my own.  They work!  I tried the: "Ok class settle down" approach to no avail.  But, when I would speak to them and instruct them: "Thumbs up if you can hear me" or I would simply raise my hand and acknowledge what table is doing the right thing (paying attention, desk clear, and ready to move on) I had their full attention.  It was like magic!  In our classroom, we have expectations and the students learned them from the first day, so they catch on pretty quick as to what to do.
• Transitions.  This is something I struggled with since the beginning of leading a classroom.  I am learning that this is a crucial element to getting the students to move from one task to the other.  With many different types of learners, you have to be able as a teacher to keep their attention as well as deliver content in multiple areas and do it consistently.  That is difficult for sure, but it is doable.  Once you know your class routine, schedule and lesson progressions, this is a lot easier.  That is why it is critical to learn every aspect of your Clinical classroom and how to effectively write and teach great lessons.
• Giving clear and precise instruction.  The lesson or activity (and transitions) will go so much better when you give great direction and instruction.  If you don't know what you are doing, the students will not know what to do.  If you don't ask them to repeat (formally assess) the directions, you will spend valuable learning and teaching time reviewing the assignment and instructions to the class or each student as they come up to you and ask how to do something.

These are just three points of our craft as teachers that I have thought about and reflected on this week.  One really cool concept my CE has conveyed to the class is the idea we are all learners as well as teachers.  We are a team, granted the Teacher is the director of the team, we are all working together.  This encompasses the NC Teaching standard: Teacher as leader.  It is important to for teachers to not only be a leader, but know how to lead effectively.  This can be achieved by edCamps, blogs, edchats on Twitter etc...but it is the responsibility of the teacher to learn and establish the vibe of the room.  Also, we should consider our students' future teachers.  How do we want them to operate in another class?  Hopefully it will be a reflection of all the hard work we put into our students.


Classroom management is not impossible.  It can be hard work, but this (teaching) is not an easy job.  In order to be an effective teacher and use the little window of hours in a day that we have to teach, we HAVE to hone in on these skills.  They are not really natural to many people.  Some folks certainly have a way better skill set in this area.  But I believe with practice and research, we can find what works best for us.  Yelling and being hateful should not be on our list.  It is all in how you build your class expectations in the beginning.  Will you have "those days?" of course.  But you can limit "those days" by learning different techniques and being consistent with them.  What are some ways you have learned to lead?