Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Classroom Management
A big part of successful classroom management, in my opinion, is keeping the students actively mentally engaged. I feel that if the students are actively mentally engaged, there is less time for behaviors that are considered inappropriate in the classroom. I plan on incorporating SLT and CLT into this part of my classroom management. CLT is obviously connected if I want my students to be actively mentally engaged, but SLT comes into play by allowing for discussion in the classroom. I find this to be a beneficial aspect of our 107 classroom and it's something I want to incorporate in my future classroom, but for slightly different reasons. I want to be an elementary teacher, therefore the discussions I provide for my students will differ. However, at this young age, discussions will be beneficial in a different sense just because providing young students with opportunities to communicate with their peers can help their language development. The big thing here though, is making sure the communication allows the to be actively mentally engaged, This can be monitored done by walking around the classroom (BLT), asking open-ended questions (SLT) and keeping concepts within the students ZPD (SLT). Another important aspect is making sure discussion is being done at the right times. You can use other students as concrete examples (DLT) to show students what appropriate classroom behaviors such as talking in an "inside" voice and talking at the correct times are by modeling these behaviors. By having little to no time for "down time" (CLT) I hope this will help my students stay focused and using appropriate classroom behaviors. Another aspect of classroom management is knowing when to hand out materials. (BLT) To me, this is a no brainer especially because I want to work with young students. Anything, can be used as a distraction to them, so I feel any type of material would need to be handed out after I have said everything I need to say as far as directions or etc. Even at this young age, everything we do in the classroom can be made relevant (CLT, DLT) in order to keep my students interested and engaged. Just because something is hands on doesn't make it actively mentally engaging, but that doesn't mean there aren't ways to make concepts fun, but also actively mentally engage my students.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Group Lessons
Group 1: I thought you guys did a good job of providing concrete examples for your lesson. Also, this specific concept related to our age group very well. I think you guys tied the learning theories in very well, but i'm not sure everyone was actively mentally engaged in this activity. Everyone participated in the poll, but after that i'm not sure everyone was with you.
Group 2: I know your topic was homophones, but i'm not sure what your were teaching persay? I understand that you wanted to show that there are two different meanings to words that are the same, but I feel you just stated that and never really went any further than stating that. I do think everyone was actively mentally engaged in this activity though, so that went really well for you.
Group 3: I thought your presentation was good. You used the book you read as a concrete example and went more abstract by asking questions. However, for a 3rd grader, I feel active listening skills may have to be modeled more concretely in order for them to understand. There also wasn't alot of social interaction, but I do think a lot of people enjoyed your lesson.
Group 4: I like that you did an activity with physical movement. I think this can help get students motiaved or excited. I also liked that you shared with the group that this activity can be adapted for any age level easily. However, I don't feel the lesson addressed many of the lessons theories. There wasn't any social interaction, our schemas weren't changed at our age, and the examples weren't overly concrete.
Group 2: I know your topic was homophones, but i'm not sure what your were teaching persay? I understand that you wanted to show that there are two different meanings to words that are the same, but I feel you just stated that and never really went any further than stating that. I do think everyone was actively mentally engaged in this activity though, so that went really well for you.
Group 3: I thought your presentation was good. You used the book you read as a concrete example and went more abstract by asking questions. However, for a 3rd grader, I feel active listening skills may have to be modeled more concretely in order for them to understand. There also wasn't alot of social interaction, but I do think a lot of people enjoyed your lesson.
Group 4: I like that you did an activity with physical movement. I think this can help get students motiaved or excited. I also liked that you shared with the group that this activity can be adapted for any age level easily. However, I don't feel the lesson addressed many of the lessons theories. There wasn't any social interaction, our schemas weren't changed at our age, and the examples weren't overly concrete.
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Spelling Lesson
My group chose to do a spelling lesson because we thought that misspelling words could possibly still be a problem for some of our peers. I think we were right in assuming this because it is true that a lot of people rely on technology these days to help with their spelling errors. I thought that some of the examples we showed did a good job of confirming these spelling issues.
I think most of our peers were actively mentally engaged, however I kind of feel like no one really wanted to participate. So, next time I would probably come up with something a little more exciting. Also, I feel we didn't pose good questions because half the time we didn't get any kind of a response from our peers. We also thought our peers would have more explanations as to why words were spelled right, using rules or etc, but that didn't go as planned. I feel as if the only thing we taught was identifying correctly spelled words.
It is difficult to make spelling words concrete, but rather than discussing them, we had our peers write them in order to make them a little more concrete. We used SLT by allowing each group to discuss their words and also allowing feedback on which word was correctly spelled and why. Lastly, we tried to reconstruct our peers schemas by correctly spelling/identify challenging words.
I think most of our peers were actively mentally engaged, however I kind of feel like no one really wanted to participate. So, next time I would probably come up with something a little more exciting. Also, I feel we didn't pose good questions because half the time we didn't get any kind of a response from our peers. We also thought our peers would have more explanations as to why words were spelled right, using rules or etc, but that didn't go as planned. I feel as if the only thing we taught was identifying correctly spelled words.
It is difficult to make spelling words concrete, but rather than discussing them, we had our peers write them in order to make them a little more concrete. We used SLT by allowing each group to discuss their words and also allowing feedback on which word was correctly spelled and why. Lastly, we tried to reconstruct our peers schemas by correctly spelling/identify challenging words.
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
collegechat
To be honest, when we were given the assignment to participate in a twitter chat, I wasn't thrilled. It seem overwhelming and I didn't feel I would get anything from it. I was also worried that I wouldn't have anything "intelligent" to add to the conversation. This is the reason why I chose collegechat. I felt that I would relate better to the topics that this chat discusses because although I am an education major sometimes I feel I don't have adequate knowledge about many of the smaller issues that arise in education today.
I really enjoyed the college chat. I feel that is was also a good pick because it didn't move as fast as I feel some of the bigger chats would. I was able to keep up and provide relevant feedback because I am currently a college student. This chat wanted perspectives from current students, educators, parents, etc. so it fit really well for me. Some of the issues we discussed were lack of money, making cuts, three year degree programs, and legacies being more easily accepted into good schools. I liked being able to read the different ideas from people because it allowed me to look at a situation differently. Overall, I think twitter chat is a great way to acquire information on education topics. I plan on using it more in the future just to become more knowledgeable in my field.
I really enjoyed the college chat. I feel that is was also a good pick because it didn't move as fast as I feel some of the bigger chats would. I was able to keep up and provide relevant feedback because I am currently a college student. This chat wanted perspectives from current students, educators, parents, etc. so it fit really well for me. Some of the issues we discussed were lack of money, making cuts, three year degree programs, and legacies being more easily accepted into good schools. I liked being able to read the different ideas from people because it allowed me to look at a situation differently. Overall, I think twitter chat is a great way to acquire information on education topics. I plan on using it more in the future just to become more knowledgeable in my field.
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