I must admit, it was a little intimidating remembering to line students up in the order of : host, extreme sports, rec center, bus (white, blue then purple), followed by car riders. However, after a couple times I felt confident about it. Of course, a lot of behavioral management techniques come into play to make this a smooth process, and to ensure that no student misses their transport home. I first have all students sit on the carpet, at a voice level of zero. I then call the students to line up in the order that I call, reiterating my expectations: no voice level, and a single file line. There are times where I would have to use an attention getting strategy in order to quiet them, and repeat my expectations once again. Once I am satisfied, I lead them to their dismissal places. I then stay with the fourth grade students, and hold the walkie talkie so that they can hear their names and where to be collected. I believe that this is a huge responsibility and truly take it seriously, and I am grateful to have this practice as an intern.
I have always been hesitant about taking the lead on dismissal as a level 1 and 2 intern. I always thought it was a hectic time, and was nervous about messing up, or not getting the students ready to be out the door in time. However, I decided that it was a skill I would need to master as an educator, and finally did it all on my own as a level 3 intern.
I must admit, it was a little intimidating remembering to line students up in the order of : host, extreme sports, rec center, bus (white, blue then purple), followed by car riders. However, after a couple times I felt confident about it. Of course, a lot of behavioral management techniques come into play to make this a smooth process, and to ensure that no student misses their transport home. I first have all students sit on the carpet, at a voice level of zero. I then call the students to line up in the order that I call, reiterating my expectations: no voice level, and a single file line. There are times where I would have to use an attention getting strategy in order to quiet them, and repeat my expectations once again. Once I am satisfied, I lead them to their dismissal places. I then stay with the fourth grade students, and hold the walkie talkie so that they can hear their names and where to be collected. I believe that this is a huge responsibility and truly take it seriously, and I am grateful to have this practice as an intern.
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Today was a break from work and was a lot of preparation for the veteran's day parade and Halloween treats! However, I focused a lot on the concept of rewards for good work.
In the morning, while correcting my morning work, I noticed my focus student possess extrinsic motivation rather than intrinsic motivation, as learned in my learning & development course. This entails that Billy listens cooperatively and works hard during morning work solely for the purpose of the reward that he could possibly obtain. Because he knows that he may get candy or positive checks, he may not work hard for the sake of gaining skills and knowledge. This is a tough situation, and my focus student's participation is often low. Is the lack of intrinsic motivation worth the increased participation exhibited by Billy? However, the bright side to these morning work rewards is that they are performance-contingent rewards rather than task-contingent rewards. Thus, according to my educational psychology book, this would increase intrinsic motivation as rewards are given for performing well on the task, rather than just completing the task. However, should awards be given for participation and effort (task-contingent rewards) as to encourage all students? There are definitely pros and cons to both. The majority of my day after this consisted of organizing candy for the students. The students then had singing practice for the Veteran's day concert. This allowed me to see more of my students' personalities as they performed. I saw various goal-oriented behaviors including mastery avoidance and approach, as well as performance avoidance and approach. My day started off with warm greetings from my students. It was evident that they were getting more and more comfortable with me and were happy to see me. As they filed in, I awaited my focus student to administer my assessments on him. He came in, and I pulled him to the back table. The first assessment I administered was the letter sound fluency. Billy (pseudonym) got 21 out of the 26 possible correct answers in the time allotted. (One minute). He struggled to correctly pronounce the letters "l", "r," and "q." This is great information to have as now I know exactly which letters he struggles with. The second assessment was the Yopp-Singer Test of Phoneme Segmentation. This entailed Billy having to each sound in a word that I called. The assessment was completely oral. Though Billy's reading level is lower than he should be, he got every single word correct! This informed me that he is very good with his phonemes and does not need any more work with that. You can have truly seen how proud of himself he was, and it was the confidence he needed. Earlier that day he had told me, "I'm supposed to read these basket of books because of my reading level, but I guess I'm better than I thought I was." I believe that Billy believing that he could only read a certain category of books may have created a self-fulfilling prophecy, as I have learned in my Learning & Development course. He thought that he could not be a good reader because he was labeled as a low one. Thus, his self-esteem and self-concept are not what they should be. Thus, he may not have the best perception of himself when it comes to reading, nor may he positively evaluate components of himself. Should students be allowed to choose whatever book they want in the classroom, regardless of reading level? After this, I corrected morning work with the class on the projector. Though this was my second time doing this, I still felt a little nervous, but once I got into it it seemed to be natural. I called on students to answer each question, and then at the end of the session, I had to choose two students who I thought shined. These two students were allowed to give themselves positive checks in their folders, which is a behavioral management strategy as learned in my learning and development course. After lunch was math and science, my favorite! It was a class full of singing and dancing to learn how to skip count. Is integrating the arts in the classroom a more effective method of teaching than traditional methods? I assisted a lot with students' worksheets, and more and more they asked me questions just as much as they asked the other teacher. The day truly flew by as I was very involved. One thing I have to work on is disciplining students. Perhaps I believe more in the "Praise and Ignore" strategy which is when teachers ignore inappropriate behaviors displayed by an individual while praising the appropriate behaviors of others. This is an interesting concept that I came across in my Educational Psychology textbook. Time would tell if this strategy is effective. |
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