9/28/12

I am really glad we got the opportunity to go into the classroom for a full week. I think I learned a lot more about the way my teachers classroom functions and about the kids this week. I think it was nice to see the way the classroom functions on a day other than Friday. I know that Fridays are always a little crazy in the classroom. For example, today we had family picnic at lunch and an assembly in the afternoon. It was hard to get anything done today because there were so many other things going on in the classroom. I was impressed how my teacher kept up her classroom management today even with all the craziness.

My CMT has great classroom management. I noticed at the beginning of the year the students didn’t listen to her as well. Now that it is getting into the year the students are very well behaved. I think my teacher has established great rapport with the students. My CMT gives the students a lot of different privilages and I think it helps them appreciate her. She also just has a great way of talking and getting along with the students.

I believe a lot of my CMT’s classroom management skills have to do with the norms of her classroom. One of her norms is the use of sign language to communicate with her. This causes there to be less noise in the classroom because students do not need to yell things they just sign. It also allows my CMT to not have a crowd of students standing at her side constantly asking her to go to the bathroom. I think it is a great skill because it helps meet the needs of the students in the least disruptive way possible.

I also noticed that students know if they do things right in the classroom they will most likely be rewarded in some way. This is a norm for the classroom. The teacher has high expectations and there are certain things students get for following directions. One reward system she has set up in her classroom  uses poker chips. Each student has a number. When my CMT notices a student doing really well at something she will ask them their number. When they answer she takes a poker chip that has the corresponding number and puts it in a jar. Then when she has something that everyone wants to do in the classroom she pulls a poker chip from that jar. It is interesting to see how the students react to that jar. They all want to be noticed and appreciated for their behavior. It is a classroom management tool that works really well for my teacher.

There is also a norm of respecting everyone in my CMT’s classroom. I noticed it right away. The school motto  is said every morning and it deals with respect. I noticed that my CMT expects the children to say thank you from her students when she hands them things. My CMT also talks about how to be respectful to adults and how smiling or saying hello to an adult can make them feel good. My teacher is respectful to the students and she expects respect in return.