Lesson+3+Post


 * Lesson 3 (7/5/2011)**
 * Describe and critique your own classroom environment.**

Two of the walls of my classroom are decorated with realia that I have brought back from my travels toMexicoandSpain. I also have 3 big maps of the Spanish speaking world on the walls to teach where Spanish is spoken. On the front wall, I have a calendar in Spanish and posters with the colors and the months of the year as well as phrases like “hola”. I also have space where I hang students work during the school year. I have two white boards on opposite sides of the room and on one of the whiteboards, I have a smartboard. I have a LCD projector mounted in the ceiling and built in surround sound in the room (advantages of teaching in a brand new school). The second part of the year, I received individual desks – around 40. The first part of the year, I had tables for two, which I disliked. This sounds weird, but my current classroom is too big. The classroom was originally built for a computer classroom, but I do enjoy the space to be able to move around the classroom and have the students move around as well. In order to use both whiteboards, I have two sides of about 20 desks each. There is a big aisle between the two sides for me to walk back and forth between the two whiteboards. The teacher that came into my room to teach for one period last year, did not like that the students faced each other, but that is always how I’ve had my room set up and it works for me.

Unfortunately, because we are already over capacity at our school, we have to share classrooms. Next year, I will only be in my classroom 1 period of the day. The other two periods, I will be in the classroom across the hall.


 * If you were a fly on the wall of your classroom, what would you see? What is the tone of the room? What are the effective things that you want to keep?**

Well, you would physically see everything I mentioned above. My classroom is very colorful and students can learn by looking around the room. I start class everyday by welcoming the students to class and rotating through my index cards to ask several students how they are in the target language. I ask the students to take out their homework and I ask for a volunteer or volunteers to stamp the homework. We review the homework and the students pass it in. If I have a TA, I give the homework to the TA and he/she posts it on the roster. Next, I will usually do comprehensible input and after that the students will begin guided practice, which is usually some type of whole class activity, small group or pair activity. I’m walking around the classroom to keep students in the target language and making sure they are doing the activity correctly. After the activity, we debrief the activity and usually before they leave I have some type of comprehension check to know if I can move on the next day or if they need more guided practice before moving on to independent practice. Finally, I pass out homework and show them how to do it and release them at the bell. Over the past years, I have had the students find partners, but for whatever reason I’ve haven’t done this in the last couple years, I want to go back to having the students have various partners, otherwise they work with the same partner over and over. I feel the instructional sequence that I use is very effective.


 * Page 26 of the Professional Teachers Handbook offers ways to create a positive learning environment. Choose any three: name them, describe in your own words why they are worthy of consideration, and discuss the ways you might currently, or in the future, use these ideas in your classroom to create a respectful classroom learning environment. How might these suggestions improve student achievement? Explain your reasons.**

__Focus on students doing the right thing__ – I try to do this as I walk around to make sure students are on task in the target language; I will either say “muy bien” or I will hand out extra credit tickets. However, it is so easy to go the other way and start docking participation points for not being on task. When I try to the class back together after an activity, I sometimes begin by thanking the students that are ready and listening. I think that rewarding the student for their positive efforts in much more effective in creating a positive environment. If students that are misbehaving or seeking attention that I fall right into their trap by giving them the attention. However, if I focus on the good behavior then the misbehaving students will turn their behavior around to get the attention. It is something that I plan to really focus on this next school year.

__Develop an appreciation of diversity in population and thoughts__ – this is so important and something I talk about frequently with my students. Antelope has a diverse student population and I tell the students how lucky they are to be at a school with such a diverse population especially sincePlacerCounty is not very diverse. We talk about the importance of respecting differences. In addition, since I teach Spanish it is important to teach as best that I can the appreciation of different thoughts. Many times when the students are learning something about the culture that is different than their culture they think it is “weird” so we will discuss that it is not weird, not better, not worse just different.

__Provide opportunities for cooperative group work, peer tutoring and peer mediation -__ Just as collaborating with other teachers help to make more effective teaching, allowing students to work cooperatively in groups help to make more effective learning. It allows students to share ideas and teaches them to work together. Peer tutoring is also effective because even though I may have explained something 5 different ways, sometimes a peer can explain in a way that the student understands so that it is a win-win for both students. I haven’t tried peer mediation, but it sound interesting.


 * What might you want to improve based on the articles you have read?**

The one thing that I really want to work on is remembering to focus on positive behavior and not falling into the trap of dwelling on negative behavior. Also, I want to look into peer mediation to see if there is a way to use it in my classroom.