The high school
classroom I observed is very unique in the fact that the students are not
allowed to enter the room until the teacher greets them and shakes their
hand. Each student is personally greeted
as they enter the room helping to create a positive relationship between the
teacher and the student. The students
have assigned seats in this class. The
desks are set up in groups of four and all the students come in and take their
seats after greeting the teacher. A few
of the students immediately get up after putting their belongings down and talk
to one another until the teacher is done greeting everyone as they come
in. The teacher brings the students back
to their seats and gets their attention by counting down from five.
The
class begins with the teacher telling the students that they will be working on
a review sheet in groups on the same topic from the previous day. The teacher hands out the worksheet to all of
the groups then tells them that she will be coming around to check their
homework from the night before. While
she checks the homework she also uses this opportunity to take attendance. As she goes from group to group, the students
who are not having their homework checked begin working on the worksheet. There was no mention of anyone being absent from
the class before this one and all the students arrived on time so I was not
able to observe how the teacher would bring any students up to speed on the
material being covered.
The
teacher continually moved from group to group throughout the class period
providing assistance, answering questions, and checking answers. When a student had a correct answer she would
praise the student for a job well done and then challenge them to explain how
they arrived at their answer or ask a related question to ensure their
understanding of the problem. When a few
of the more boisterous students got out of hand she would go over to them and
steer them back on task pointing out that their behavior is most likely
negatively affecting the other groups’ productivity. There were a few times when the teacher
wanted to address the whole class because a common problem between the groups
had arisen. Again she asked for the
class’s attention and then used the counting down method to get them
focused.
Before
the end of the class period, the teacher got all of the students’ attention and
wrote the homework for the night on the board, asking them to write it in their
planners so they would not forget. The
students were dismissed at the bell and they left in the usual high school
fashion of a bit of swirling chaos. The
students took their belongings and walked over to their friends all talking and
joking around as they moved on to their next class.
I
think the classroom management had a positive effect on student learning. The groups were organized so there was one
high scoring student, two average scoring students, and one lower scoring student
in each group. This was done in the
hopes of everyone being pulled closer to the high scoring student as they work
together. Her tactic of pointing out how
a student’s misbehavior could hurt others’ learning also worked quite
well. Most students do not want to be
intentionally rude to their friends so all it takes sometimes is to point out
what they are doing for them to want to stop on their own. I also really like the idea of greeting all
the students when they enter. This way
no student feels overlooked by the teacher and I think it makes a strong step
towards building a classroom community.
I feel that this is definitely something I would like to do in my own
classroom in the future.
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