Effective Classroom Management

            As someone who has been coaching middle-school level sports (soccer, basketball, lacrosse, and some limited baseball) for the past three years, I like to think I have a little bit of an idea of how I want to interact with and manage relationships with students once I actually become a real teacher. While I'm sure the transition from middle to high school will come with a bit of learning curve in regards to the maturity (and sometimes lack thereof) of the students, I know from my past experiences working with different personalities in the coaching/teaching world basically who I want to be as a teacher. I've worked with strict disciplinarians, pushovers, and everyone in between, and its helped shape my identity as a coach, and hopefully as a teacher in the future.
          A lot of what "Vice Principal S" said the last visit to District C really resonated with me in this regard, especially the concepts of developing things in common and showing students that you really do remember things they say and do. For example, every season of each sport I coach, I make sure to figure out something each team member is into, whether it be sailing in their spare time, playing Battlefield 3, listening to Miley Cyrus, or anything else; then I make sure to use that as something I can always talk about with that student. I've found that it really helps when trying to get students to listen to you and respect you if they know that you listen to them and take to heart what they say.

          Another concept that I think every teacher absolutely has to stick to is their structure. Going into the field, the teacher has to know ahead of time what they will do in any situation that comes up in the classroom. On the other side of that equation, the students also have to know what the teacher will do. If students know that there will be positive consequences for good behavior, and that the teacher will respect them even in the case of bad behavior, they are much more likely to follow the teacher's lead. This ties into another thing that Vice Principal S said last week that I thought was vitally important: every day is a new day. It is the teacher's responsibility to come in every day fresh, not to hold grudges or some sort of vendetta against a student. Most, if not all of the time, students who misbehave or disrespect the teacher aren't doing it because they don't like you; they are doing it because they don't know or haven't been taught the proper way to conduct themselves. Make each day a fresh one and let the students know that you are, and the problems will decrease. There is a good discussion amongst secondary school teachers about keeping a level head in the classroom here.

The Importance of Mindfulness as a Teacher and Student

            Everyone suffers from stress at some point in their lives, and deal with it in different ways. Some become masterful organizers and make sure to plan for personal leisure time, some get frustrated and just make the best of it, and some deal with it in unhealthy outlets like smoking or drinking. As a future teacher and current student, the concept of mindfulness, and the need for reflection is vitally important. I've seen many occasions, from my past experience in high school to current classes at RIC in which a teacher is visibly frazzled, and it does affect the class, whether they notice it or not. As someone who wants to create a classroom atmosphere that is calm and inviting to students; a place where students should feel more at home than at school, I know I need to find ways to avoid bringing my own personal stresses into the classroom.
             The article assigned by Dr. Holtzmann last week illustrates how teachers can begin to integrate mindfulness activities into their classrooms through few different methods. I thought the idea of a "still quiet place" was a pretty cool one; and one I thought that anyone could incorporate into their lives. I've heard before that if you take just five or ten minutes each day and do absolutely nothing (and I mean nothing-no phones, no TV, no reading, etc.), it can drastically improve your outlook and productivity. The idea of having a class where if a student is stressed, they are allowed to take a few minutes and just relax is appealing to me, and I would assume students too. Each day, a high school student has to navigate somewhere between four and six different subjects, while simultaneously managing their social lives and whatever else they might have going on outside the school building. It's easy to see why some students respond by acting out or neglecting work they might see as tedious. As a teacher, I think it's important to be able to acknowledge this perspective, and allow our students to take a break if they need it.

              Now more than ever, with high-stakes testing riddling student's (and teacher's) already-packed curriculum and, as the article stated, epidemic levels of attention disorders, eating disorders, and other self-destructive behaviors affecting students, teachers need to be mindful of themselves and their students. Attached is a relatively short video produced by the ever-prescient and intelligent "Ted Talks," in which mindfulness in classrooms is discussed.

SED407 at RIC vs. SED407 at District C

When we met last week at RIC, it got me thinking about whether I liked class better in the field or in the more traditional sense at RIC. The answer was actually quite obvious-class at District C is lightyears better than having an hour and a half of theory twice a week, because actually spending between 1-2 hours in a real high-school classroom, especially in a high school as diverse as District C is a great experience for any future teacher. When I've spoken with students from other colleges in the area, it seems like the vast majority of them don't end up seeing a real classroom until practicum begins; instead, they spend their first 2-3 years of college inundated with pedagogy and classroom strategy, and then are asked to unveil all their methods and expertise abruptly when practicum begins. This is a curriculum that unfortunately, I can't agree with. Especially now with the innovation lab, RIC students will spend extensive time in a variety of classrooms before they even get into practicum. From volunteering for Inspiring Minds in FNED346, observing in SED406, and now participating in something as fresh and innovative as the District C/RIC collaboration, teacher candidates from RIC are getting the full immersion. One thing I was just a little concerned about was the little strategies we were presumably missing out on learning because we spend all our time observing and discussing. Luckily, we got the chance to have the one class at RIC last week, and it included some great teaching strategies, especially in the realm of cooperative learning and how to use it effectively. The squares activity was fun and provided defined tasks for every student to complete, which is something you don't always see when it comes to cooperative learning in the classroom. All in all, however, I feel like the experience we are getting by forgoing some theory in exchange for actual field interaction with students is invaluable and that we will better understand how effective teaching works for this experience.

My First Experience in an ESL Classroom

Up until last week, our SED407 class had mostly been observing classrooms in small groups with the supervision of either our professor or one of the Innovation Lab coordinators. However, last week we finally were able to break off into pairs and observe classrooms on our own. To add another layer of intrigue, we were visiting ELL classrooms for the first time in many of our college careers. Going into the observations, I felt a little hesitant-I expected the students to be a little more difficult, the work to be strenuous and the understanding between the teacher and students to be minimal. However, I was pleasantly surprised after completing the observations. The majority of the ELLs were totally engaged in the work the teacher had assigned/was facilitating. Not only that, but when I spoke with students in the classroom, they weren't hesitant in the least to show me their work, tell me about themselves, and generally engage in brief discussion with someone they had never met before in their lives. This, to me, was a sharp contrast with my expectations. The perception I had always gotten about ELLs from teachers I have spoken with was that they were difficult students, and that teaching them effectively was a really tough proposition. Now, however, I could definitely see myself getting an ESL certification so that I could work with these students in the future. It is rare that you see students that immersed in their learning, and it was a bright spot to me so far in the District C experience. For teachers (or future teachers) who are looking to improve their knowledge of foreign languages without committing too much money to something like Rosetta Stone or comparable programs, there is a great new website, which also has an easy-to-use app for phones, called "Duolingo". This website was developed by a computer science professor and software developer from Guatemala named Luis von Ahn. The link provided goes to a page where von Ahn discusses the website and how it works. Did I mention its totally FREE?

How Much Screen Time Should Students Have?

As an intro to what I'm going to discuss, click this link!

As we all know, electronics in the past decade or so have come to dominate people's lives. It seems wherever I go these days, I pass dozens of people staring down at their phones, or at their iPads, or any other variety of attention-grabbing gizmos. So when I hear teachers talk about "flipping" their classrooms, or discussing the need to integrate technology further into their classrooms, I am not totally sure how to feel. Statistics show that kids spend up to TEN FREAKING HOURS A DAY looking at some sort of screen, whether that be for educational use or entertainment. They play games, watch videos, and engage in what sometimes is the entirety of their social life on these gadgets. While technology is unbelievably convenient, and students definitely need to know the ins and outs of modern technology to be prepared for life outside academia, I can't help but think that sometimes they need a break. Not to say that teachers should avoid using these technologies, but that they should avoid them unless they are actually serving a legitimate educational purpose. Playing more games, despite their educational tilt, is overkill, in my opinion, and the opinion of the author of this article. When using screens, students should be creating something, whether it be a video, a song, a website, and beyond. These are the skills that they will need once they graduate, not how to use apps and games to learn the presidents of the U.S.