Learning Outcome 1
Observe and make notes on classroom management strategies and their impact on student engagement, the appropriateness of the resources you have used, the need for in-the-moment progress checks on learning during the lesson and the need for additional supports to ensure a productive and engaged learning experience.
Classroom management
In a lot of ways, this was the aspect I struggled with the most, and therefore thought about most, in my placement. Funny enough, I thought lesson planning would be the hardest part of being a teacher. Yet through this section, I want to consider what became, for me, the most difficult hurdle: managing the classroom. I will describe two meaningful wins I created in this space and share the insights I gained along the way. The two takeaways from these accomplishments are realizing the significance of being equipped with proper tools and knowing that teachers must be adaptable.
The need for purposeful use of tools & Flexibility of Lesson
There is surely no doubt that we gain in many parts of our lives as technology advances — and I entirely agree with that. There are a number of students in my class who are struggling with reading. Some can’t read no matter what grade level they’re in, and some are brand-new to English, while others are so bogged down by academic stress that when asked to read, they simply go blank. As a result, I understood that I had to be competent in utilizing different technological resources to assist them. I put into practice many of the tools that my colleagues recommended, through audiovisual means or Chrome extensions supplied by Google. These would be lesson tools, I decided, not classroom management tools.
I reminded myself that I could not base my lessons on the progress of just a few of my students. I always thought that as a teacher I needed to hold student focus and concentration for the lesson. Which is why, in the early going, I made my lessons tight and rapid-fire, trying to deliver as much content as efficiently as possible. This philosophy was manifested in my condensed PowerPoint slides and texts. But the outcomes were not what I expected. It did not help, most of the students stress out from a surplus of information, and many times I lost control of the lesson.
That's when I realized that I needed a management tool for the whole class — something simple! First I would tap out clapping patterns, and then I added a little bell to help call back students who were starting to drift off. One student can stay focused much longer than another, but more importantly, their ability to retain information varies obnoxiously. This experience caused me to think about the second key outcome of my placement: how important flexibility is in delivery of lessons.
I thought my lesson plans were well thought out, logical; however, in the classroom, not a single lesson ever went according to plan. Some of this was undoubtedly due to my own inexperience as an early career teacher, but I also learned that student learning was related to many external variables. Some students were absent, some were mentally or emotionally ready to lean in, and others were raring to go. These differences in readiness and engagement meant I needed to open up my lessons — to design them not for maximum content delivery, but for a wider range of learning styles and paces.
Instead of arranging for the most efficient use of my instruction, I started thinking of how lessons would enable students to absorb information at their own pace and interact with content in ways that felt right to them. This realization made it clear to me that flexibility, rather than control, is often the crux of good teaching.
