This week it has become more apparent than ever how important it is to have good classroom managment. We have been asked to perform certain management tasks, video or picture document these tasks, observe our CT's performing these tasks, and reflect on our own performance. Since Cunningham and Allington's text said that “teacher read-alouds have been shown to be one of the major motivators for children’s desire to read", I chose to perform a read-aloud as my management task. The first thing I noticed about my read-aloud attempt was that there are no specific procedures or rules listed in my CT's classroom for me to refer to when the children get a little distracted or excited. And it is hard to control a classroom when you have no list of expectations to hold them accountable to during a specific activity. This being said, my first attempt at a read alound was far from perfect, and the kids were not as attentive or cooperative as I would have liked. The only light at the end of my tunnel was the reading we did for Classroom Management about building respectful, caring relationships with our students. In Elementary Classroom Management (Weinstein, Romano, Mignano Jr), there is a section about establishing and enforcing clear expectations for behavior. In this section we go over how to be fair, be a real person, and share responsibility with the students. After reading I gained some insight on how to handle my next 2 attempts at this same task. By the 3rd attempt I was able to just talk to the kids about my expectations, and let them know that I trusted them to behave and pay attention, and I also developed a little activity for us to do together during the reading to make sure that they would pay attention. We still have not reached perfection, but these relationships with our students are not just built over night. In all I think that the kids appreciated me just getting on their level and talking to them like a real person and letting them know that I had confidence in their ability to get throught the activity smoothly. We're just getting started, and I have such a long way to go, but the path in which I should travel gets a little more clear each week.
1 Comment
|