Introduction
Throughout my undergraduate career, there have been many skills and strategies that I learned that can be used to help me on my path to become a teacher. Skill after skill was taught in hope that when we become teachers, we are able to have the “perfect” classroom. Nothing would ever prepare me for the world of teaching as much as actually experiencing the life of a teacher would. I learned new things about teaching and am still learning the same way I learn in classes, which is visually and hands on. Having been put in a classroom has given me more insight and a better ability to see what exactly my strength and weaknesses are when in a classroom. Knowing my strength and weaknesses not only helps me with improving in this particular lesson, but all future lessons that I will have to teach throughout my clinical practice and future teaching career. This assignment has allowed me to examine where I am when it comes to working in a classroom and how I can improve my abilities.
I have been really lucky in the classroom I was placed in for clinical practice. My cooperating teacher has been nothing short of amazing, always willing to help me and giving me great advice. She gave me this advice and has been so willing to help because she did not want my experience to be liked hers because she had gotten no help at all. She was left to do it on her own and said her experience was a horrible one. My teacher has been in the education field for about 13 years. Her first few years she was between First Grade and Kindergarten before remaining in Pre-K. My school is located in Bayonne, New Jersey and is Pre-K-8 public school. The grade level I was placed in was a Pre-K and the class is a general education class. This Pre-K classroom is split between morning and afternoon, unlike the older grades which go all day nonstop. The age range of the children in my classroom is four to five years old. In both classes there are 18 children and both classes have more girls than boys. I decided to record a math lesson that I taught to both the morning and afternoon class. This math lesson was about shapes and helping the children being able to recognize each shape and be able to identify their names. The shapes that were available were square, triangle, rectangle, and circle. Each shape had their own color so that it was easier for the kids to be able to participate if they were not able to name the shapes yet.
Strengths
Instructional:
The first area I decided to reflect on was my Instructional Strengths. The first instructional strength that was shown in my lesson was student engagement. I was able to keep the students engaged the whole lesson. I made it so that there was no loss of interest anywhere and each child was participating in all aspects of the lesson. It wasn’t my first time teaching a lesson, so I was a little more familiar with the children and how to keep their attention to me as I went about the movements and singing of “Hokey Pokey.” As stated in my introduction, the point of the lesson was to help the children recognize the shapes and their names.
Having students engaged completely in a lesson is very beneficial for them because they get the full scope of learning that they need. Their focus is on what is being taught, which helps them absorb what is being taught. Another effect of the strength is that they are able to identify shapes with no problems because they are so focused. Having students engaged is such an important aspect because of the positive effects it has on them and because that is what makes a lesson successful. One example of this strength was when I practiced the song to help students learn it. I got their attention by telling them we were going to learn a new song and showing them how it goes, which was successful as they all engaged in the activity. The effect it had on the students was that they were engaged and were able to participate with each shape. This strength is one of my most important strengths because it helps the students learn and because that is one thing that I’ve been taught needs to happen throughout my education. Every professor I have had has expressed repeatedly the importance of student engagement in a lesson. One such professor was Dr. Carrick, who said in ECE 305 that one of the most important things to have in a lesson is an Anticipatory Set. This Anticipatory Set is what comes before the lesson to get the students attention. It is the attention grabber that can pull the children in and have them ready for the lesson that is about to start. This attention grabber can be something new to the children or something they know that they love to do, which allows them to be interested in what will come next.
Another strength I found in my recording was smooth transitions. The children had to go from areas to the rug for this lesson and it was great success. I had the right amount of time for the transition, not too long and not too short. The children had no trouble moving from the lesson to the activity. They picked up fast and the transition was extremely smooth. During the transition, there was no running or yelling which meant there was nothing to disrupt the lesson and the lesson was able to get started immediately.
When you have a smooth transition and the children are ready and there are no disruptions, then students are able to learn quicker. In this case, in my lesson that is what happened. The children were able to get into the lesson quicker and they were very focused since lack of disruptions didn’t bring their focus anywhere else. An example of me demonstrating this strength is when the lesson was beginning. All of the children were in the different areas in the classroom when I rang the bell and had the kids clean up everything. As they cleaned, I explained what we were going to do and immediately the transition began. In a very quick and appropriate manner, all the toys were put away and the children were at the rug where they were supposed to be. My supervisor told me my transitions were perfect and this was a strong point for me. The quick and smooth transition caused the lesson to be carried out smoothly and the students were immediately drawn in as I used my anticipatory set. Smooth transitions are also something that have been covered throughout my education, but I learned the most in Dr. Rand’s class in Part 1: Teaching Procedures. Dr. Rand gave multiple strategies to help us get better at transitions and they have been extremely helpful because teaching children procedures like transitions is something that must be taught for it will follow them their whole life.
Classroom Management:
Classroom management is extremely important for teachers to learn and bring into their classrooms. Having classroom management makes running a classroom go smoothly and things much easier. Showing strengths in classroom management is something that I was able to showcase in this lesson and throughout my clinical practice. One such strength was my ability to use nonverbal intervention during the lesson if the kids got too excited. I was able to establish eye contact with students to let them know they were off task. I was also able to make gestures that told the students they were not focusing and that they need to bring their attention back to me. During the entire lesson, I was able to communicate without yelling that the child was misbehaving and needed to fix it. Luckily, this didn’t happen often since the majority of the lesson the children were engaged and listening to what I said. Being able to communicate without yelling is very important because not yelling has the children feeling safe and feeling that they can trust you. Since there is no yelling at or pointing out the student who is off task, that student is not embarrassed in front of their peers and is able to function for the rest of the lesson without shutting down. No child should ever be embarrassed in front of their peers. The lesson isn’t disrupted by yelling so the students are able to continue getting the best learning they can.
An example of this strength demonstrated was when one of the boys in the morning class continued to spin around after all the other children and I stopped. When I saw that he was still spinning and fooling around with his shapes, I looked at him and made a gesture for him to look at me and stop and when he saw me, he stopped and then nodded focusing back on the lesson. Doing this without yelling at him caused him not to shut down and not want to participate because I didn’t purposely embarrass him to try and get him to behave. I did it calmly which allowed him to feel comfortable and listen to me. Not embarrassing a child is something that all my professors have told me we must do. We must never call out children when they are misbehaving or having trouble in the classroom. We are supposed to make the children feel safe and nothing else. I learned a lot of this in Dr. Rand’s ECE 400 class as well as in ECE 214 Guiding Children’s behavior. Both classes showcase the importance of how communicating with students can guide their behaviors in a way that will have them learning effectively as well as everyone around them learning as well.
Another classroom management strength that was present in the recording was my ability to build great relationships with the children. This is one of the most important things in building a proper classroom and being a great teacher. No matter what age the students are, if there is no relationship then a classroom can’t run smoothly and students will not listen to you. This was a strength of mine because since I had already built a relationship before the lesson, the children listened to me and followed my instructions. As a result of building relationships with the students in both classes, the students were able prosper in both the classroom and the lesson. Each student listened throughout the lesson and were able to learn what I was trying to teach, all the while having fun. As stated previously, I already had a relationship with the children and an example of me furthering that relationship would have to be how I helped the children who were having trouble. If I saw a child was lost, I modified the lesson and showed them more examples of how to move to the song and how to sing it. I also repeated the names and colors of the shapes to help them recognize them and I didn’t yell at them if they messed up. I just repeated what I wanted them to do and showed them the shape if they weren’t able to identify them yet. This showed the students they could trust me and that our relationship was strong. In chapter 2 of Positive Preschool, Dr. Rand states, “Relationships flourish not because there is not conflict, but because we are able to manage conflict and repair breaks” (Rand, 2012, p. 24). Dr. Rand has a whole part dedicated to building relationships between you and the students and between the students and other students because it so important. The result of what happens when there are positive relationships in class have been drilled into us our whole education. Developmental Psychology and Intro to Early Childhood have also been classes that have stressed the importance of relationships between adult and child because of the developmental behavior that grows from it.
Weaknesses
Instructional:
On our paths to become educators, we have reflected upon different skills and learnings again and again. We have been taught that weaknesses are not bad, but are our motivation to get better. Weaknesses are better than our strengths because from these weaknesses can grow an even stronger strength than before. Always reflecting our weaknesses instead of ignoring them can help us make changes and help us see what exactly we need to get better at. My first instructional weakness was using praise appropriately during the lesson. When praising the children, I used words like “very good” or “great job,” but I never told the students what exactly I was praising them for. Instead of praising the children for behaving appropriately, I reinforced the inappropriate behavior which also affected my ability to praise the students even more. When it isn’t obvious to the children what you’re praising them for, they’re left confused and not gaining anything because they don’t know what they did well or what they can do to make things better. They won’t value it as much as they would if you had been as descriptive as possible about what you were praising them for.
An example of this weakness being demonstrated was when the children identified the shapes and were able to successfully do the movements and all I said to them was “good job”. Some of the kids just stared at me because I hadn’t said what exactly they had done a good job on or why I was congratulating them. They did it again and again and instead of pointing out what they did, I just kept saying good job and moved on. As a result, the children weren’t praised as well as they should have been. In Dr. Rand’s words, “You can think of this type of praise as junk food—empty calories that do nothing for the child’s nutrition”(Rand, 2012, p. 31). Just saying “very good” to a child when they do something does nothing for their growth. In Chapter 2: Building a Classroom Community, Dr. Rand gives extensive insight on positive feedback. She brings to light the Teacher Language Scale, which measures positive feedback from appropriate to inappropriate. This scale is extremely important because of what it teaches. As someone in these children’s lives that have such a huge impact on them, appropriate praise is something that is needed. This lesson taught me that I need to be working on praise more and making sure to practice and look up ways to give proper praise so the children won’t be missing out on knowing how well they are doing. Doing this will allow students to feel accomplished and know that you care when you praise their efforts at trying things. The students will feel loved and keep trying to do good now that they know their efforts will be recognized.
Another instructional weakness that was present in my lesson, and probably my biggest one in general, is teaching in front of the classroom. When you’re a teacher, you have to stand in front of a classroom and a number of children. Being anxious when up in front of a classroom is something that needs to be worked on because the children will be able to tell if you’re nervous and that can affect how they learn. When I’m front of the classroom, I get really nervous and use informal language, such as “you guys.” I also pause a lot which causes the children to get restless a little since I’m not doing anything as I try and get my bearings and get my nerves under control. While this is happening, the children may still be engaged in the lessons but the lesson can be affected when there isn’t a clear separation between teacher and child. While explaining the lesson to the children, I kept stuttering and calling them you guys instead of saying everyone. While I was in practicum, I was told that was not good to say and I’m still struggling with it because it just comes out naturally. There is one thing I’ve heard about the first year of teaching in every single class I’ve taken and that is nervousness is normal when it’s your first year. You’ll get better as time goes on, in more ways than you think. We also were told of some strategies that could help us get over being nervous in front of the classroom. Some of these strategies were repeated multiple times because of how simple and easy they were. I will practice teaching my lesson at home so I get comfortable with it and am able to remember it perfectly. I will practice in front of an audience to get used to teaching in front of people staring at me like the child will be. The lesson will come more naturally and students will be able to have a formal lesson that will perfectly teach them and not have them scrambling for something because I was too nervous to remember.
Classroom Management:
Additionally, I also showcased some classroom management weaknesses such as the inability to quiet students appropriately. During the lesson, I constantly used “shhh” if the students got too loud from excitement, which is not an effective way to calm down students. It took me a few tries to quiet them down, which shows me now how much it doesn’t work. If students get too loud, they cannot hear instructions and that is what happened during the lesson. All the students had been engaged the whole time, but when they got excited, they got loud and a little restless. There was confusion among the students because they hadn’t heard what they were supposed to be doing so I had to repeat instructions again after trying to calm them down. This happened a lot during the lesson, and I know it’s something I need to work on. While the kids were being loud during the lesson, I still said the next thing which confused some of the children because they couldn’t really hear what was going on. The skill of quieting students effectively is a major classroom management skill. Dr. Rand talks about it in ECE 400, as well as other professors because of its importance. No child should ever be told to “shh” because it just doesn’t work and it never has.
Going forward, I want to look up new and better ways to quiet and calm down the kids so that none of the children miss out on instructions. I will also work on classroom procedures more to remind the kids how they should be acting when a teacher is talking and a lesson is going on. In doing so, following directions will be much easier because there will be no distractions or anything to cause the directions not to be heard. Students also won’t fall behind because knowing how they are supposed to behave during a lesson will ensure that no one is fooling around and everyone’s focus is on what’s being taught.
My second weakness for classroom management was not being prepared. For this lesson, the children needed to be on the rug with white papers with the shapes on them in front of them. I hadn’t taken enough time to set the shapes up on the papers and so the papers weren’t on the rug when they should have been. The time it took to get all the papers on the rug was time that could have been used for the lesson. It took a bit of time which caused the kids to get restless and they started to get loud and start wandering around. This lesson was also observed by my supervisor and he told me next time I need to work on making sure I have everything ready before I start the lesson. As I was putting the shapes on the white papers, the kids were still in areas and then my teacher rang the bell for them to clean up. I wasn’t ready and my supervisor observed how the kids were left waiting for a while, leaving them to be confused about what they were supposed to do.
In a previous semester, I had taken two classes with Dr. Carrick. Those classes were ECE 300 and ECE 305. Everyone in both those classes learned the importance of being prepared. If you aren’t prepared, then your whole lesson be affected negatively. Teaching this lesson and watching this recording showed me just how true that was as me not having the materials where they needed to be caused the children to get restless and be loud. Learning from that time and what my supervisor said, I make sure everything is ready for my lesson before it starts so that I’m prepared straight from the beginning which allows the students not to lose focus and be ready to learn.
Caring
One quality every parent hopes their child’s teacher has is caring. To have a successful classroom, children must feel they are safe and that they belong. If a child knows that their teacher cares about them, then their developmental success will increase. You build a positive relationship with the children in your classroom and they are able to grow in many different ways in and out of the classroom. To show care, an educator tries to see how a child feels by putting themselves in their shoes so that they can understand the child more. During my clinical practice, there have been many instances where I’ve showed caring behaviors and where I’ve put myself in a children’s positions to help them. I wanted to help them understand that if they are having trouble, it’s okay. I know I had trouble with some things at their age so I know how it feels when things aren’t going right.
One such instance where I put myself in a child’s position was when one of the girls was having trouble writing her name was getting frustrated. She was getting really upset that she could not do it while everyone else was finishing around her and so I went over to help her. I told her that I had the same trouble when I was younger, but I got better after I kept trying again and again. I told her it would be okay because she was just starting to learn how to write her name so it would take some time. She was still mad at first, but then she began practicing her name every day on one of the whiteboards in the classroom, sometimes even without me practicing with her. She still needs a little practice, but she’s gotten much better and she doesn’t get upset anymore. She shows me her name and gets really happy when I tell her good job. According to Nel Noddings’ beliefs, this is one of the most important things you can do for a child. This is something that must be done for a child to be understood. She states, “If I care about students who are having difficulty solving problems, I must two things: I must make the problem my own, receive it intellectually, immerse myself in it; I must also bring the student having difficulty into proximity, receive such students personally”(Noddings, 2013, p. 113). As Noddings said, I put myself in the girl’s position to try and understand her difficulties as well as helping her personally.
Meeting children’s needs is extremely necessary and important for the classroom and the child’s development. A child’s needs not being met can affect their behavior in the classroom greatly as well as the classroom in general. Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is the most important aspect of education. This theory explains exactly why children behave the way they do; How needs not being met can result in challenging behavior that can affect the classroom. If a child’s needs are met, then they are able to go on and get the motivation and love they need. A child’s full potential can be reached when their needs are met because they feel safe and feel they can trust you. Every day I am fulfilling my students’ love and belongingness needs. I always talk to them when it seems they’re upset and always greet them. The children know they can come to me and if something is bothering them, they talk to me about it. They feel comfortable with me and are able to prosper in the classroom.
My third caring behavior is modeling behavior that is essential to the growth and development of the children. We as educators are models for the children we teach. What we do, they do which is why we must always model behavior that will benefit the children, not mess things up for them. Albert Bandura’s Social Learning Theory explains behavior in terms of interaction between cognitive, behavioral, and environmental influences on every human being. This theory talks about how every human being learns from watching one another and this is exactly how it works in Pre-K. As Bandura states, “Learning would be exceedingly laborious, not to mention hazardous, if people had to rely solely on the effects of their own actions to inform them what to do. Fortunately, most human behavior is learned observationally through modeling: from observing others one forms an idea of how new behaviors are performed, and on later occasions this coded information serves as a guide for action.” Modeling good behavior and how you want children to act around others can help children learn and build their character. Every day I greet and smile at them in the morning and in return, the children smile and greet each other throughout the day. I talk to them and watch as they talk to others and include them in their play if they notice someone by themselves. I model behaviors I want the children to do and every day they copy my behavior and grow more and more.
Culturally Responsive Teaching
When you become a teacher, you are not a teacher of one child but many. These children come from all different cultures and as teachers, we should be accepting of them and incorporate differences into our classroom. Before this experience in a real classroom, I never really focused much on my cultural competence. I have grown up in an extremely diverse city and have a wide variety of diversity in my friend group, but I still never really thought of my cultural competence. Chapter 5 of The Positive Preschool talks about cultural competence and the different levels of it you can reach throughout your career. While reading this chapter and learning why it’s so important to be culturally competent, I started thinking of where I was on the culturally responsive teaching scale and I believe I am on stage three. I am not on stage four because I’m still having trouble integrating cultural competence in my lessons. It does not come naturally, even though I am trying my best. I have used plenty of strategies mentioned in this chapter, but these next few points are the major ones I’ve used.
The first strategy I used was being aware of my students who are English Language Learners and what they are capable of. English Language Learner students will usually have trouble in lessons being taught and communication with peers because of their inability to speak English. Because of this, lessons must be modified and must include differentiated instruction so that all the children are learning equally no matter language they speak. When you fix the lesson so that no one is left out, it makes everything much more fun for the children because they aren’t forced to be left out. To help make communicating with ELL students easier, I combine gestures and talk which is something that really works for them. I talk to them whenever I get the chance and they are slowly beginning to talk back with the English they are learning. The strategies I’ve been using have allowed them to learn more English and understand what is going on during a lesson as well as what they need to do. During playtime, the students must make a plan and tell me, my cooperating teacher, and the assistant in the room three things they’d like to do. The children are English Language Learners try to communicate through body language what they’d like to do so when I ask them what their plan is, I always point at the different areas to try and get them to understand and say where they want to go. If they change their mind, they come to me and try to tell me what they want by talking and using their body. The effect this has on them is that they aren’t excluded out of anything and they’re able to communicate more as they play.
Something that is just as important as paying attention to cultural bias is paying attention to gender bias. In today’s society, boys and girls are divided into separate groups and are expected to act certain ways because of their genders. In some cases, the notions of how a boy should act or how a girl should act presents itself in the classroom which can affect the classroom and the ones in it. Being biased based on gender can damage the children instead of helping them. As stated, children follow what we do and if children see that the teacher is being biased towards students based on gender, it could affect them as well and cause them to do the same thing. A child doing this results in a divided classroom and having students that don’t want anything to do with girls or boys because they may feel they’re too “girly” or they don’t like the boys. Boys and girls are not completely alike, but they should still be treated equally and you can do that in many different ways, the most important being making sure there is no separation whatsoever in the classroom. Explain to students nothing is solely for a boy or girl, anyone can be or do whatever they want, regardless of gender. An example of this strategy being implanted would be how my classroom is completely gender bias free. When the children line up, they do not line up separately. They just line up in one line in no particular older. At the tables, boys and girls sit together and they are always telling one another stories. During playtime, the children play together no matter what gender the other is because the play areas are free of bias. Anyone can do what they want in the areas, whether it be dress up in the house area, play with the dolls, cook, or play with the iPad as some examples.
The third strategy I used in the few months I’ve been here is to make sure I’m aware of Religious Diversity in my classroom. The world now is a very diverse one, and schools are no different. Many classrooms are filled with different diversities, mine being one of those classrooms. Being aware of diversity in cultures and learning everything you can about them can help children learn there are many people different than them and that is okay to be different. What we as educators should do is learn about the practices and values of that religion. In doing so, we are learning to be more accepting of different cultures. As Dr. Rand puts it, “Consider teaching awareness…rather than acceptance”(Rand, 2012, p. 100). When teaching about Holidays, don’t force children into celebrating a holiday they do not normally celebrate. Read a book or create projects based on the holiday you are teaching about. Give information about Holiday traditions and discuss and provide as much information as you can, which allows the children to learn about tradition and what exactly it is. They learn about different traditions and different cultures and also learn to be aware of how many different cultures there are out there in the world. An example of this strategy being implemented is my lesson on Diwali. In my classroom, I have quite a few children of Indian decent and the holiday of Diwali was coming up so I decided to teach the children about it. I read a book about Diwali and its Festival of Lights, an annual tradition for the Hindu religion. As I read the book, I explained what tradition was and asked if any of them celebrated their own traditions. When finished, each child moved onto the activity which was to make their own Festival of Lights. Doing this lesson caused the children to be aware of a Hindu holiday and that our classroom is very diverse.