Creating Productive Learning Environments

What does the cooperative teacher do to encourage a positive classroom community?
My cooperative teacher has done a great job at creating a positive classroom community in her class.  I have mentioned this before but I have noticed that the way she has the classroom set up helps create a positive classroom. The students desks are arranged into three different tables and each table has a team name that they chose. The children are to work together and help each other behave so they can earn points for their team. They are also encourage to share their work with their neighbor when they are done working on an assignment and are encourage to give positive feedback to one another on their work, if a student is struggling with the assignment their teammates are there to help them. Something else I have noticed that has helped create a positive classroom community are the routines and procedures the teacher established at the beginning of the year. The students know how they are suppose to enter the classroom after coming in from recess or how they are suppose to be dismissed. They also know that when the teacher says "can you hear the ocean breeze?" that the noise level is getting too high and the students quickly and quietly make the sound of the ocean breeze and the noise level goes down.

What has your cooperative teacher done to make students feel loved and safe?
My cooperative teacher shows love to her students in different ways throughout the day, she listens to them and lets them tell her their interest, accomplishments or anything else they feel like they need to share with her.  One particular thing I have noticed and love is that at the end of the day as each student leaves her classroom to go home she offers them a hug, they don't have to get a hug if they don't want to but they know where to get one if they need one.

How does your cooperative teacher recognize students skills?
While the students are working on their assignments the cooperative teacher walks around and gives individual positive feedback on their work. She is always complimenting her students in her classroom and lets them know just how smart they are. She also asks the students questions and lets them teach each other and share their skills.

How People Learn

Today I was in the first grade classroom for the first time and I absolutely loved it. The teacher is fabulous and I am so excited to learn from her. The students are so cute and welcoming, the second I walked into the room I was greeted with a handful of hugs.

While I was observing and helping the teacher, I noticed she seemed to use the behaviorism theory the most. One way she uses this theory is through a classroom store. Throughout each day the students have the opportunity to earn class money so they can buy things later on in the week from the classroom store. This strategy seemed to work really well for her class, as soon as the students saw another student earning money for being on task they all seemed to get on task so they too could be rewarded. Another strategy she uses is by having the desks arranged into three groups, each group has a team name (they they chose) and they have the opportunity to earn tally marks for their team, for example, the class was told to clean up from an activity they had just finished and were told to sit quietly in their desks when finished, the table who was finished and quiet first got a tally mark. At the end of the day when it was time to go home the team with the most tally marks got to line up first at the door. Another strategy I noticed was when a child was misbehaving they were told to stand by the back door and wait for the teacher to come back and talk with them about their behavior. All of these strategies seemed to work really well for her classroom and for her students and although Behaviorism was the most common theory I saw, I noticed all three theories being used at different times in her classroom while I was there.

While I was at the school I also had the opportunity to sit in on an IEP meeting where I saw a team of teachers and parents come together to address the specific learning needs of their child/student and discuss a plan to move forward. I loved how the whole purpose and goal of this meeting was to find the best ways to help this child succeed and it was great to see how supportive both the teachers and the parents were of each other. This is definitely one way the teacher addresses the developmental levels and the individual learning preferences of her students. She also has times in the classroom where the students split up into different groups (depending on their level of learning) to learn a certain subject and work on an assignment together.

It was a great day today in her classroom.

Service Learning

I am so excited for the opportunity I have to be engaged in a first grade classroom. The school is located in south Provo surrounded by a community full of history. My Grandmother lives just a street away from the school. I grew up running from grandmas house to the school playground. We would spend all day on the playground once school was out and always felt very safe. The school is surrounded by old homes and neighborhoods. There is a big playground and a large field where the students love to play.

I get to experience my service learning with my husbands Aunt who teaches first grade. She loves teaching at this school and the students love her. The students are happy and eager to learn. This school has a 9/10 on great school rating.

This experience with service learning will help me gain more knowledge and skills to become a teacher. It will give me hands on experiences which will help me know if this career is for me. I am grateful for this opportunity to strengthen the community.