NAME: New Teacher TARGETED GRADE LEVEL: 8

Explain your vision of the ideal learning environment for the age and subject you intend to teach in a 3 – 5 page original paper. You must answer the questions below, using a 12 point font and double spaced. Then, complete the behavior management plan that supports your vision using the form provided.

1. How do you create and maintain a mutually respectful and collaborative class of actively engaged learners? Include how it responds to student needs and incorporates student strengths and personal experiences. You must support your selection of these strategies and identify and explain the research.

In order to create and maintain a mutually respectful and collaborative class of actively

engaged learners, a teacher must create good relationships with students, and create and clearly

communicate an ethos that sustains participation and cooperation to reach a common goal. That

goal is mastery of the content. Although what exactly constitutes ethos in the classroom is debated

(Donnelly 2000; Solvason 2005) it is agreed that developing and maintaining a classroom ethos is

important in promoting student learning and achieving quality education (McLaughlin 2005). This

foundation supports a teacher to create an environment where all students feel safe, valued, and

ready to learn in collaboration with their teacher and their classmates. According to Solvason

(2005) ethos is not something you can touch, but rather "the feeling” of the classroom." The ethos

of the classroom is the philosophy that guides the creation of classroom management strategies,

classroom organization and expectations for student behavior.

Teacher expectations are also a key part of the classroom management strategy that forms

an ideal learning environment. A teacher must believe that all his students can achieve mastery of

the objectives. Students tend to confirm teacher expectations (Brophy & Good 1974), so believing

and modeling to students that mastery of the objectives is within all students’ grasps is essential

to overall student success. It is also essential that the teacher have high expectations of themselves

as well. “If a teacher does not believe in his job, does not enjoy the learning he is trying to transmit,

the student will sense this and derive the entirely rational conclusion that the particular subject is

not worth mastering” (Csikszentmihalyi 1997).

Clear Communication is also a pillar of a successful classroom. Teachers must be able to

translate jargon filled objectives into student-friendly language. In tandem with high expectations,

clearly communicated behavioral expectations are essential to classroom management. Effective

teachers use classroom management not to control student behavior, but to influence and direct it

in a constructive manner to set the stage for instruction (McLeod, Fisher, & Hoover, 2003).

Consistent routines also lend to effective student learning and the minimization of distraction.

The teacher’s expectation should be that students enter the classroom ready to learn. A good way

to implement this is to have daily bell work. Bell work helps to untether the student’s mind from

what is going on outside the classroom and settle their thinking on the day’s learning objective.

The teacher then transitions to instruction by referencing the contents of the bell work and links it

to the lesson.

2. What strategies will you use to build relationships with students? Use research to support your selection of these strategies and identify and explain the research.

Building positive relationships with students and parents is a good place to start an effective

classroom management strategy. It is important that the teacher get to know each student and

that the students get to know the teacher. Teachers may be tempted to go straight into content

when the school year starts but taking the time to create relationships and community with

students pays dividends later in the year.

Authenticity is an essential component of building positive relationships and teachers must

come across as genuine and caring to parents and students. This requires the teacher to be

passionate, knowledgeable, self-aware, balanced and fair, and consistent. (De Bruyckere and

Kirschner 2016). These characteristics should be modeled by the teacher, and this helps to create

a foundation of the mutual respect that will make the classroom successful.

In a participatory, collaborative classroom, questioning is essential, and students must feel

safe to ask questions and give answers that may be incorrect without fear of intimidation.

Teachers should encourage and model curiosity about the subject matter, thus stimulating

students’ innate curiosity and making it possible for students to generate good questions. The

teacher can provide a powerful model by providing examples of ways that students can support

one another. Each student brings her own personal experience to the class and this enriches

everyone. Teachers must also recognize and praise students’ use of positive collaborative

communication (Bridges, 1995).

3. How will you physically organize your classroom to ensure flexibility

and accommodate the learning needs of all students including those with disabilities? Consider things such as the three zones of proximity and furniture.

The aspects of classroom organization that are utilized are those that focus on the physical

environment. A collaborative classroom consists of tables or individual flat-top desks that can be

arranged in groups of about four students. The classroom is organized such that students know

how to access items like calculators, pencil sharpeners and mini-whiteboards. It may take some

time for students to learn how to access all the materials in the classroom, but – in time –

consistent classroom organization will lend to the optimization of student learning and reduce

distractions. It is almost impossible for students to learn in a chaotic, poorly managed classroom

(Wang, Haertel, and Walberg, 1993). Fred Jones (2007) proposes arranging tables such that an

interior loop is created. This minimizes the number of green zones that are farther from the

teacher, allowing more flexibility in seating students who are more likely to go off task. The most

basic factor that governs the likelihood of student misbehavior is their physical distance from the

teacher. By utilizing both proximity and movement, teachers can optimize the positive impact that

their presence has on students. Simply by moving in the direction of burgeoning misbehavior, a

teacher can quickly reduce the likelihood of escalation and redirect student attention to the task at

hand.

Students with special needs face many challenges when entering the classroom. School

furniture is often inadequate for providing the physical support students need to learn. For proper

learning to occur, high and low seating options should be made available with some desks in a bar

style, higher up off the floor and others at the standard level. Placing high desks in the back of the

classroom prevents students who are sitting there from having to look over and around the

students sitting closer to the front. Teachers cannot always control the sizes of the classroom or

the size of the class. Classrooms should always make space by the door for the entry of

wheelchairs and seats closes to the door made available to students who use wheelchairs.

4. Explain how your behavior management plan supports your vision for the ideal learning environment.

My ideal learning environment is made up of a mutually respectful and collaborative class of

actively engaged learners. Rules 1and 2 help ensure the enviornment is mutually respectful.

Entering a class quietly lends to students being in the mindset for work, leaving other things

outside. Raising your hand to ask a question promotes respect so students do not talk over one

another and do not interrupt the teacher when he is helping someonen else and cannot give his

full attention.

Rule 3 keeps distractions from snacks and drinks to a minimum. Rule 4 supports the teacher’s

seat assignment plan and aids in an efficient check of the attendance record.

Expectation 1 fosters the collaborative nature of the classroom. Students should not

immediately seek help from the teacher when they find an obstacle. Making students responsible

for their missing work promotes responsibility and collaboration. Expectation 3 reuiqres students

to learn to manage his workload and is an important lesson students can learn to promote self-

reliance. Expectation 3 lends to developing mutual respect in the classroom explicitly.

The establishment and maintenance of classroom management strategies, classroom

organization and expectations for student behavior all come together to create a safe, orderly

environment in which students can feel empowered to learn effectively. They come together to

develop trust in the teacher and each other, which in turn, decreases distracting behaviors,

increases time spent engaged in learning, establishes and sustains an orderly classroom, facilitates

independence and responsibility on the part of the student, and social and emotional growth.

Maslow tells us that students need to feel safe in order to attain self-actualization. Only by creating

an environment in which students feel safe can learning take place.

5. Using the template below, create a behavior management plan designed

to create and maintain your ideal learning environment. Your behavior management plan must include:

• 3 – 5 positively worded rules that you can consistently enforce • 3 – 5 expectations that encourage students to take responsibility

for their own learning and instill a culture of individual and group accountability

• Procedures for at least 3 – 5 common classroom tasks, such as returning graded work, turning in make-up work, handing out

materials, going to lunch/being dismissed from class, sharpening pencils, going to the restroom, etc

RULES

EXPECTATIONS

PROCEDURES (at least 3) TASK 1:

Upon returning from an absence, check the ABSENT Tray:

a. If you are absent, it is your responsibility to obtain any missed classwork.

b. Begin by looking for missed handouts in the ABSENT tray pertaining to your class

hour.

c. Then ask your table mates what you missed.

d. Follow-up with the teacher if necessary.

e. Make arrangements to take quizzes and tests immediately. It is your

responsibility to make these arrangements.

f. You will make-up quizzes and exams in a timely manner (before graded quizzes are returned to the students who were present).

It is expected that the student take responsibility for missing work due to absence.

TASK 2:

Pick up after yourself before you leave the class

1. Enter class quietly and on time.

2. Raise your hand to ask questions.

3. No food or drink in the classroom, except water. 4. Sit in your assigned seat only.

1. Ask three then me.

2. Students are responsible for missed work due to absence. 3. Speak respectfully to one another.

a. Take all of your belongings

b. Put away class materials, calculators, markers, whiteboards

c. Pick up any scrap papers around your table

d. Arrange desks the way you found them

It is expected that the students will leave the classroom tidy, putting all materials an furniture where they belong.

TASK 3:

Turn in homework to the proper tray

a. Homework is due at the beginning of the hour when you come to class.

b. Turn in your homework to your hour tray.

c. Turn absent/late work into the absent/late work tray.

It is expected that students will turn in all assignments on time and in the correct tray.