Every teaching experience is started with each individual student in mind. I pride myself in knowing my student’s interests and learning style (re: multiple intelligence). This allows me to reengage my students when off task, anticipate distractions and questions and better prepares me in my overall lesson planning. For example, when I was teaching a unit on explorers in a 5th grade class I had a student who was not interested or engaged during the research section of the unit. Knowing this student was a kinesthetic learner and was very creative I worked with him on creating a personalized hand’s on lesson incorporating art, reading and construction. Making small cutout of the explorer he filled in each part of his body with information – the head was why he set off to explore, the legs were how the explorer got there (the route) the heart was any problems he faced along the way, and so on until all sections were covered. He was able to use his creativity and had a more tangible and meaningful guide to help with his research. For his final project he created a game board – it was one of the best in the class, having the most detail and was the most developed. I improved this student’s academic success by being aware of his strengths and weaknesses and worked with him to creatively incorporate a method, which met the requirements of the project but embodied his personality and individual learning style.
As a group my students demonstrated great academic achievements because of my modeling, collaboration and support. In developing a classroom management strategy I held a class meeting with my 2nd grade students to hear what they needed from me as well as from each other to be successful in our class. During this meeting my students developed “class rules” with clear expectations of behaviors. What I found most remarkable is that the rules I wanted to implement were the same set of rules the students found important. What made this practice successful, not only in making the rules but following the rules, is that the students held each other accountable for appropriate behavior. Of course they occasionally needed friendly reminders when excitement levels were high but the ownership the students felt over the rules made transitions smoother, allowing for extra time at the end of lessons for extra modeling, reviewing and sharing. In addition to developing classroom rules we discussed respectful ways to ask each other for silence, help or provide for personal space – this helped them to focus on the task at hand and be more successful. Having strong classroom management is essential to improving academic success. A successful classroom management plan needs to provide the students with clear expectations, consistency and available resources to ensure smooth transitions and more time for individual student achievement.
