Managing a Classroom

   Managing a classroom is something some teachers do well and some do not. For myself I find it important to establish respect at the very beginning to start managing your classroom. We discussed in class having high expectations for each student. I also see that as respecting a student and their learning. To connect respect to learning theories it can be related to Behaviorist Learning Theory. The students receive a stimulus and respond to the stimulus. If they are shown respect and what I expect from them, they are more likely to respect myself and the classroom. Another important part of classroom management is making sure students are on task. This relates to the motivation factors of each student. If I relate the information to them in a form they can understand and relate to, they will be more willing to understand the information or to complete the task. Linking this to learning theory corresponds with Contructivist Learning Theory. I connect the new information to their previous schemas they will have a better understanding of the new information.
   Another portion of classroom management is how to handle situations. If a student walks in with a bad attitude and is throwing things and creating a scene I would first walk over and stand by him and see if that stopped his actions. If this did not stop his actions and they continued, I would ask him to stay after class and ask him questions about his actions in class. If he is truly disruptive during the entire class to where I am unable to teach, I would set the students on a question they needed to discuss in groups and then I would as the person to come up and talk to me. Then I would ask possibly the same questions I would ask at the end of class, how is your actions appropriate, why do you think that the actions that are being displayed are possibly interfering with their own education and the students around him. This can be connected to BLT while managing my class. Also I feel that I would treat each outburst or attitude in the same fashion. This way one student will not complain that she received a different treatment than he did.
   I truly feel that respect is the main thing that needs to be established when dealing with classroom management. That can come down to the respect of the students and their learning. Their motivation and their overall education would be coming from me. If I give them no reason to be motivated, no reason to want to learn, I am not respecting them, and my classroom will not run as smoothly because they will not feel the need to turn in homework, participate in class or behave in my class. Learning theory can connect and help structure the way a classroom is set up just like it can inform a teacher on how to prepare lessons. Keeping the learning theories in mind will make the classroom run smoother. 

Group 1: Eating well. I really enjoyed this presentation. They used an interesting polling website that I found could be very useful in the classroom. They also brought in concrete examples of healthy food as well as not so healthy food. It was very interesting when we all were able to look at lard. It was gross as well as educational. I have used Crisco before and know the texture, but it was interesting seeing the reactions on the other student's faces. I really enjoyed this presentation. DLT and SLT could be seen in their presentation. They used concrete examples of healthy food and not so healthy food. Also it was a discussion between peers and the presenter themselves.

Group 2: English homophones. This was fun to see how many people could think of different homophones. The lesson was not really concrete but they used SLT very well to inform their teaching. The riddles given at the beginning of the lesson were fun as well.


Group 3: Paper Bag Princess. This group use CLT  and SLT more to inform their lesson. They first started asking questions about what we believe respect was and how to show respect. They also keep active mental engagement while reading the book by asking questions about the book and what was going on while Cate was reading.


Group 4: Alphabet. This one got us to move around. This would be very helpful with children especially little ones who may have lots of energy in the end of the day. The use of finding and matching of the letters was fun and had to keep you thinking about where the letter could be and what the lower case looked like. Yes we are college students, but it was still something that we had to think about. Then using our peers as teammates through the race was influenced by SLT.

The lessons today all went rather well. Each group tended to use SLT a lot of the time and others did try to incorporate DLT, CLT, and BLT. I felt the presentation went smoothly today.

Thank You Iowa

The presentation today I felt went okay. I think that it could have possibly been better if we thought about all of the learning theories. When we started planning out the lesson I felt as if I was concentrating more on DLT and SLT, rather than BLT and CLT. Thinking about the questions they were yes or no. Even though they were not intended to be yes or no. I do like how the lesson went. I think the next time it would be rather important to think about CLT. This way to look at their schemas and see their understandings. That is what we were trying to do with the questions but the questions again were not worded correctly. I think the wording of the questions is something that is newer to the class. And trying to ask questions the way Prof Kruse does is a little harder than it seems. I think that also just takes a little practice.