Kerry Wright EDU7666 Journal Entries Blog 3 Dr. Signer
Topic Heading
On 10/25 there was a topic on the discussion boards under the Teacher.net, chat boards under elementary education. One teacher was having difficulty managing her class. This teacher noticed that another teacher in her school allowed for 30 minutes of free daily. If any students misbehaved time was taken away from that students’ free time. The teacher that started this discussion posted a question on the discussion board to see if other teachers agree because he/she was concerned about time constraints.
Other teachers responded with positive feedback for this approach. However one teacher described her free time as choice time for the students to go to different centers. This teacher used the strategy to work with students that needed extra help. She did not use it as a way to modify behaviors.
Overall the discussion supported the idea of more creative free time in order to modify bad behaviors, increase creativity and work more with students. However, the discussion did not answer the problem of scheduling.
Questions I posed with responses
When I read this topic, it reminded me of the problems I have with the noise level in my class during centers. I believe there should be more center/free time for students. But, when I implement the centers, I find the noise level in the class gets out of control. I posed my problem in my response and one of the teachers gave me a great suggestion. The teacher said that she has a quiet time in class so that the students can here the noise level of the other classes. The teacher then discusses how the quality of classroom changes with a high noise level. The class understands so much that the students will remind each other if it gets too loud.
I really like this approach to handle the noise level in the classroom. It allows the students to understand the impact of their behaviors.
Responses to other questions
I choose to join in this discussion because I am interesting in improving my classroom management skills and I felt the topic would lead to good ideas. I feel it is important to have order in the class but not jeopardize creativity or other learning. I use small group reading time and I wanted to hear how to manage the time better rather then correcting students.
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2 comments:
Hi Kerry:
What is your opinion about using free time as a strategy to modify behaviors and what influenced you to come to your conclusion?
Novel idea to bring the children to hear a noisy class and realize the negative impact on learning. Would you try it? Need to be careful not to use another teacher as a negative example. Probably would need that teacher's permission.
Nice to read how you are using this assignment for your own professional growth.
Dr. S
Dr. S,
I am not sure if free time would work because there is the time element to consider. I also do not like too much unstructured time. I find the students get too crazy. However I do like using postive reinenforcement.
Yes I would try to bring my class to another to hear the noise. However I would need to work with the teacher. Also maybe I could bring the students to another class to hear the benefits of quiet class.
Thanks,
Kerry
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