Final+Exam

As I walk out of the principal’s office as a now full time paid intern, my mind begins racing with ideas of what I will do to establish this kindergarten classroom as my own. How am I going to lay the foundation of this once chaotic class to something that will function and become a wonderful learning environment? I want these students, now mine, to thrive in their education and advance as much as they can the remainder of the year. I have a lot of loose ends to tie and very little time to tie them.

I walk back to my classroom and the students have been dismissed for the day. I begin contacting trusted friends and family that are in the teaching profession to get advice as to what my first steps should be. Ultimately the class is now my responsibility, so I would reflect on the changes that I have wanted to make during my time as an intern based on my philosophy of classroom management and learning to determine what I am going to do. As I reflect on that I realize the importance of making a connection to my students and their families. I believe the support of families in their child’s education is integral to the student’s success and if you have the support of the families it can help to alleviate behavior problems in the classroom. I would want to know as much about the students as possible so I would begin by contacting the resource specialist and the guidance counselor. I would type up a letter to let parents know about the change that is occurring in their child’s classroom. I would want to let them know that I am looking forward to the rest of the year and that it will be a good change for their student. I would ask for parents send back a short bio about their child and a picture of them. I would invite parents to a meet the teacher so that they can get to know me. I would go meet the other teachers on my team and within my grade level to make sure that I am where I am where I need to be with my lesson pans. I would also do my own review of the curriculum and make any necessary adjustments. I would begin to gather any material that I will need for the following day’s lessons, so that when I get home I can prepare.

Next, I would rearrange my classroom. The students need to feel like they have a new start to the rest of the school year and once they walk through the classroom door I want them to see a physical change to the classroom, which will reiterate that I am their new teacher. I would want to have a blank bulletin board which the students will help create on our first day of school together. The classroom will become a print rich environment and the seating arrangement will change. Since being an intern I know which students work well together and would seat them in cooperative groups of four. This would be subject to change based on changes seen throughout the year. I would designate a spot for a reading corner with bean bags, pillows, soft rugs, and a lamp close to shelves lined with books and stuffed characters from the books.

I go home that night and begin coming up with how I will establish effective classroom management. My main focus would be on establishing classroom procedures that my students will follow each day. I believe that if students are given procedures to follow each day those procedures will become routine for the students. If they know what is expected of them and the day is fairly predictable there will be less behavioral issues. I would establish classroom rules so that students know what acceptable behavior is in the classroom and I would establish a system of rewards and consequences to reinforce good behavior and deter bad behavior. The rules posted in the classroom would be as follows:

We raise our hands to speak. We work quietly at our seats. We use voices soft and sweet. We keep our places tidy and neat. We are helpful, friendly, and fair. We take turns and willingly share.

I will use nonverbal communication as negative reinforcers, such as looks, gestures, and close proximity to address minor deviations from the rules. If behavior has to be addressed more than once with a student or students I would begin implementing consequences. The consequences would be as follows: I would have a piece of fabric with pockets hung on the board with a pocket for each student; the pocket will have the student’s name, and the pockets will contain colored pieces of paper that represent the frequency that the student has broken the rule. Each student will begin the day on green signifying that they are ready to “go” and they all start at the same place and with a clean slate. They can move down for breaking rules from yellow to orange and then to red. If the student gets to orange the student will lose recess. If the student gets on red they will call home and tell his/her family member what rule that he/she broke and I will speak with them to try to see what can be done to deter this behavior in the future. Also, I would ask for the support of the family in deterring the behavior. If the student is excessively on red the student will get detention, which will consist of being taken out of the classroom and sent to office to do the remainder of their work. Throughout the day students can move back up for improving behavior and students that are at green can move up to blue for exceptional behavior; putting them in the running for “star student” of the week. In addition to “star student of the week” for exceptionally behaved students; I would offer rewards for the entire class. I would reward them with weekly fun activities that will compliment topics, concepts or lessons that we covered that week. I would end my evening going over tomorrow’s lesson and getting myself prepared for what I will need to do.

After that I would get a good night’s rest and look forward to my day tomorrow. I would arrive early to set up for my first lesson. I would write the “bell work” on the board to get students acclimated from the beginning to following the daily procedures. The first day’s bell work would include sharing students’ likes and dislikes, because the previous teacher didn’t show a desire to get to know her students on a personal level. This is something that I saw that was lacking during my time as the intern, but I didn’t want to overstep any boundaries by suggesting it. It is about time now for the day to begin so I go and stand outside of my door and get ready to offer my students a friendly welcome. I tell them that I will be their new teacher and that I will explain the situation to the entire class in just a little bit. Also, I will tell them what they need to do when they go into the classroom. They will need to hang their backpacks up where their name is. Then, on the bulletin board that I have set up for taking attendance and getting lunch information, they will need to check by their name if they are buying or bringing lunch. As soon as they are done with that they can begin thinking about what they want to share about their likes and dislikes and draw a picture to go with it. I begin the day by explaining the change in the classroom. The students recognize a change right away and seem confused as to where their teacher is. I stand in the front of the class and explain to them what has happened and that I will be their teacher for the rest of the school year. I explain to the class that there will be a lot of changes and that they need to help me and participate as much as possible! I immediately go into the procedures of the classroom and tell them that we will be keeping and improving on some of the previous procedures that they are used to. To gain a reference point of where the students are academically I introduce centers and inform them of what they will be doing for the next hour.

We begin with Language Arts centers and I explain that there will be four centers for Language Arts; Fluency, Writing, Comprehension and a Greet and Meet with me, their new teacher. In Fluency, they will listen to a read aloud. After the read aloud the class will listen to an audio version of that same book. While the students are listening they will also be following along with the text by pointing. After listening to the audio version of the text, we will do a shared reading, students wil follow along in their books and read aloud with the teacher. After this is completed, the students will be checked for comprehension by drawing a picture about what has been read. When they individually meet with me they will answer an oral interest survey. The interest survey is for me to place more books in the classroom that has interest to each student, that way there will always be something in the class that is intriguing and exciting to everyone.

After the Language Arts centers have been completed and I have gotten the chance to meet with each student I begin my math lesson. I explain to the class that since I am their new teacher, I need to learn all I can about them, and I need to know what they understand and don’t quit get yet in math. I would do that by giving the students a worksheet with simple addition and subtraction problems and I would tell them if they don’t understand the problem they should circle it and we will work together as a class to solve it, but that I want them to try and answer as many as they can.

After math I have everyone regroup and I explain the new Homework policy to them. Homework will be checked on completion and all missed assignments will be recorded and kept track of. All of those who complete every homework assignment for the week will be rewarded and will get to participate in the weekly fun activity. Those who have even one missing homework assignment will have to sit out on the fun activity. I will tell the students the reason for my Homework Policy; it is that, while the students that completed their homework were working hard on their assignment, those who didn’t complete the assignment were probably doing something fun, like watching TV, or playing a game, possibly playing outside. In order to make it fair to those students who were working hard, they will get to participate in the fun activity and those who have missing assignments will have to sit out and work on their uncompleted homework assignment.

As the day continues I will take notes on each student and will call each parent at the end of the day to introduce myself and to tell the parents something positive I have noticed about their child during that first day. I will let the children know that I will be taking note of positive behavior and sharing this information with their parents later that day. Doing this will allow me to begin building a relationship with the parents and to become a positive person in their child’s life. The phone calls home will inform the family how the student interacts with others, character traits, anything positive that I observe in the students.

To close the day I have the students share with the class one plus and one wish. I tell the students that the “plus” is something positive that has happened that day and a “wish” is something that they would like to do differently or improve on; this is something that will happen at the end of every class.

The first day is complete and I feel like it went rather smoothly. The classroom community is beginning to be built and the students seem to be comfortable with me as their permanent teacher. The second day begins and it goes the same way as the day before. I continue reinforcing and modeling the classroom rules, as well as enforcing the behavioral chart.

The rest of the week continues, which leads into the rest of the semester. The students understand the procedures of the class and know exactly how the class is run and what is expected of them. The behavioral chart is being used effectively. The majority of homework assignments are getting done and so are classroom assignments. With the help of positive reinforcement, motivation, extra after school help, and exciting lesson plans students are beginning to improve their grades and are striving to work at the peak of their ability.