Creating Productive Learning Environments

In my Service Learning placement I have great opportunities to make connections with the concepts I am learning in my education class. I am understanding that giving choices to students is very important for their motivation and success. There has been times my cooperative teacher has offered her students a choice. Just last week, she placed four different poems on the board. The students were asked to choose one poem to rewrite and draw a picture about. This gave the students freedom to make their own choice, which I could see encouraged them and they were excited about the assignment. 

It is very important to make your students feel loved and safe. In my Service Learning placement my teacher knows how important this is for creating a classroom community. At the beginning of the school year the teacher explains the classroom rules. Rule #1 Respect others, respect yourself, respect your school. Rule #2 Listen when your teacher is talking. Rule #3 Be safe, be kind, be honest. Rules teach the children the teacher cares, and if she cares about them they know they are loved  and she wants them to be safe. 

To establish good classroom behavior the teacher must first establish a positive relationship with each student. To accomplish this each student must feel important to the teacher. When the student speaks, the teacher should always listen without interruption. This shows the student the teacher cares. When the teacher observes the positive behavior of a student, the teacher should always point this out to build the students' self-esteem. It is so important to get to know the students, show them you care, and support them. They will feel they belong and will trust the teacher. A student that knows they are safe and loved will give respect to the teacher and to the class which in turn will create good classroom behavior.

Classroom Rules

First day at school...

My first day at school doing my Service Learning was so exciting! I was able to observe in Mrs. James 2nd grade classroom. She is one of my favorite teachers. I love to watch her teach, she knows just how to love each of the students as she teaches. She is so compassionate and understanding but very firm.

As I observed Mrs. James teaching style I came to understand that the learning theory she uses the most would be behaviorism. She has a very good class, they are so quiet and listen to her very well. I believe they behave so well because of her behavior chart on the front board of the classroom. It's a behavior chart with cute little owls with the students names on them. There are five different squares on the chart. From top to bottom they read "Great Choices", "Good Choices", "Ready to Learn", "Warning", and "Consequence". At the beginning of the day each owl starts in the middle of the chart at "Ready to Learn". As the day progresses Mrs. James watches for good behavior from the students and when she sees it she tells the student to move their owl up to the next square. Examples of good behavior would be when the student is doing their work, working quietly, doing something nice, or listening to the teacher. If a student is talking, not doing their work or distracted, she usually draws attention to the students that are behaving appropriately and asks them to move up their owl. This usually gets the attention of the student acting inappropriately and they usually get right to work. But if the student continues to misbehave she will ask the student to move their owl down. The students know this is not a good thing when you are asked to move down your owl. Mrs. James has told them that she likes her owls to move up, not down. At the end of the day the students that are at the top of the chart on "Great Choices" can choose from different rewards. I know this behavior chart is a very important teaching tool in her class and it is one of the reasons her students behavior so well.

While observing I noticed that the students are at different developmental levels. Mrs. James has a very good way of teaching when students are at different levels of learning. For example, she assigns the same assignment to all the students, but she knows there will be a few students that can only do the writing part, some students can answer the questions and the writing part, and some can do all the work plus some extra. This all depends on the developmental level of the student and the Mrs. James knows what they are capable of doing.

Students also have individual learning preferences. Mrs. James will have different centers to reach each students learning style. She will have a reading center with books for the students that learn best by reading. I have also seen teachers use a cd or tape player with the book so the students can listen to the story and follow along. This is great for students who learn by auditory learning. She will have a drawing center for students that learn best visually, so they can draw and see what they are learning. Then she will have a another center for the kinesthetic learner that learns best by moving or using their hands. I have observed in Mrs. James class just how important it is to teach with the different learning preferences so each student can understand in their own way what is being taught.

It has been very exciting and interesting to actually see what we are learning in our Elementary Education course during our Service Learning placement. I am absolutely loving it!

Behavior Chart

My new adventure....

Salem Elementary School

I am so excited to start this new adventure in my life! I have finally gone back to school to get my Elementary Education Bachelor degree. I will be doing 20 hours of Service Learning right here at Salem Elementary. The school is located at 140 West 100 South in Salem, Utah. The phone number is 801-423-1182. This school is part of the Nebo School District. The district office is located in Spanish Fork, Utah.What makes this even more exciting is that this is the school I went to when I was in elementary and this is where my youngest son attends now. In fact I use to work here in the Special Education class as a Technician. I love this school! Maybe if I am fortunate I will work here after I graduate.

What is Service-Learning? This is where students donate their time to learn as they participate in a service activity. I will be observing and learning what a teacher does. Some suggested activities that I could be doing are reading to the class, working one on one with students, working with small groups, grading papers, assist students as needed, helping the teacher with their prep work, observing the teacher and the tasks she will complete.

Salem school is located in the older part of town. It is an older school built in 1982. It is a elementary school with grades K-6. There are a total of 489 students. They have 19 full time teachers, with a student per teacher ratio of 24:1. As of August 2015 their fourth grade has the highest amount of students with 82 students and three teachers for that grade. 51% of their students are males and 49% are females. 76% of the students qualify for free or reduced price school lunch.  The school has a great PTO (Parent Teacher Organization) and the parents in the community are great to volunteer. One thing I think the school could improve is their rating on the Great Schools website. Salem School has been rated 5 out 10 on the Great Schools rating. You can see this rating on their website Great Schools.