In the very beginning of this reading, there was a story about the child named Matthew. After reading this I section, I thought about all the children in my classroom. It made me start wondering. Why do they do the things they do? Are there things that cause them to do stuff? What can I do to prevent them from happening? During the part about Matthew, I kept thinking ‘well why is he getting up?’ Sometimes we just assume they are misbehaving for no reason, but as teachers we have to really analyze what is going on in the classroom environment and see if it has anything to do with the way a child is acting.
Another section I liked was the data collection section. When I looked at all of the strategy models, I was thinking that they are not practical for teachers. As I read further I found where they gave more convenient ways to keep records. My favorite strategy was moving a paper clip from one pocket to another every time the child does the specific action. This seemed to be easier for a teacher to do during the course of the day instead of carrying a chart around all day.
One of the other very important parts of this reading for me was the section talking about relationship-building strategies. We all know that when a teacher takes the time and effort to get to know their students as human beings and not just students that there are no limits for what the children can do. Sometimes a good relationship between the child and the teacher is all that it takes to help the child succeed in the classroom. Right now I am working on building this type of relationship with my case study. I am hoping that the more I know about this child, the more I will be able to know how to help him feel comfortable and achieve success in the class.
Amanda,
I like that you mentioned the ease of the strategies that the article included. Sometimes it seems that in order to be “good teachers” we are supposed to be taking a million assessments (formal and informal) of all of our students every day. This is pretty overwhelming. However, if we are able to find small, easy solutions to keeping track of this sort of information, we will not only be more organized, but we will be better informed, and therefore more effective in our differentiated teaching.
Building relationships is definitely something I have learned alot about this year as well. I can definitely say that having small moments with some of my children on a daily basis has made a difference in how they react and respond to me. For example, some of my students are definitely more apt to interacting with me now than they were at the beginning of the year because I have taken time to get to know them and they are able to trust me. It’s a great feeling for sure.
Melissa
I really appreciate your interest in figuring out why the students do what they do. I have found it hard to remember to do this during the actual instructional day. Sometimes it is all too easy to get frustrated when they aren’t listening or their behaviors aren’t appropriate. Have you thought about using the paperclip idea for your data collection for the case study? I wonder how that would even work. What grade are you in?
I too liked the practicality of some of the Salend chapter. I think your idea of easily applied note taking can also be applied to Salend’s reward section. We have all been scared away from stickers and straws because we will never remember to do it. Salend’s strategies didn’t seem that difficult. Maybe I was just getting sucked in but I really believed that I could handle what the text was telling me