Classroom Environment
Classroom Design
As I move toward creating a more inclusive classroom, it is necessary I pay close attention to the physical space and design of the class (Eredics, n.d). In my classroom, the arrangement of the physical space to accommodate the various needs of my students is something I need to consider throughout the entire school year. When deciding how to arrange classroom furniture and where to put instructional materials and equipment, I need to consider the different effects that various arrangements would have on my students. When I first meet a class, the first thing I think about is how I will place the desks in my classroom. I need to consider the ages of my students, how many students I have in my class, the type of learning they will be taking part in most often, and the placement of the desks in relation to the board, doors, and windows (Ormrod, 2012). Depending on the type of class, the desk arrangement can be a supplement for the students. Desk arrangement is different for every class and is something that can change multiple times throughout the year. If my students will be doing a lot of group work, generally I would arrange the desks in groups, where as if I have a class that will be doing a lot of independent work, the desks would most likely be placed in single or double rows.
When I did a leave replacement in a high school geometry class, my first day the students sat in U-shaped desks. Because of this, some students were not directly facing the board which required them to turn their heads or chairs in order to copy down notes I had written on the board. After my first few days having my students in this seating arrangement, I decided it would be best to move the desks to rows, all facing the board, so students did not have to turn their bodies in order to copy down the information. I felt that having the desks in a U-shape was restraining my student’s learning in our particular classroom setting. Having the desks directly facing the board was necessary in this math classroom because the math class I was teaching was a fast paced subject that required many demonstrations by the teacher. If my students were spending their time worrying about whether or not they could see the material comfortably they would be spending less time actually learning it. Since most of my instruction for this class was direct, the students remained in rows for a few weeks. For example, in this lesson plan on proving a parallelogram is a rectangle, I used a direct instruction approach. With this lesson, I felt that it was most beneficial for the students to sit in rows facing the board so they were able to learn without restraint. When my students were sitting in rows, they were able to focus on the board and not on anything else.
I was only in this classroom for a short period of time so most of the lessons were direct instruction. However, in a future geometry class of mine I would like to provide the opportunity for students to work together to discover relationships or complete projects that will enhance their learning. For example, in this lesson plan I could use a collaborative approach where students could work together to determine the relationship between the number of sides of a polygon and its angle sum. Students could move their desks into groups and become actively engaged in their learning. By having my students move their desks around to a format which is best for each particular lesson, they are able to learn without restraint. In my future classroom, I will consider the different type of learning my students will be taking part in and that will help me to determine how I want my students seats to be arranged.
Going along with classroom design, how I decorate my classroom will provide students with a feeling of warmth and comfort. While I have not yet had the opportunity to decorate my own classroom, I imagine that when I do have my own classroom, before the school year even starts I will work to ensure my classroom environment is one that is warm and inviting to my students (Bucholz & Sheffler, 2009). One thing I would do as a teacher is organize, arrange, and decorate the classroom using the walls as a space to convey important information of the classroom. “Decorating a classroom with some kind of warmth can help promote a sense of comfort and security” (Bucholz & Sheffler, 2009, p. 2). Generally in the beginning of the school year, I will choose to display different posters and signs around the classroom to let students know the classroom is one of a positive, encouraging environment. The posters I display would range from math posters, to posters containing rules and regulations, to posters with encouraging words of wisdom. When I was student teaching in a seventh grade class, these were two of the posters my cooperating teacher and I hung up.
As the year progresses, I would try to include student work in the displays on my classroom walls. Hanging students work on the walls in my classroom lets them know they are important and are valued as individuals (Clayton, 2002). Students can take an increasingly active role in displaying their work by choosing different pieces of their own work to hang, or designing and putting together a bulletin board. By allowing students to participate in the displaying, I would not only be showing them that I value what they do, but I am also making it the students’ classroom as much as my own.
It would be most beneficial to talk to students to see how they feel about the displays. I could have them write reflections or journal entries to make sure they are happy with the displays and allow them to give me input about what they want the surrounding room to look like. As their teacher, I need to make sure they feel good about not only the general posters I display but about their own work being displayed as well. I would like to provide students with the opportunity to help me actually hang and organize different posters in the classroom. In addition, I need to make sure that I ask students if it is okay that I hang up their work. I was substitute teaching a few weeks ago and I actually heard a student say that she was upset her teacher hung up her art work because she did not feel it was good enough to be hung up. I do not want my students to feel this way, so I will make sure I know they feel good about their work that I hang up by asking their opinions.
Building Relationships
As a teacher, it is extremely important to demonstrate to students that you genuinely care about and respect them as people (Ormrod, 2012). When doing this, teachers need to create a general sense of community in the classroom where both they and their students share common goals, are mutually respectful and supportive of one another’s efforts, and believe that everyone makes an important contribution to classroom learning. Each year there is a new set of students who walk into my classroom and it is my job to make sure I go out of my way to learn about them as individuals. By getting to know my students I am helping generate feelings of belongingness (Ormrod, 2012).
The first day of school during my geometry student teaching placement, I had over 100 students and did not know any of them. When they came into my classroom, my cooperating teacher and I decided it would be great to play the “name game” with the students so we could try to learn their names and little about them. Each student had to say their name and something they enjoy that started with the same letter as their name does, (an association we could use as teachers to help remember their names). Each student recited their name and item, and then the next person would have to repeat those names in front of them then add on their own. We went around the entire class so everyone could learn everyone’s name. When we started the game, I simply thought it would just be for my cooperating teacher and me so we could learn about our students to have a better rapport with them. I had assumed that since I had 10th grade students, they all knew each other and I was the only person in the classroom they did not know. During the game, I came to find out that that actually was not the case, and many students did not know the name of the person sitting directly next to them. The name game helped to get everyone familiar with one another.
The first day of school is one that can have great significance for the rest of the year. Along with doing my best to learn the names of all my students, I want to provide them with the opportunity to tell me a little about themselves and the goals they may have for our class. In my geometry student placement, along with the name game, I had each student fill out an index card with different information. On the index card, they wrote general information such as their name, birthday, and contact information, as well as things like what hobbies they enjoyed, their favorite subject, what they liked or disliked about math, and what goals they had for themselves for the year. I think this method worked well at the high school level. I was able to collect all the cards and learn a little bit about each student outside of just our initial introductions. In my seventh grade student teaching placement, I chose a different method of doing something similar with my students. One of the classes I student taught was a math Academic Intervention Service (AIS) class. Instead of writing on index cards, my cooperating teacher and I gave students each a sheet of paper asking them some of their goals for the year, what they were good at in math, what they struggled with, and three ways they could reach their goals. The students did not have to put their names on these, as they were going to be hung up around the classroom. Throughout the two months I was there, I would remind the students to look up at their goals to help them stay focused and determined throughout the class period. The students were able to work towards their goals easily because they were hanging up for them to see on a daily basis.
In my future classrooms, I think I will try to combine both of these methods depending on the age of my students. It is great to provide students with a place where they are able to define goals they have for the year and recognize strengths and weakness in their mathematical skills. While I enjoyed getting additional information from the high school students on the index cards, being able to hang up the goals around the room helps the students keep track of their goals and see if they are reaching them as the year progresses. I do not think I would have the room to hang up goals for all my high school students, so I think it would be best for them to keep their goals in the beginning of their binder for them to go back to. The goals can help remind my students of what they are working towards in my class and can be used as a reference for the rest of the year. In my future classrooms, I will have students look back at their goals at the end of the year to see how far they have come. They could compare and contrast their strengths and weaknesses from the beginning of the year with their strengths and weaknesses from the end of the year.
Another way to I can become familiar with my students is by assessing their attitudes toward school. In my future classroom, I would like to ask my students to fill out a rating scale survey to assess their general attitude toward the course, the school, and their own learning. According to Lewis and Seymour, these surveys may take many forms and address a range of issues. Typically, they consist of a series of statements and ask students to express their agreement or disagreement using a scale. I would like to give my students a survey like this one in a geometry class. This survey would provide me information on students’ perceptions (emotions, feelings, attitudes) of their classroom experiences as well as their needs in the classroom (Lewis and Seymour, n.d). It would provide me with information about students’ learning styles which would allow me to make instructional decisions that would best meet the needs of all of my students. In addition to being beneficial to me as the teacher, it would also provide students with an opportunity to reflect their own learning preferences, strengths, or styles.
While I am getting to know my students as individuals, in order to achieve a sense of community it is vital I also provide opportunities for collaborative teaching strategies in which students can take part in class discussion and cooperative learning activities. In order to do this, I need to promote positive relationships among peers and teachers and let them know that we are one big community made up of many different individuals. Whether it is student/teacher relationships or student/student relationships, it is important to create an environment where everyone is supportive of each other, is kind to each other, is cares about each other as human beings. When students share a sense of community, they are more likely to exhibit prosocial behavior, stay on task, express enthusiasm about classroom activities, and achieve at high levels (Ormrod, 2012).
An activity I would really enjoy doing with my students to promote positive peer relationships is getting them to learn a little bit about each other. I would love to give my students the opportunity to complete a "Getting to Know You" chart where they are given a blank chart full of characteristics and traits and must go around the room and find students who have those traits. I completed one in a class at Marist and it opened the community in our classroom. There were students in my class who I had many classes with prior but I had only known a little about. This activity helped me to learn more about the classroom community and the different traits of my classmates. I would use one similar to this in my classroom so my students could learn different things about each other they may not have known before. When using a human scavenger hunt such as this, the students are not only getting to know each other but I am learning about them as well. If I was implementing this activity into my classroom, I would definitely join in with my students and allow them to put my name down for different traits. I would give students about ten minutes to walk around the room and find students who fit in the following categories. If I had a big enough class, I would tell students that they could only use each person once. This way they are reaching out of their comfort zone to talk to other students they may not have in the past. They can actually determine that they have characteristics in common with classmates they did not know about. This can create an opportunity for open communication with all students and gives them an opportunity to get to know classmates they are not that familiar with. At the end of the class, I would go through each trait and have students raise their hands if the characteristic I call out applies to them. Here, I could also elaborate on some students characteristics and ask them follow up questions that would show an interest in each individual.
Activities such as these allow students to feel the classroom environment is an inviting one. When students feel comfortable in a class, they are more willing to take risks without having the worry that they might fail (Ormrod, 2012). When the environment supports risk taking learners, it can lead to increased academic achievement and a sense of pride and belonging in school. In my classroom, it is important that when the environment is comfortable, I model and encourage risk taking for my students. As a teacher, I can demonstrate risk-taking as well as demonstrate failure so my students can recognize what it looks like and the benefits of it.
A great way to get my students to take risks is to provide some inquiry based lessons in which they can discover relationships through asking questions. With inquiry based lessons, students are able to answer and appreciate open-ended questions and realize that there can be more than one possible answer. When teaching an inquiry based lesson, it is my job to ask open-ended questions to my students and set up situations where students can observe and predict different situations. Allowing students’ time to explore and observe different solutions helps them to develop a sense of curiosity in the subject and build on that curiosity. If I was teaching an inquiry based lesson such as this, I would provide students with examples that they can examine and analyze and make recordings based on their observations. Together, as a whole class, I would carry out a question and discussion session in which the students can share and discuss their observations. During this discussion, I would raise questions that would lead students to verbalize their thinking. If I was teaching a discover a relationship lesson like this, students could work together to determine relationships between different mathematical terms.
Classroom procedures
Along with classroom design, it is necessary in a classroom to get a routine down so the students become comfortable with the setting and know what they are expected to do every day. Having classroom procedures in my classroom that my students can become familiar with will help not only to build a classroom culture but help for smooth transitions for every student. Developing and reinforcing classroom rules and norms is one type of classroom procedure that helps to create a positive classroom environment. Without guidelines, students are more likely to have chaotic and unproductive behavior. Effective teachers establish and communicate certain rules and procedures from the very beginning of the school year (Ormrod, 2012). Having rules that clearly support safe and respectful behaviors helps me to create a predictable, safe, and productive environment for my students. I have not had too many opportunities to create classroom rules for students because I have not been in one classroom from the beginning of the year. However, when I took over for the geometry leave replacement, on my first day I talked over with my students the rules and procedures they followed with their prior teacher and we decided the rules they followed would meet the needs of my classroom. I did not want the students to think I was simply coming into their classroom and changing everything up. Instead, we discussed together what both our expectations were and no one was in control.
When I have my own classroom, I imagine I will create a set of rules and procedures for my students that are clear and explicit and describe consequences of noncompliance. Ideally, in order to help my future students understand that rules and procedures are designed to help the classroom run smoothly and efficiently, I would allow them to help in the decision making process about the rules and procedures in which the class will operate. This enhances their sense of ownership of and adherence to those rules and procedures (Ormrod, 2012).
Another procedure I find extremely beneficial is an entry routine procedure. “Having an entry routine is about making a habit out of what’s efficient, productive, and scholarly… as the students take their seat and class begins” (Lemov, pg. 151). As a secondary teacher, it can be challenging to get students settled quickly when they walk into the classroom. I have found in my experience that the best way to get students quiet and ready to work is by providing them with an entry routine everyday that they are familiar with and know must be completed. For example, almost every day in leave replacement I put a Do Now on the board that all students knew they were required to answer. When I did the leave replacement, I found that having a short warm-up activity on the board or ready to be picked up as the students walked in the room really helped them to get settled and get ready to learn. On the days that I did not have a Do Now ready, the students would come in a bit more rowdy and not settle down as quickly as I would have liked them to. Providing students with the opportunity to sit down and quietly complete a quick, three to five minute activity while I took attendance led to an efficient and effective work period. The Do Now activities such as these that I provided my students were usually a review of something prior in the year. In a regents class, this is very beneficial because the students have the New York State Regents Exam at the end of the year which covers everything they learned. Not only does the Do Now settle down the students, it gives them an opportunity to review old material they will be texted on at the end of the years.
If I were to do entry routines in my next classroom, I think I would actually spend more time collecting and grading them. In the leave replacement I did, students always completely their entry routines and then after we went over them they would put them away when it was time to start the lesson. I believe when things are not collected, students have less accountability. In the future, I will want to collect the entry work to make sure my students are actually completing them. I substituted long term for a biology teacher this year and each day there was a Do Now for my students to complete. At the end of the week, the students would turn in the Do Nows and get a grade out of the total number of Do Nows. With this, I was able to hold the students accountable for their work and the students knew that they had to walk into the class and complete the Do Now immediately so they could get that grade at the end of the week. I would like providing my future students with something like this in which they can complete all their weekly Do Nows on one sheet and hand that in at the end of a week for a grade. When looking at the Do Nows at the end of the week, I would need to make sure the Do Nows are effective. To do this, I would look at each student’s weekly Do Now sheet and each individual problem to ensure the students are getting the answer correct. If I notice a pattern in certain problems, I would take the time in the next class to go over that particular problem.
Accomplished teachers create a caring, respectful environment in which students are consistently focused on learning and regularly engaged in planned tasks and activities (Ormrod, 2012). While the physical arrangement of the classroom does make a difference, it is important as a teacher to be concerned with having a classroom climate in which students feel safe, secure, and make learning a high priority. As a teacher, I consistently work using different strategies to take charge of establishing rules and procedures, developing student/student relationships and student/teacher relationships, and creating a climate where me and my students have shared goals, are mutually respectful and supportive of each other, and believe everyone makes an important contribution to classroom learning (Ormrod, 2012).
Standards
Standard
4: Knowledge of the Practice of Teaching |
||
Aspects |
Explanation |
Ways
I Met Standard |
Knowledge
of pedagogy to inform curricular decisions. |
Accomplished
teachers use their knowledge of pedagogy to select, design, and develop
instructional strategies and choose materials and resources for mathematics
instruction. |
I
based classroom desk arrangement off of the type of lesson I will be teaching
that day. If I am using a direct instruction approach students sit in rows,
If I am using a cooperative learning they can arrange their desks into
groups. |
Knowledge
of mathematics, and student learning
to inform curriculum decisions and allow students to |
Accomplished
mathematics teachers modify classroom plans and activities in response to
student needs, interests, and unexpected opportunities for learning. They
also recognize and respond to student questions and comments and help
students reflect on and extend on their learning as well as take
responsibility for their learning |
Allowing
students to write down their goals in the beginning of the year and
reflecting back on those goals throughout the entire year. Students also
identify their strengths and weaknesses. In addition, students can complete
the attitude survey which can lead to instructional decisions based on
student answers. Also
by allowing students to help in the rule making process as well as the
classroom decorating can motivate students and foster their learning. |
Commitment
of Mathematics Learner |
Accomplished
mathematics teachers epitomize the character they want to instill in students.
They create a safe climate conductive to student learning. |
By
building relationships with students as a whole class and as individuals
through the “name game,” and “getting to know you BINGO.” Also by creating an
environment where students use inquiry based lessons to take risks. |
Standard 5: Learning Environment |
||
Aspects |
Explanation |
Ways I Met Standard |
Create stimulating and productive environment in which
students are empowered to do mathematics. |
Accomplished mathematics teachers foster a respectful,
engaging, and cooperative atmosphere for learning from the beginning of the
school year. |
By having students play the “name game” and “Getting to
know you BINGO” and allowing them to help out with decorating the classroom
and choosing work of their own they can display in the classroom. |
Create stimulating and productive environment in which
students feel safe to communicate different points of views. |
Accomplished mathematics teachers create an environment of
trust where students feel safe to communicate different points of view, to
make mistakes, and to admit uncertainty in order to learn. |
By giving students the opportunity to write out their
strengths, weaknesses, and goals for the upcoming year. This helps them to
recognize what they are good at and what they need help with. Also, by
providing students with the opportunity to take risk with inquiry based
lessons. |
Create stimulating and productive environment in which
they use classroom management strategies. |
Accomplished mathematics teachers establish classroom
routines and policies that allow students to focus on learning. |
By developing classroom rules with my students and
creating routines they can follow on a daily basis such as entry assignments. |
Resources
Bucholz, J. L., & Sheffler, J. L. (2009). Creating a warm and inclusive
classroom environment: Planning for all children to feel welcome. Electronic
Journal for Inclusive Education, 2(4), Retrieved
from http://corescholar.libraries.wright.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1102&context=ejie
Clayton, M.K.
(November 2002). Displaying Student Work. Responsive
Classroom Newsletter.
Eredics, N. [Web log message].
Retrieved from
http://nichcy.org/arranging-a-classroom-to-create-an-inclusive-learning-environment
Lemov,
D. (2010). Teach like a champion : 49 techniques
that put students on the path to college. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Ormrod,
J. (2012). Essentials of educational psychology :
big ideas to guide effective teaching. Boston: Pearson.
Lewis,
E. & Seymour, E. (n.d). Classroom assessment techniques: Attitude surveys.
Retrieved from http://www.wcer.wisc.edu/archive/cl1/flag/cat/attitude/attitude7.htm