EDUC 308- Classroom Management

  Rewards If there is one thing that seems consistent across elementary classrooms everywhere, it is the pervasive use of reward systems. How do you plan to use them? If not at all, why not? If some, how? If you plan to use them a lot, what is your evidence for why that is the best plan? Reward systems bring me a lot of mixed emotions when considering the implementation of them in my future classroom. The last question feels the easiest to answer: I would never use rewards consistently. However, I wouldn't completely remove them altogether. The problem with rewards are the emphasis on extrinsic motivation rather than intrinsic. While of course we want to motivate the involvement and success of our students, we don't want to engrave the idea that things are only worth doing when they get something out of it. Teaching intrinsic motivation and allowing students to develop their own values and priorities are key life skills they will use in the future. Outside of the classroom, the...

 Classroom Rules Poor Example: There are actually a few things that I am not too fond about in regards to this set of rules. First, many of them take a negative approach. In specific, the first rule states "listen the FIRST time." which appears as if the teacher is coming across aggressive or annoyed. I think there was a much more positive way a majority of these rules could be written. Rather than discouraging negative behavior, this teacher would have been better off encouraging positive behavior. If I were in this class, I wouldn't want to participate as often and I surely would do things based on the emotion of fear more so than incentive. In addition, I didn't like that the teacher wrote a list of consequences right beside them. It gives the assumption that the teacher expects students to act poorly hence why they have a pre-determined plan to get them in trouble. Going hand in hand with this, while the reward is positive, it teaches students to behave with the e...

  Blog #2 Garrett's (2008) article suggests that the philosophy we adopt in our teaching should align with the philosophy we embrace in our management - but, many teachers who believe in student-centered learning struggle to give up teacher-centered management. What do you think about Garrett's premise? Why do you think teachers struggle with this? I absolutely agree with Garrett's philosophy that our teaching style should align with our management philosophies. The answer is simple, students need consistency. For example, the article examined three different teachers. Two used student centered management with student led learning, while the third, Mike, used teacher led management with student led learning. While it is proven that it is possible to intermix your management and teaching style, it is questioned whether or not this comes with a cost. One thing that Mike's classroom gained was increased time for academic learning. However, it lost the social-emotional lear...

  Classroom Management 101 Going into this course, I felt like classroom management was very self explanatory and was not something I poured a lot of thought into. Being someone who is intrinsically motivated to follow the rules regardless, I never considered those who do not have the same drive to do so. I always knew I would implement rules within my classroom and assumed they would be the same guidelines that students encountered in every other class. However, now that I am developing deeper thoughts surrounding the subject, I have a few things that have been both reassured and built on. For starters, I've learned the value in allowing students to play a role in dictating their own classroom policies. Not only does this give them an environment they feel like they contributed to, but it also gives them incentive to abide by the rules they created. In addition to this, a variety of great opportunities for leadership roles, relationship building, communication practice, and in som...