Tag Archives: Classroom Environment

Classroom Environment – Capstone

 Capstone

To see the blog posts about my experiences with classroom environment during my first and second practica, click below:

Initial Practicum

Second Practicum

Overall, both my initial and second practica provided me with phenomenal and diverse experiences around creating and maintaining classroom environment and meaningful student-teacher relationships. As a future full time classroom teacher, I believe that it will be very important for me to spend the time at the beginning of the year to get to know my students on both personal and academic levels, make an effort to incorporate regular and consistent class-wide discussions about the learning process and classroom environment, personalize the instruction based on these findings, co-construct classroom values, roles and expectations, actively teach and model what those values and expectations look like, and explore learning, reflection, and motivation with the students. Similar to Brigit, I genuinely believe those moments of making sure I spoke to at least two or three students a day about their lives outside of school made a positive impact on my rapport with the students in my first practicum, and the consistent circle dialogues in my second practicum enhanced our mutual respect for one another and created a sense of autonomy among the students. By listening to their needs, incorporating their interests, and modifying instruction for the class in both practica, I believe I successfully contributed to a positive social and emotional classroom climate to varying degrees.

Based on literature about self-regulated learning (Zumbrunn, Tadlock, & Roberts, 2011), and from my own experiences in these two practica, the importance of teaching children about their own learning process has been highlighted. Similar to my first practicum experience, I would like to spend time exploring how learning occurs, what can help or hinder the learning experience, and the diversity of learner needs in my future practice. I would like to do this by building learner profiles with the students, exploring their interests and passions, practicing mindfulness, and promoting goal setting and personal reflections which support metacognition and metamotivation. I mentioned in my philosophy of classroom environment that I believed it was important to highlight that each student’s learning journey was unique, which would reduce competitiveness and optimize the environment for taking risks, asking questions and exploring solutions. To this end, I would also like to explore the ideas of the growth and fixed mindsets with my future classes (Dweck, 2006), adding to their understanding of learning and capabilities. I read Carol Dweck’s book, Mindset post practica, and I believe that teaching students about these mindsets will give them the autonomy to choose, and hopefully become better independent self-regulated learners.

Furthermore, I believe it is extremely important to contribute to the school community in addition to the classroom community to fortify the relationships with students. In my future practice, I believe that I will either begin or contribute to clubs that my students may be interested in, participate in school events, activities, and festivities, and create a strong connection with parents (I am particularly interested in using FreshGrade to make home-school connections with parents).

The second portion of my practicum opened my eyes to the importance of allocating time to develop proactive classroom environment approaches, and provided me with many challenging experiences.

“The biggest hurdle in all of this however, is the classroom management. It is feeling rather overwhelming, and I am finding myself frustrated for not knowing what to do. It is completely exhausting, and I am really trying not to resort to punitive approaches, but it seems to be what works (I know it is a bandaid fix, and doesn’t help the students develop self-discipline in the long run, but I am only here for such a short period of time, and want to be as effective as I can within that short time frame. I am also getting a sense that there is a pressure to complete content, thereby foregoing time I would ideally spend on the development of skills and strategies that I believe to be so incredibly important. This appears to be part of the divide between theory and practice….time.” Week 5 of long practicum

The week after I had written this reflection, I began trying more reactive approaches, mainly open dialogue about specific incidences that occurred. The dialogues allowed the students to actively reflect on their behaviour and how it affected those around them, and to explore options for restitution. These strategies worked in the short term, and I believe that if they were practiced regularly in the long term would build the foundation of respect and trust between myself and the students. The dialogues still take considerable time out of the day, but hopefully in a long-term placement, the incidences would become less and less frequent.

Classroom Environment- Second Practicum

 

Second Practicum

To see the blog posts about my experiences with classroom environment during my initial practicum and my capstone comments, click below:

Initial Practicum

Capstone

My second practicum class underwent several changes in teachers throughout the year. They began the year in September with two part time teachers, four months later one of those teachers was replaced by the returning homeroom teacher, and four months after that I took over the class for the latter portion of my practicum. With the teacher role changing several times throughout the year, there was a lack of continuity for the students, which affected the cohesion of the classroom community.  The students developed a reputation in the school for being rowdy and chatty, and by the time I came into the classroom towards the end of the school year, students were exhibiting signs of burn out. Recognizing this, I engaged students in conversations about their sense of community and their needs.

 “On Monday and Tuesday, I met the two classes that I would be teaching for the remainder of my practicum. Based on the success of my last practicum, I didn’t want to simply dive in as a stern and authoritarian teacher, despite their reputation. Instead, I wanted to use this opportunity to create a classroom environment that included me as their instructor. I did a lot of research: read bits of Tribes by Jeanne Gibbs, Barrie Bennett’s classroom management resource, and I reviewed the notes from our classroom environment course. I decided to try and initiate circles of dialogue with the classes, similar to the circle that began my first practicum experience.

I facilitated a dialogue circle with the first class, however the group was extremely chatty and did not respect the rule which dictates that one person speaks at a time. The next time we did a dialogue circle, I let the students create the circle agreements. The second attempt at the dialogue circle was more time efficient, and I believe the autonomy played a role in that.” Week 4 of long practicum

Web weaving circle activity, demonstrating our interconnections

Dialogue circles became a major part of my community-building action plan. Circles had come up in many contexts throughout my courses and initial practicum: for class meetings, daily check-ins, restorative justice, and subject specific dialogue to discuss, debate, or share learning. The concept was first introduced to me through an indigenous education leader, and I read further about circles in various resources. HavWeb weavining the class sit in circles allows for everyone’s face to be seen and each individual has a chance to speak and to be heard. The circle itself “represents the interconnectedness of all things (people, earth, moon, sun) […] bringing people of all ages together for the purposes of teaching, listening, and learning” (Running Wolf & Rickard, 2003). A talking circle is “seen as an effective tool that fosters respect, models good listening skills, settles disputes, resolves conflicts, and builds self-esteem” (Running Wolf & Rickard, 2003).

For me, having regular times to encourage full class dialogue was a crucial aspect to building the foundation of our community, setting new/revised classroom expectations, and taking a proactive approach to classroom management. Our first few talking circles were aimed at getting to know one another, and checking in on how the students felt about their learning. As the reflection above indicates, the class had difficulty respecting the rules of the circle; circles for dialogue and discussion were new to them, and they had been required to adjust to so much change already. In the circle, the students told me that they were very stressed about having to move their desks and chairs into circle formation, and they expressed a desire to only have circle time once in a while. As a group, we decided to have the circles a maximum of once per week, and we chose a time to do that (through reflection, the mornings seemed to be the most effective times for circle meetings).

“I noticed that having the meeting at the beginning of the day when they were calm meant they talked out of turn less and were more respectful towards one another. They brought up some great observations about the week. They noted what we did well and what goals we need to set for the upcoming week (talking less, listening more, and keeping the class clean). I think I should delegate a secretary to record our weekly goals and write them on the board somewhere so they can see them throughout the week” Week 6 of long practicum

We used much of our circle time discussing issues the students were having in class, and solutions to those concerns. I encouraged everyone to contribute to the discussions, though they always had the right to pass. The students mentioned that they struggled with all the different teaching styles and expectations, and requested that I teach in a more traditional way (straight forward instruction with tests as assessments) as it was something that was familiar. They found the integrated units, project based learning, and inquiry to be too overwhelming at this point in the year. As my primary concern was to create the best learning environment for them, I changed my approach. Their relief was palpable, and in their end of year letters to me, many expressed gratitude for the circles and for their voiced concerns being recognized and acted upon.

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Despite regular circles of dialogue to promote classroom community and approach classroom management proactively, there were still many instances of disconnect between myself and the class as a whole. Consequently, classroom behaviour was a persistent challenge. I believe that if the class had started out with regular classroom circles, and continually touched base as a whole class, the circles would have been more effective in promoting self-discipline. As I came in with only a month of school remaining, there were only a few opportunities for circles of dialogue, and even less after the class voted to have them just once a week. In my future practice, I plan to introduce circles from the beginning and develop their use in the classroom consistently throughout the school year.

Of course, I do not believe circles of dialogue alone are enough to promote a strong sense of community. As indicated in my philosophy, I believe that key features of building classroom community involve giving the students a common goal to work towards, ensuring that each student is important and valuable towards the success of that goal, and having an inherent risk of failure (Linsin, 2009). To achieve this goal, and ultimately a collaborative classroom environment, I designed a French language project where the students were required to work together to design and create a country for our class. The project was inspired by the children’s book, How To Build Your Own Country, and at first generated enthusiasm among the students.  

“The week started out great! The students seemed calm, and although they groaned at the idea of another project, were excited they got to choose which aspect of the project they got to do, and during at least one point in the day I saw students working on their part without being asked (it was a free block). I decided to use a deck of cards, hand out the cards, and allow the students to sign up as I called out random card numbers. It was orderly, and gave the students some choice in their project. The lesson went much longer than anticipated, and therefore I didn’t get around to the criteria or the assessment, but was able to include it into the circle meeting we had later in the day.” Week 6 of long practicum

The project itself was not perfect (as discussed in this section), but did make some contribution to the classroom community, even if that contribution was limited. I think the project had great potential to contribute to classroom community, however the time restraints impaired the effectiveness of the project. Instead of becoming a cross-curricular unifying project, it became an isolated activity that could not be integrated or referred to in other classes because time ran out.

Although the outcome did not have the effect I had anticipated, the project itself still promoted collaboration among all students. The groups had to work together to coordinate their efforts, and present their projects with a unified front. For example, the currency they designed contained images of both the lightning bolt from the country’s flag, and the country’s map, and portions of the country’s national anthem. Similarly, their passport was colour coordinated with the country’s flag.

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Ultimately, I think my initial plan for the project was too ambitious. I had imagined the students finishing their projects in one week, and then building on the joint effort by integrating their projects into other classroom activities thereafter. Instead, the projects took double the time, and once they were fully complete and displayed on the walls there were limited opportunities to actively use what they had created. Ideally, this would be a project done at the beginning of the year, so there is ample time to integrate the students’ contributions to their fictional country.

Both the circles of dialogue and the collaborative project were attempts to proactively address classroom behaviour through the development of community. However, as the practicum continued, I began to realize that these long term, gradual approaches were not as effective in the short-term environment, as both the time constraints and end of year mentality were limiting factors. Ultimately, I began using more reactive approaches to behavioural management, such as incident specific dialogue with either individuals who were particularly disruptive or disrespectful, or with the class as a whole.

“After the incident occurred, I sat down with him and we talked about having to work towards regulating our own behaviour and regulating the behaviour of our group. We talked first about ways we could contribute to group regulation (as self-regulation is a harder thing to tackle), and he indicated that he could “shush” the group when they got noisy, and he could remind the others to be respectful.

During the next lesson, each time he contributed to regulating the group when they started to get out of control, I thanked them for the specific strategy he used, validating that he had correctly identified disrespectful behaviour. I will work on providing him with strategies to self-regulate next week.” Week 6 of long practicum

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The students were highly engaged in the open dialogue, and contributed to great solutions for future self-discipline. The discussions highlighted their thinking process, and demonstrated that they were aware of what needed to be done to self-regulate their behaviour. However, their ability to actively act on their impulses was limited. As such, during one of our circle meetings, we made a behaviour flow chart. The aim of the chart was to scaffold their development of self-discipline through a series of questions and prompts. The poster was a great addition to refer to in the class, as it was co-constructed by the students themselves based on our co-constructed classroom values and expectations.

“The continual calling out and complaining had become a big issue during one of the integrated science classes this week. As a result, I stopped the lesson, sat down, and had a talk with them about how those comments affected me. I explained that the comments were hurtful, as I had put a lot of time and effort into preparing the lessons, and aimed to make them as engaging and interactive as possible. I told them that if the concern was genuine, and they thought that they needed to discuss an issue with me, calling out in front of the entire class is not the way to do it. It puts me on the spot, and the culmination of all the complaining is making me feel defeated. If they had a real issue, I encouraged them to speak with me privately after class. After having this talk, the complaints occurred less, and almost all the students stopped. For the remainder of the week, the students stopped complaining.” Week 6 of long practicum

The open dialogues, either on an individual or classroom level, although reactive and not proactive, were effective means of directly addressing specific behavioural concerns in the class. I believe that a solid combination of proactive and reactive approaches is required for successful classroom management and the maintenance of a positive classroom community.

Classroom Environment- Initial Practicum

As a Teacher Candidate, I was lucky enough to have two significantly different experiences that dramatically highlighted the importance of student-teacher relationships and building trust, respect, and care gradually and purposefully over time. In the initial portion of my practicum, I spent several months in the classroom on a weekly basis, observing, frontloading, and most importantly, talking to the students. I had a chance to develop a vital rapport with the class, which resulted in a mutual understanding about expectations, roles, and values. The latter half of my practicum was radically different, and comparable to the role of a short-term teacher on call (substitute teacher). My introduction to the class was brief, and there was little flexibility in allotting time to actively work with the class to develop our community and relationships. Naturally, there were instances of frustration as we initially found our way together. However, through research, dedication, and continual active reflection, I was able to experiment with various strategies to support my philosophy of classroom environment. Overall, my second practicum contributed to a valuable learning experience that has helped me recognize my strengths and areas of future growth.

Initial Practicum

To see the blog posts about my experiences with classroom environment during my second practicum and my capstone comments, click below:

Second Practicum

Capstone

On the first full day of my practicum, I was actively included into the budding classroom community, which set the tone for my initial practicum experience. Time was set aside for a thorough exchange of introductions, the class made me a large card, and a talking circle was initiated which addressed some expectations of roles and learning in the classroom.

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“I had my first full day with my School Advisor and new class. He was extremely welcoming, and made me feel very comfortable in class. He organized a talking circle where the students got to each tell me what they valued in a teacher. At the end of the exercise they brought out a very large handmade welcome card for me. It really set the tone for my experience in the class, and made me think about how I can do the same for students at the beginning of the year.” Thursday October 16th 2014 

 

 

 

Time and participation in both classroom and school activities played an integral role in my inclusion within, and contributions to the developing community. By attending the school’s opening ceremony, class tours of the school, and participating in the Halloween festivities, I became integrated within the foundations and framework of the community’s success. I believe my appearance at, and participation in, activities outside of the classroom demonstrated my commitment and dedication to our community, and contributed to the respect and trust that developed between myself and the class. My attendance at the student-led parent-teacher conferences further extended my presence from the classroom community to the home environment where parents were able to meet me, in addition to their full-time classroom teacher.

 

“Today, the teachers were fairly tired, as they had parent teacher interviews until past 8pm on Wednesday night. I attended the interviews and was able to meet a few of the parents. The mother of a girl I had explained something to the week before thanked me and said that her daughter now had a much greater understanding of the concepts covered in math. This interaction made me happy, both for the student’s sense of success, my ability to help her become successful, and my inclusion in the student’s stories home; I feel as though I am becoming a member of the community in this classroom.” Thursday October 23rd 2014

 

Although I did not directly coordinate the activities that initiated the development of classroom community, my involvement provided avenues for the formation of positive student-teacher relationships. These avenues began meaningful dialogue, which naturally initiated the process of incorporating student voice (and consequently ownership) within the classroom as I began to increasingly take on the role as classroom teacher.

The Homework Board

 

“When I began to assign homework for the day, the students began to complain. I decided to open the topic up for discussion, and assigned one person as representative to tell me about what other homework they had from other classes. From there, we collectively made a graphic organizer and decided on three options for the current homework situation. We then voted on which situation the students found to be the most realistic in terms of expectations and time required to be successful. The students were happy with the democratic approach, and I could tell they felt respected that their voices were being heard.” Week 2 of long practicum

 

 

The example above was one of the many instances that my acknowledgement of student voice resulted in elevated mutual respect within the classroom. These instances played an important role in both my relationship with the whole class, and my individual relationships with students. Fostering positive relationships with individual students became a priority for me after reading Spirals of Inquiry, which described the story of an experienced English teacher named Brigit that has “influenced many BC inquiry educators” (Halbert & Kaser, 2013).  At the beginning of each year, many students would line up outside the counselor’s office requesting to be placed in Brigit’s English class. The students in her classes rarely skipped, and expressed genuine enthusiasm for her course, resulting in high class participation rates and the highest success rates in the district. After months of inquiry, it was found that Brigit made an explicit effort “to speak with each of her learners every day about some aspect of their personal lives […taking] the few moments available to her as learners came to her class to connect with them” (Halbert & Kaser, 2013).

After reading that article, I made a valiant effort to do the same during my practicum. I found it very difficult to talk to each learner each day, however I made sure to put some time aside to speak with at least two or three students each day. I also began doing “learning check-ins” where I would sit down with one or two students each day during project work time and inquire about how they were feeling about their learning, what they needed in order to be successful, and what plans could be put in place to best improve their learning experience.

In addition to making an effort to speak to each student on a personal level, I found that inquiry based projects also provided me with a lot of information about students’ passions, personalities, strengths and weaknesses. I spent time in conferences with students as they explored their interests, values, mindsets, and goals, making it possible for me to personalize future instruction. Additionally, as inquiry projects are inherently more self-directed, and require self-regulation of student learning, we were able to explore individual learning needs. In order to create the best environment for students to do this, we did several activities to determine students’ metacognition, learning needs, and metamotivation.

I was able to spend several classes exploring these concepts with the class, through activities and discussions pertaining to learner types, learning environments, learning strategies, and reflection. The culminating activity was a detailed learner profile for each student, and they had the option to share their discoveries with the class to build awareness of the diversity in needs. These activities helped students not only recognize what they needed in terms of materials, activities, and environment to best succeed, but also what others needed to best succeed. I believe this played a role in building lasting mutual respect for the members of our community, an understanding of diversity, and a recognition of unique learning journeys.

“My hook for today’s lesson was related to what the class is currently studying in Science (water). I used the subject to illustrate a point about different learning styles. The class indicated that they had previously heard about the types of learners from another class, but they hadn’t done anything with the information. We explored the concepts through stations with just text, just images, just audio, and stations with a small experiment.

I decided to try a “prior activation” approach, as was recommended by Deb. I wrote guiding questions on the board before the stations exercise, and told the class that this is what they should be thinking about while they do the activity, and that we will be discussing the answers to these questions after the activity. It worked very well, and the students all had something to contribute at the end of the activity. It made for good discussion, and allowed the students to make better connections between what they were doing and what they were being asked.

Their final learner profiles took a while for them to complete, but I had scheduled enough time for this based on how they have performed previously on other tasks. There was no stress for them to finish quickly, but I did walk around asking questions to help them stay on task.” Week 1 of long practicum

 

Awareness of stressors and stress reduction was also a focus of creating a positive classroom environment. We did this by taking an in depth look at the brain and the body’s stress pathways. These activities were supported by the MindUp program (Scholastic, 2011), and aimed to reduce the impact of negative emotions on disrupting the learning process (Boekaerts, 2010). By creating healthy mind platters, and exploring ways to find appropriate balance in their lives, students became more aware of the external factors affecting their learning and explored ways to reduce anxiety (such as mindfulness).

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The result of this exploration and front-loading was enhanced compassion and empathy for the various learners in the classroom, ultimately reducing the stress and promoting positive emotions. I believe the result of the positive classroom environment was captured in an observation conducted by my Faculty Advisor (Anecdotal Report – Brittney Merryweather – Apr 16, 2015). Based on literature, and my personal experiences with the success of this program in my practicum, I would love the opportunity to incorporate a mindfulness program into my classroom teachings.