Standard 4

	Standard 4. Educational Practices that foster learning, development, and achievement for all of the nation’s children.
4.1	Use teaching strategies and educational practices that develop children’s capacities to think critically, analytically and imaginatively and extend their knowledge and understanding of the world
4.2	Provide multiple ways for children to deepen grasp of concepts, stretch thinking, express understandings, & learn critical skills
4.3	Search for appropriate materials, experiment with new technologies, collaborate with specialists and colleagues and consult with families and community members to meet the instructional needs of students
4.4	Establish caring, inclusive, stimulating, & safe learning communities where children feel they belong and can assume responsibility, take intellectual risks, make mistakes, explore alternatives, participate in decision-making, and work collaboratively & independently
4.5	Understand principles of effective classroom management and human motivation and behavior
4.6	Understand cognitive processes associated with various kinds of learning and how these processes can be stimulated
4.7	Understand first and second language development and role of language in learning
4.8	Understand principles, techniques, advantages and limitations associated with various teaching strategies
4.9	Communicate effectively within many domains (oral, written, mathematical/symbolic, non-verbal, audiovisual, computer-based technologies)
4.10	Model effective communication strategies in conveying information, asking and responding to questions

When new students enter a teacher’s classroom each fall, it is the job of the teacher to learn about each child’s strength, weakness, culture, and personalities. A teacher must create an environment which allows all students to prosper, whether it is academically or socially. By teaching students how to think critical, take risks, and build confidence a teacher has the ability to provide students with the knowledge, skill, and character to succeed in their future learning, career choice, and life accomplishments.

I believe that teachers should view lesson planning as road trips: the objective and goals of the lesson are the travel destination, the students are drivers of the car, and the teacher provides a map for the expedition. During the road trip, each driver has the option to take different routes: each road may be different but each road is guaranteed to bring the driver to the final destination. During the journey it is plausible that the driver will become lost, frustrated, or give up. But the driver will always have the map to provide the support and guidance necessary to reach the final destination of the trip. I believe this comparison explains how important it is for teachers to provide students with the skills, strategies, and practices necessary in order to excel in school because they will not always have a teacher guiding the way. By teaching children how to be agents of their own success, an educator is teaching more than just curriculum: they are teaching the students life-skills.

I value this standard because I believe creating a community within a classroom is crucial in order for learning to take place. Once a child feels that they can trust the teacher and other students within the classroom, the child will be less afraid to ask questions, take risks, and make mistakes. A teacher is also responsible for creating ways for all students to learn. Teachers should use manipulatives, songs, dances, games, or any other interactive and appropriate material to enhance student learning.

It is common for teachers to believe that students should adapt their learning styles to the educator’s teaching style: but within a classroom not all students learn identically. Howard Gardner (2004), developmental psychologist and professor, created the Multiple Intelligence Theory which explores the ideas of eight different intelligences: bodily-kinesthetic, intrapersonal, interpersonal, linguistic, logical-mathematical, musical, naturalist, and spatial. Most curriculums within schools are based off of a linguistic/logical-mathematical intellectual approach: but it is highly unlikely that all students within a class are exceedingly developed within the linguistic or logical-mathematic intelligences. It is the job of the teacher to incorporate all intelligences within her lesson planning in order to reassure that each student has the ability to thrive within the class, regardless of their dominate intelligence skill.

During my full practicum in a third grade classroom at the Joseph Lee School in Dorchester we relied on scripted curriculum for English language arts and mathematics. For ELA, the Reading Street curriculum was in place. Reading Street provides an outline of what material is to be taught on what specific day and also provides a script of what the teacher should say. One required section of the curriculum was a listening comprehension exercise used to help students develop the necessary background knowledge for a story which would be read the following day. The teacher is required to read a lengthily, dull passage to the entire class while periodically stopping to ask questions. During my leadership week, the Reading Street curriculum centered on a story based upon house building in colonial New England. The listening comprehension/background knowledge building exercise for the week explained different types of houses built when the settlers first arrived in America. I knew the story the rest of our week was based upon the creation of a New England home and that this selection would provide students with knowledge they would need to rely on for the next few days. In order to help my students understand this subject more in-depth, I printed out pictures of different types and aspects of houses that would be explored in the listening comprehension (Artifact 1) to provide a better insight of this subject to the children. Standard 4.1 explores the idea that a teacher should use strategies to help students develop knowledge and think intrinsically about the particular subject. I knew these students were visual learners and I attempted to add visuals to each lesson I taught.  Each time I spoke about a home, I showed the picture of the homes to the students so they could develop a deeper understanding of the subject.

As previously explained, each day Reading Street suggests what material will be taught. My supervising practitioner and I always agreed upon a variety of resources to help children learn skills throughout different activities; at times I felt that a majority of the work was ‘busy work’ in order to keep students occupied throughout the school day. Abruptly, my supervising practitioner missed several days of school due to an emergency and I was left alone, with a substitute, to teach for a week. Artifact 2 outlines what I taught each day for ELA based upon the Reading Street curriculum. The goal for this specific week was to determine how to solve different problems which may occur. Knowing this bit of information, I created an activity for children who needed extended work. This activity required students to draw a picture of a problem they have had and then write about it. I feel that students were able to learn how to take a subject within the story (Prudy’s problem and how she solved it) and deepen their understanding to apply it to their own lives.

Within my full practicum classroom, seven students were considered English Language Learners. For these students, English was often only spoken when they were at school and their native first language was spoken at home. Therefore, school provided most of their first language development. I noticed that with these students, they often had difficulty understanding concepts which were verbally spoken to the class and often needed information provided visually in order to succeed. Before teaching a math lesson within the TERC Investigation curriculum I read through the script and felt that the concept of the lesson may be difficult for the ELL students, as well as some other students, in the class. The goal was for students to find the difference between 2 numbers as well as the difference between a number and 100. For example, the distance between 10 and 100 can either be 90 or 110 and the distance between 90 and 110 is 20. I realized that the concept of ‘jumping’ from 90 to 110 may be difficult for some students due to the fact that some students may not understand how 90 to 110 could be 20 if 20 is a much smaller number than 90 and 110 and the idea of ‘jumping’ actually meant ‘how many numbers are in-between’. Therefore, I decided that I needed to make this lesson more visual for the students. I decided to bring these math problems to life and have students represent numbers on the number lines. I was than visually able to explain to students how to ‘jump’ from one number to another. 3 is the lesson plan I adjusted for this lesson which explains my adjustment more in-depth.

During my first day and a half of leadership week, I had difficult managing behavior and motiving students to complete work within the classroom. Two boys took advantage of the teacher shift within the classroom and disobeyed our classroom and school rules. During lunch on my second day, my supervising practitioner suggested I created contracts with these two specific boys in order to create a calm environment. One of the students she had retained the year before, and felt that contracts had worked well in the past. I felt that creating a behavior contract was extreme but I knew that in order to teach the other 20 students within the class I had to handle this type of behavior in a different way. After lunch, my third graders went to science, where I went and explained to the science teacher that I would be speaking to the two boys separately and quickly. Even though I spoke to the boys individually, they both understood that their behavior was inappropriate and that we were going to change it. Artifact 4 is the copies of the behavior contracts which the two students helped me fill out and signed. For the three days following the contracts, the students maintained appropriate behavior. I believe that because of this circumstance I have met standard 4.5. I knew that in order to have an effective classroom management for leadership week I needed to provide motivation to students who seemed to lack that.

During my pre-practicum experience within a second grade classroom at the Driscoll Elementary School in Brookline the classroom atmosphere and environment was extremely different. Each morning, the students would engage in a thirty to forty-five minute ‘Morning Meeting’. During morning meeting, the schedule of the day was discussed, games were played, stories were shared, and a classroom community was formed. The students would sit in their ‘circle spots’ where they sat in a circle or ‘rug spots’ where they sat in lines on the rugs. Artifact 5 is a photo of the rug area. A majority of lessons were taught on the rug: providing children with a close, personal, and quiet learning experience.

The classroom also had ‘Citizen Awards’ which were given out by students for students throughout the day. If one student helped another student with a math problem, the student who needed the help would fill out a Citizen Award to show their appreciation to that student for their help. The Citizen Awards were kept in a basket within a separate desk and after the awards were filled out they were placed into a pail, which is pictured in artifact 6. Citizen Awards were read out loud during Morning Meeting on Friday’s to honor the students who had been good citizens of the classroom for the week. I believe that throughout my two field experiences I have a firm grasp upon how to create a safe and comfortable environment within a classroom. At Joseph Lee the students had difficulty bonding with one another and would often waste class time bickering and arguing with one another. On the other hand, the Driscoll School provided students with Morning Meeting in order to express their feelings and build relationship and trust with one another. I believe I will integrate Morning Meeting into my classroom in the future due to the advantages I feel it provides to a classroom. To make Morning Meeting successful, I plan to read The Morning Meeting Book by Roxann Kriete in order to gain more knowledge upon this subject.

I believe that this standard is one I am still striving to achieve. Within my classroom at the Joseph Lee school I feel that I was able to understand why this standard is important. Our students struggled academically and many fell below grade level. I believe that because the curriculum was not adjusted for these particular students and because the bad-tension between students overpowered the ability to build relationships within classroom, the students were unable to succeed within school. I feel that I will continue to grow upon this standard once I have my own classroom because I have seen how important classroom environment is to student growth, learning, and development.

Works Cited

Kriete, R; Bechtel, L. (2002). The Morning Meeting Book. Greenfield, MA: Northeast Foundation
            for Children.

Gardner, H. (2005). Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligence. New York, NY: Basic

Books