School Prac Visit 3

23^rd April 2010

I thought I would dedicate this reflection to my teaching lesson. Today, I was to deliver a 1 hour mathematics lesson to my ES1 students. The topic: ‘Thick and Thin’. I won’t go into details of what I taught in the lesson to achieve the lesson outcome as the feedback from my colleague teacher was that the lesson activities and resources I provided were excellent. What I would like to discuss however, is the overall frustration and slight shock that I felt in managing a classroom of 30 kindergarten students. In the back of my mind I was always aware that classroom management would be somewhat of a challenge however, in my experience on this day I felt like I had walked directly into a scene from Kindergarten Cop! Unfortunately, managing smaller groups of students during rotational activities at a specific work station is nothing like standing up in front of a classroom and managing these same students collectively during a lesson.

As my colleague teacher graciously put it I needed to, “work on my classroom management skills and timing”. Had I stepped into her shoes however, I probably would have been more forthright in delivering my criticisms.

The lesson began quite well with the first activity. Students were to use playdough at their desks to make a thin and a thick snake. This activity was relatively simple but I underestimated the time that my students would take to complete this task, most probably due to my lack of experience of dealing with the very short and virtually non-existent attention spans of these 5 year olds. The students finished the activity relatively quickly which meant they became bored and started to become restless and cause distractions. At times my lack of voice projection also meant that students were unable to hear me properly and therefore lost their focus for the rest of the lesson. This didn’t seem to be a problem with the girls as they were in fact all very well behaved but the boys adopted attention-seeking behaviour and resorted to yelling out answers without raising their hand, one male student yelled out irrelevant answers; touching equipment when told not to and at one stage the boys broke out into a chant of ‘thick-thin…’. One of the most difficult things was remembering all the student names. This meant that it was also difficult to draw on the attention of some disruptive students when I tried to enforce discipline. Tactics I employed at the time included:

- stopping the lesson until I had regained their attention. This worked initially but did not thereafter. Probably a bad idea. I don’t think ‘waiting’ for any kindergarten student achieves anything.

- raising my arms in the air and twinkling my fingers followed by clapping rhythmically. This technique worked quite well when used by my colleague teacher however, did not work as well with some students when I tried it. One student did not follow the pattern of the beat and would purposely adopt his own clapping pace.

- Giving a warning and enforcing consequences if a student didn’t stop the disruptive behaviour on a count of three. This seemed to work but was not enough.

All in all I was very disappointed with the outcome of the lesson as it had the potential to provide a wonderful learning experience for the students that did want to learn. I was however, grateful for the experience as it gave me a realistic idea of the things that needed to be addressed both for myself as an educator and for the students in the classroom. There are many things I feel I could have done differently. Perhaps not emphasizing poor behaviour as much and instead focusing on good student behaviour; implementing praise and encouragement and describing why the student behaviour is valued; finally, familiarizing myself with student profiles. That is, a few students have a certain history of familial problems or are developmentally delayed. Had I been aware of this information, I may have adequately prepared myself with management strategies to address behavioural issues from these students. One thing I did conclude from this experience however is that students appear to demonstrate a certain kind of implicit respect for their classroom teacher as opposed to a casual or student teacher. I hope I can prove myself wrong on this point. I guess I will find out when I conduct my next lesson on 28^th May.

Following my lesson, I took notes of the strategies used by my colleague teacher to manage behaviour in the classroom. These are listed as follows:

- approach student. Deliver long, wide-eyed and stern stare

- stern, assertive, clear, loud voice to deliver disciplinary verbal cue

- maintain student attention during lesson by delivering short, quick instructions; use lots of facial expression, an expressive voice and hand actions when describing things

- where necessary, come down to student level to deliver verbal disciplinary cue

- students that call out without raising their hand are excluded. Student told to stand up and move away from the group. They are told that they are no longer a part of the lesson.

- students that raise their hands to discuss other things that divert from the question at hand get the teacher response: “That was not the question and you’re not answering it”. Teacher quickly moves on to the next student.

- students that raise their hands without having an answer ready first get the following teacher response: “Do not put up your hand unless you have an answer ready!”

- the teacher demonstrated that even with her back turned to the class, she was continually listening for distractions and addressing them promptly

- verbal praise was given (and a gold star to add to student Star Book) with the teacher describing the good behaviour demonstrated by the student: “Good. You were listening to instructions”; “X gets a gold star because he was minding his own business and didn’t turn around like everyone else when Y was being disruptive”

- during group activities, expedite teacher roaming and assessing progress of student work meant there was no time for students to slack off or cause trouble

- student attention was gained by rhythmic clapping above head

- the 5 L’s: Look, Listen, Lips (quiet), Lap (hands folded), Legs (forward)

- praise of groups as well as individuals. Group praise resulted in table points.

- Hands that were raised in the middle of a lesson without a question asked by the teacher were ignored or waved down.

Helpful resources include:

Edwards, C., & Watts, V. (2004). Discipline Problems and Their Causes. In Effective Teaching and Professional Practice handbook, (pp173-180). Australian Catholic University Ltd, North Sydney.

Konza, D., Grainger, J. & Bradshaw, K. (2004). Existing Models of Behaviour Management. In Effective Teaching and Professional Practice Handbook, (181-192). Australian Catholic University Ltd, North Sydney.

I found the various models of behaviour management quite informative in their content. It is useful to extrapolate points from these models and apply the strategies offered in the appropriate context.

websites:

http://www.behaviour.com.au/hcentre.htm

http://www.proteacher.org/c/507_Attention_Signals__Quiet_Signals.html

http://www.learningplace.com.au/deliver/content.asp?pid=2010

http://712educators.about.com/od/discipline/a/student_conduct.htm

Finally, practice, practice, practice! And seek advice where necessary.