Blog post completed before EDN4100 placement: 5 teaching strategies to implement doing EDN4100Tuesday, 28 January 2020, 12:04 AM by Elizabeth Zezan
Hi, After reading Tim McDonald's 'Classroom management' book the 5 teaching strategies I aim to implement during EDN4100 professional experience are:
1. The need for connections: Positive relationships with students are the precursor to success in the classroom. The need for connections in the classroom is a strategy that aligns with my philosophy of building a classroom where children feel like they belong. Creating connections with students will help assist in developing strong relationships with students and build a sense of belonging with all students in the classroom allowing them to thrive.
2. Solutions orientation approach: Seeks to assist the student in developing autonomy and seeing problems as opportunities for personal growth. It also develops student responsibility, as the student is a part of the solution and the solution can only move forward through respectful conversation with the teacher. I picked this strategy as I aim to have a classroom where students take responsibility of their actions and words. While also developing their sense of agency and being able to regulate their feelings and thoughts to better communicate what has happened and their feelings. I believe this is important as this develops student’s regulation, communication and sets out clear standards for all students. It also helps students to develop problem-solving skills. 3. Teacher-student expectations: Expectations are crucial to student’s engagement and achievement. This strategy aligns with my philosophy to be clear in student expectations and set goals that challenge students while also being achievable to the student. This allows the student to develop their sense of self, take responsibility for their learning and enabling them to see the possibilities in a safe learning environment.
4. Questioning for engagement: Questioning as a skill can assist us in engaging students in learning. Part of establishing this skill is keeping safety and accountability central to our thinking so that we can actively engage every student in learning. I picked this strategy as questioning not only helps with engagement and accountability but can also be used as a behavioural strategy to get students attention back, to better understand students understanding of a learning topic, to help understand students learning and to also extend students learning and development.
5. Conflict as professional learning: By reflecting on our performance, we can analyse what happened and what part our actions played in escalating the situation. Through this reflection, we can see how the technique or approach used was not successful with this student and we begin to see a pattern of escalation that led. This strategy I think is one of the most important and is not something I would do just regarding student behaviour, but I believe being a Reflective teacher is critical to teacher development especially for me as a pre-service teacher. Not only will it help me grow and learn but will help me develop behavioural plans, lesson plans and also identify areas I personally need further development in. ThanksElizabeth
Blog post completed after EDN4100 placement:
Reflection and comments on 5 teaching strategies I implementedSunday, 23 February 2020, 8:32 PM by Elizabeth Zezan
Reflection: 1. The need for connections: Positive relationships with students are the precursor to success in the classroom. During my placement I was able to see how important the first few weeks are for the teacher in building those positive relations with students which set up the student and teacher success for the year to come. The strategies I saw was establishing that teacher/student boundary but also that connection where the student feels safe in the teacher’s classroom. This was done by introducing clear behavioural expectations and routines in the classroom. The teacher also made sure she had time with all the children throughout the day talking to them about what they are doing and getting to know them. How I implanted this strategy was several ways by following the teacher’s strategies of setting clear behavioural expectations and following the classroom routines. But also by using the morning session where students are in small groups and settling into the class, I went around and talked to students asking them questions about what they like, I also used recess and lunch duty to observe students and get to know them by joining in with their games and play this helped with building strong connections and relationships with students not only in the classroom but out of it too. 2. Solutions orientation approach: Seeks to assist the student in developing autonomy and seeing problems as opportunities for personal growth. It also develops student responsibility, as the student is a part of the solution and the solution can only move forward through respectful conversation with the teacher. I observed that this strategy is extremely important in the early years of school for students. This is because students are still learning and developing how to process what is happening and how to communicate. I implanted this strategy by talking situations through with students instead of just giving them the answer or solution. This was especially the case with incidents in the playground and during free play. I would talk ask the child what is wrong, how did it make them feel, what did they think they could do or say in that situation. For example M said that B kept taking his car he was playing with, I asked how did that make him feel he said upset, sad and a bit angry as he had it first, I said I can understand that what can he do or say to B to let him know how that makes him feel, M said I could say B stop that makes me feel upset I was playing with that, I said what could you say to B about the car and M said “I could say after I am finished with it I will give it to him”, I said “I think that is a great way to let B know how you feel and that he will get a turn when you are finished that B needs to wait his turn”.
3. Teacher-student expectations: Expectations are crucial to student’s engagement and achievement. This is another strategy that I observed is important to implement in those first 2 weeks as it sets the expectations and tone for students for the rest of the year. If expectations are not verbally said and clear, then students do not know what is expected in behaviour and learning. I saw how essential it was to make the expectations clear especially when it came to behaviours with students. I saw how including students in the discussion about classroom mat rules helped them connect and feel part of the decision about behaviour expectations. I found that before every learning experience and mat session I clearly explained the behaviour expectations for the mat session going back through the mat manners with the students, I also explained the learning intention and what was expected of students at each table rotation. This was important as 2 of the rotations where independent rotation activities, I would ask students what independent meant and then what was expected of them to complete the activity. This set a clear expectation of what was required during that rotation which students responded to the extra responsibility with their learning. 4. Questioning for engagement: Questioning as a skill can assist us in engaging students in learning. Part of establishing this skill is keeping safety and accountability central to our thinking so that we can actively engage every student in learning. I was really interested to see that my mentor teacher used questioning for behavioural engagement and correction which I had not seen it be used for before. It was a strategy that I incorporated when I started to teach to try this strategy. How I used this was if I students was talking while on the mat, I would use questioning like “A can you tell me what our number 4 mat manners is please?” A “its lips closed”, Me “thank you A that is right remember while on the mat lips closed”.
5. Conflict as professional learning: By reflecting on our performance, we can analyse what happened and what part our actions played in escalating the situation. Through this reflection, we can see how the technique or approach used was not successful with this student and we begin to see a pattern of escalation that led. I used this at every chance I got and used several reflective strategies. One was reflection with my mentor teacher discussing my lesson, what I observed, what worked and what didn’t. I would also ask what I needed to improve or implement in my next lesson. Besides reflecting with my mentor, I would then complete a written lesson reflection at the bottom of my lesson plans. I reflected on what worked, what didn’t, what I would change for next time and write any critical reflections. This allowed me to work on strategies that didn’t work and reflect on lessons that didn’t work and what I need to do if I was going to do that lesson again. It also allowed me to see patterns in my critical reflections in students’ behaviours.