My Final Single Day Visit!

Today was the 6^th and final day of my day-a-week prac visits. It was also my first experience at teaching an official lesson! Luckily, it went better than I expected and the kindergartens exceeded my expectations. I did not go crazy attempting to manage the class and for this I can only thank the incredibly useful tips I have learnt from university. Below are the strategies I employed for classroom management:

•  I began the lesson with a review of the classroom rules which were in full view for the students to see throughout the lesson 
• Any students who were being disruptive were asked to sit elsewhere
• When sending students back to their seats, they were sent off in small groups at a time rather than the whole class transitioning together
•  Positive appraisals were given for any good work or behaviour

 Rudolph Dreiker developed a model which outlines the four outcomes of student behaviour – attention seeking, power, revenge and escape (Konza, Grainger, & Bradshaw, 2004) . Even when I am not teaching a lesson, I still find myself getting caught up trying to deal with these behaviours effectively. Below are Dreiker’s suggestions for appropriately responding to these behaviours:

-        Always ignore attention seeking behaviour

-        Do not engage in power struggles

-        Don’t allow yourself to be upset by students wanting revenge. Instead, find a way to convince them that they can belong if they interact positively with other students.

-        Avoid feeling as though a student is “helpless” and encourage any positive efforts. 

I did not have any major issues when doing my lesson today, but when I have taken on small groups I have found it a struggle to follow these suggestions. I acknowledge that this is something I need to work on and I believe it can only come with experience. We are all going to make mistakes when starting out, but it’s a matter of learning from them and doing the research to better yourself professionally. I cannot wait until the day I master these skills!

We won't always have a classroom that looks like this...But we can try!

References

Konza, D., Grainger, J., & Bradshaw, K. (2004). Existing models of behaviour management. In  Classroom Management: A Survival Guide (pp. 79-100). Social Science Press.

My Fifth Practical Lesson

Funnily enough, after my last post venting about the lack of ICT use in the classroom, the teacher this time used a digital reading book on the interactive whiteboard! I was very happy to see this and was even more pleased to see the students’ engagement with it. The story read was called “Jumping Beans” (derived from the Sunshine Online site at http://www.sunshineonline.com.au/) and contained text-related pictures which moved after the text was read as well as a highlight of the words as they were read. This lesson was by far one of the most successful I had seen so far in the classroom. Even the typical behaviourally difficult children were transfixed as they read along with the teacher and it noticeably helped with their comprehension as well as their reading skills. This is most definitely a fantastic tool I will be using as a teacher.

Another observation I made was the difference in the children’s behaviour when a casual teacher is taking over. The difference is tremendous. Due to other commitments my teacher was unavailable to conduct the “news” lesson this week. A casual teacher therefore took over for this lesson and she had a great deal of difficulty attempting to manage the children who decided it was time to do as they liked. One thing I noticed about her was that she did not hold a very strong presence of authority. It has been found that teachers often cause discipline problems themselves (Edwards & Watts, 2004) and I believe that the first step in being able to manage a class is making sure children know who’s boss.

Now classroom management is contained within Element 5: Aspect 5.1.5 of the Professional Teaching Elements (Demonstrate knowledge of practical approaches to managing student behaviour and their applications in the classroom) and it holds great importance. Once of the reasons for this is because a large proportion of teachers leave the profession within the first 5 years of teaching due to the stresses of classroom management (Wilhelm, Dewhurst-Savellis & Parker, 2000). This is a terrible statistic and one that needs to change urgently. I am certain that if teachers do the research and attempt to employ good management strategies this statistic will be greatly reduced. Below is a short YouTube clip which outlines four strategies for creating effective classroom management.

References

Edwards, C. & Watts, V. (2004). Discipline problems and their causes. In Classroom Discipline & Management: An Australasian Perspective (pp. 3-17). New York: John Wiley & Sons.

Wilhelm, K., Dewhurst-Savellis, J., & Parker, G. (2000). Teacher stress: An analysis of why teachers leave and why they stay. Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice, 6(3), 291-304. doi: 10.1080/713698734

The Fourth Prac

I must say I have been disappointed to still not have had a chance to see the SmartBoard in action. Unfortunately, this is actually quite common and many teachers tend to neglect ICT in the classroom (Monteith, 2002). I am surprised as ICT is an important section of the NSW Institute of Teachers’ Professional Teaching Elements. It is contained within Element 4: Aspect 4.1.5 (Use a range of teaching strategies and resources including ICT and other technologies to foster interest and support learning). In an increasingly technological world, it is (to put it bluntly) simply impractical to not include ICT within the classroom. Due to the amount of technology children are surrounded with today, it is actually quite appropriate to include ICT within the classroom (Fellowes & Oakley, 2010). I believe it has so much potential to make learning fun yet effective, and children need to develop an interest in engaging with technology on an educational level. I had grown up with a slight fear of technology as I only had minimal exposure to it during my school years. This is certainly not something I would want to pass on to my students, so I have made a mental promise to include plenty of ICT in my teaching!

I came across the Storybird website and was impressed by what it had to offer for reading activities. This site allows you to view other people’s stories and to make your own! It’s a great way for teachers to create their own stories which may include sight words along with a topic the children have been learning about. Additionally, it allows students to actively create their own StoryBird by first selecting pictures on the site and developing their own storyline. Below is a link to the StoryBird website:

http://storybird.com/

I am also very passionate about using the interactive whiteboard in the classroom. When I first came across it I was very impressed and quite excited to include it in my own teaching repertoire! It allows you to create your own educational programs or even find some online. Below is a link to a site which has extra resources for each subject.

http://www.topmarks.co.uk/Interactive.aspx

References

Fellowes, J. & Oakley, G. (2010). Language, literacy and early childhood education. Melbourne: Oxford University Press.

Monteith, M. (2002). Teaching primary literacy with ICT. Philadelphia: Open University Press.

Practical Number Three

This week’s practical was yet another enjoyable experience. This time I took on a small writing activity where I taught groups with approximately 5 students at a time. I was required to teach the kindergarten children the basics of writing a capital “D” and a lower-case “d”. It was quite amusing to see how they wrote the letters! The capital “D” wasn’t too much of a problem but most of the students’ lower-case “d’s” were the wrong way around! What made it quite comical to me was the way one of my boys had scoffed at the given task of writing lines because “he already had done it” then proceeded to write “d” in a reverse position. The joys of kindergarten!

Another interesting moment was to see the practice of Bloom’s Taxonomy being put into place. Below is a Bloom's Taxonomy tree developed by Kelly Tenkely, a former primary school teacher. It is a great outline of the ways we can get children to develop higher order thinking skills.

I had wondered how exactly this concept would be applied when teaching young kindergarten children. My practical teacher had incorporated this model when teaching her science lesson. The children were asked to discuss with a partner what pets they had at home. Then, the teacher created a list of all the students’ pets. So as you can imagine, the initial questioning was simple and fact-based, requiring a simple recall of their pets. The teacher then progressed to higher order thinking (analysing) by then asking the students to think about what different foods and drinks these animals might consume. They had to think hard about that question!

Through this particular lesson, and judging from my practical teacher’s overall teaching standards, I believe she is a great example for demonstrating professional competence in Element 2: Aspect 2.2.2 of the Professional Teaching Standards (Apply knowledge of the typical stages of students’ physical, social, and intellectual development as well as an awareness of exceptions to general patterns). For me, it has been a surprising experience to see how basic kindergarten teaching needs to be. I had forgotten how much they actually need to be taught and what they need to be taught, so it is great to be able to observe a teacher who understands their needs well.

Until next week!

References
Bloom's Taxonomy Bloomin' Tree.(2010, September 20). Retrieved April 3, 2011, from iLearn Technology blog site: http://ilearntechnology.com/?s=bloom&x=0&y=0

Practical Number Two

And so this week I completed my second day of practical. It was nonetheless another great learning experience for me and by this stage I am actually starting to remember names! I must say though, what stood out for me today was the mathematics lesson as it was a great opportunity for me to see co-operative learning put into practice. I was in charge of one of three groups (which rotated around the room), with my group activity involving a game using counters and dice. This was done in pairs which allowed the students a great opportunity to work on their turn-taking skills with peers they weren’t too familiar with. Through this method they also worked on improving their social skills (Arthur, Gordon & Butterfield, 2003) and the academics of mathematics in a fun and achievable way without even realising it! Below is an interesting model of co-operative learning called the "PIGS of Cooperative Learning" (from Pedagogy website) It's an odd model but I think it reflects this concept very well.

Now my experience managing each group of approximately 15 kindergarten children is another story (and ofcourse learning experience). Let’s just say I have a new-found respect for kindergarten teachers! I was able to work on Element 5, Aspect 5.1.5 of the NSW Institute of Teachers’ Professional Teaching Elements (Demonstrate knowledge of practical approaches to managing student behavior and their applications in the classroom). My first group of students were quite excited at the prospect of not doing “work”. And from there things got slightly out of hand (yes, that may be an understatement). Dice were being thrown across the room and counters were magically disappearing. However, by my last and final group I had mastered the art of control. How? Simply by physically arranging the students in a different manner. Rather than allowing them to sit where they liked, I lined them up into two neat lines facing each other and it was in that arrangement that they sat. It worked incredibly well and I now truly understand how crucial classroom management is!

Stay posted for next week’s practical.

References

Arthur, M., Gordon, C., & Butterfield, N. (2003). The impact of curriculum and instruction. In Classroom Management: Creating Positive Learning Environments (pp43-52). Thompson: Southbank, Victoria.
Social Interactive Model. Retrieved March 25, 2011, from 
http://pedagogy21.pbworks.com/w/page/15478348/Social-Interactive-Model

My first day of practical!

I had my first day of practical teaching  yesterday with a wonderful group of 42 kindergarten children! It was quite intriguing to see how the teachers juggled teaching with the numerous complaints of “sore” eyes, arms, feet, teeth etc. Additionally, there were the never-ending requests to visit the bathroom or to get a drink. And as if that isn’t enough, there were also the special needs children to attend to! I must say it was a huge eye-opener as to the reality of teaching and the huge responsibilities teachers are faced with. I also came to understand how crucial good classroom management is and how necessary it is to implement excellent teaching strategies.

Direct instruction is a teaching strategy which was used by the classroom teacher and has often been criticised and frowned upon in our current society (Killen, 2007). However, I do believe it does have its benefits especially when dealing with a class of kindergarten students. After a good discussion with one of the classroom teachers, I discovered how great the variations in academic levels are between children starting out school. It is huge! Some begin school not knowing any of the alphabet whilst others arrive nearly knowing the whole alphabet. In order to bring students up to roughly the same level, I do believe direct instruction is important to teach the basics. This is not to say that getting children actively involved in discussions or group activities is a no-no. I am simply saying that kindergarten may perhaps need more direct instruction than the older grades.

Other strategies which were prevalent within the teacher’s lesson were the use of probes and the teacher’s level of enthusiasm. I found her use of probes quite effective as they were specific and thus directed the children onto the right path. It enabled the students to remember more clearly and efficiently, thus fostering their learning. And ofcourse, the level of enthusiasm displayed by the classroom teachers was phenomenal. Again this is so important as it plays a significant role in getting children to focus.

All in all, my first practical experience was an enjoyable one. I learned much from it and I’m sure I will keep learning in the following weeks to come!

References
Killen, R. (2007). Using direct instruction as a teaching strategy. In  Effective Teaching Strategies: Lessons from Research and Practice, (4th ed.), (pp 101-124). Thompson Social Science Press.