Teacher Interview - Students first
Techer Interview
Chapter thirteen of module three was devoted to managing learning environments and also served as the focus of my teacher interview. According to Hoy (2019) some of the goals of effective classroom management include: keeping students actively engaged; ensuring participation structures are clear, straightforward, and have consistent cues; and developing positive relationships with the students.
My interviewee had a few tips when it came to keeping the students actively engaged. Beyond basic stuff like not speaking when others are talking I thought it was interesting to hear how important she felt positioning was in keeping the students engaged. Starting from the arrangement of the desks on day one, all forward facing in neat rows to help promote the student/teacher relationship, and extending to where she physically stood when speaking. The seating arrangement was part of a progression she went through throughout the year. She believed that early in the year emphasizing the student/teacher relationship was most important and later the peer to peer relationship, through group seating, became more important. In order to make that work though the traditional row seating had to take place in the beginning. Over the beginning of the year she identified the confident students who didn’t require as much help and positioned them in the back during the later portion of the year. The traditional seating also allowed her to “snake” through the rows which kept her in close proximity to the students and allowed her to use her position in the room as a sort of timer for certain activities. Her position in the room was also something she payed attention too. In order to keep the whole class involved and ensure that the students projected she would walk to the opposite side of the room as the speaker. By doing so she felt there was less of a probability for students to disengage and zone out because they were always in the middle of the action. Another tip she gave on motivation, which was more of a heads up or warning, was to watch what the students are doing within google docs. As the teacher you have access to what they are doing on all of their devices and can lock them out if necessary. Typically google docs is what they use for collaborative assignments but she has found that they are using them almost as a chat room so it is important to look at what they are using the doc for and not just seeing that they are in a doc.
She also shared that revisiting the expectations as well as giving the lesson structure for today and the next several days was incredibly beneficial in keeping class running smoothly. She found that having high standards and providing consistent reinforcement showed the students she was serious and cared about them. Also she provided daily agendas for the week. This was to aid on more than one level. First it eased student anxiety because they had a clear expectations on what the upcoming days would bring, be it assignment or test. It also helped when transitioning from one activity to the next. By providing this agenda she was able to get the students in line with the what and how of transition activities, making the whole process much smoother.
The last and most important thing I believe we talked about was the student teacher relationship. A lot of her tactics revolved around easing student anxiety and making them feel safe. Knowing their names was very important to her. It seemed as thought she put a lot of thought and care into her selection of activities and how the classroom as a whole changed throughout the year in order to make it the best possible environment for her students. Something she also told me as w conversed a bit more on our way out of the interview was that she kept a special drawer for students in her room. It had cough drops, band-aids, and feminine products among other things, just to add to that overall sense of care in the class. I also think that the major themes honesty and kindness flowed throughout the interview. This is a woman that I believe loves what she does and provides the kind of environment for her students I hope to emulate in my classroom.
References: Hoy, A. W. (2019). Educational psychology. NY, NY: Pearson.
Chapter thirteen of module three was devoted to managing learning environments and also served as the focus of my teacher interview. According to Hoy (2019) some of the goals of effective classroom management include: keeping students actively engaged; ensuring participation structures are clear, straightforward, and have consistent cues; and developing positive relationships with the students.
My interviewee had a few tips when it came to keeping the students actively engaged. Beyond basic stuff like not speaking when others are talking I thought it was interesting to hear how important she felt positioning was in keeping the students engaged. Starting from the arrangement of the desks on day one, all forward facing in neat rows to help promote the student/teacher relationship, and extending to where she physically stood when speaking. The seating arrangement was part of a progression she went through throughout the year. She believed that early in the year emphasizing the student/teacher relationship was most important and later the peer to peer relationship, through group seating, became more important. In order to make that work though the traditional row seating had to take place in the beginning. Over the beginning of the year she identified the confident students who didn’t require as much help and positioned them in the back during the later portion of the year. The traditional seating also allowed her to “snake” through the rows which kept her in close proximity to the students and allowed her to use her position in the room as a sort of timer for certain activities. Her position in the room was also something she payed attention too. In order to keep the whole class involved and ensure that the students projected she would walk to the opposite side of the room as the speaker. By doing so she felt there was less of a probability for students to disengage and zone out because they were always in the middle of the action. Another tip she gave on motivation, which was more of a heads up or warning, was to watch what the students are doing within google docs. As the teacher you have access to what they are doing on all of their devices and can lock them out if necessary. Typically google docs is what they use for collaborative assignments but she has found that they are using them almost as a chat room so it is important to look at what they are using the doc for and not just seeing that they are in a doc.
She also shared that revisiting the expectations as well as giving the lesson structure for today and the next several days was incredibly beneficial in keeping class running smoothly. She found that having high standards and providing consistent reinforcement showed the students she was serious and cared about them. Also she provided daily agendas for the week. This was to aid on more than one level. First it eased student anxiety because they had a clear expectations on what the upcoming days would bring, be it assignment or test. It also helped when transitioning from one activity to the next. By providing this agenda she was able to get the students in line with the what and how of transition activities, making the whole process much smoother.
The last and most important thing I believe we talked about was the student teacher relationship. A lot of her tactics revolved around easing student anxiety and making them feel safe. Knowing their names was very important to her. It seemed as thought she put a lot of thought and care into her selection of activities and how the classroom as a whole changed throughout the year in order to make it the best possible environment for her students. Something she also told me as w conversed a bit more on our way out of the interview was that she kept a special drawer for students in her room. It had cough drops, band-aids, and feminine products among other things, just to add to that overall sense of care in the class. I also think that the major themes honesty and kindness flowed throughout the interview. This is a woman that I believe loves what she does and provides the kind of environment for her students I hope to emulate in my classroom.
References: Hoy, A. W. (2019). Educational psychology. NY, NY: Pearson.
James,
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like the women you interviewed is a strong resource to have through your education experience. I enjoy that she is aware of the anxiety of school and tries to keep that at a minimum within her classroom especially during freshman year of high school. I like that she assigns the seats to face forward in order to build relationships and to learn about the confident students. The google doc motivation was very interesting because I never heard of that before. I think it would be hard at first to implement a google doc that would just be for academics and not a chat room. I enjoyed reading your interview and I am glad that you found a teacher that really cares about their students more than just academically.
Hi James,
ReplyDeleteI really liked her response to question six. I feel that adults in general can forget that children regardless of age are human and can easily have their feelings hurt and confidence diminished with our words or behavior towards them. This is especially true in a classroom, which is why I loved when she said "Be honest. Respect them first. Kill them with kindness. Keep having high expectations.". I feel that this philosophy can lead to great classroom management and even greater student-teacher relationships, it's the gift that keeps on giving!