Andrew's Afterthoughts

Reflection of my own posts

Looking back at my previous 4 posts, I’ve noticed the most growth in the area of observation. Initially, I focused too much on behavior management. While this is never a bad thing to focus on, I needed to pay more attention to how to deliver a lesson more effectively. In my most recent post, I believe that is what I did. I had noticed many of the children had not been focusing and that led me to my question of how to engage the child enough for them to complete the task. Compared to my previous posts, I think that question had the best intentions behind it as well.

I feel that most of this post is going to be centered around how my fourth post was the best out of them all and honestly it was. Even though the research for the question posed in the last post wasn’t an article, I definitely learned the most from it. My previous posts had research from articles I had found online but didn’t really take a deep dive into my questions. However, the research from my last post was straight from two of my professors. We had discussed exactly what I had asked in my post and I was able to apply it without a second thought. You learn so much more from an in person conversation than you ever could from reading words on a screen online.

When it comes to my growth in my reflections, I don’t think I can say that any of my posts were greater than any other. I feel that I’ve always reflected on my thought processes and decisions in a well spoken manner. Technology is a something I still need to work on though. I’m always thinking about the actual content that needs to be taught and not the means at which I can do so. Whether it be through an interactive video, a game, a class discussion, etc. I tend to always do what I know and not branch out into unknown territory. That is something I will definitely be working on in the future.

If I were to do the R2P project again, what would I do differently?

I think I would definitely write more notes down. I tend to be the kind of person to be in the moment and have the mindset of “I’ll remember this later.Don’t worry about it.” However, I almost always do forget specific and important details and I do end up regretting it. Some of my posts took me a decent amount of time just thinking of what to say in the observation because of this.

What am I taking away to my future teaching practice from this R2P project?

I am taking away the fact that there is always room for improvement. No lesson or teaching practice is ever perfect for every child and accommodations are always needed to help the student in whatever way I can.

What advice would I give to the next ERCH496 students about the R2P project?

Write everything down and don’t procrastinate. You may think you have it all under control but a good teacher plans and prepares for any possible scenario.

Observation

During my last observation, I noticed that many of the children had issues focusing. This wasn’t just during certain activities but it was during anything that the teacher was directing them to do. They would pay attention to the activity for a few minutes but easily got distracted before finishing the task.

 

Question

How do I help a student focus on a task enough to complete it?

 

Research

My research for this post is a little different compared to my others. I actually learned an answer to this question during my ERCH 496 and 421 classes. It was odd how they both addressed this during during the same week of class but I guess everything happens for a reason. Both Dr. Powers and Dr. Sugra talked about how many children need to make a choice in what they want to do instead of being told what to do. The trick is though that the options presented to the child are all acceptable and productive options to the teacher. The student feels like they’re making a conscious choice to do the activity rather than being forced to do it.

 

Reflection

There have been a handful of times that I observed the teacher presenting the children with multiple stations where they can do an activity. Almost all the children completed the activity they had chosen before moving on to another station. In a way I feel like this is kinda like reverse psychology. The children think they’re the ones deciding how the class is being ran and it seems to work. I definitely will be using this in my future classroom. It’s never a bad thing to trick a troubled student into learning.

This group post can be found on Arielle’s blog here

Due to my busy schedule and illness, I had a lot of trouble trying to get out a second podcast. It takes a lot longer than I had initially thought. Because of this, the rest of my blog posts are going to be text only.

 

Observation

While observing in a lot of my classes, I noticed a something that was very polarizing. The classroom directly across the hall seemed to be much better behaved than the children in the class I was assigned. I noticed that in my classroom, the children didn’t seem to respect the teachers as much and would misbehave to the point where the teacher had no choice but to start screaming in many cases. The kids across the hall were all of the same age as my classroom but it was very obviously a different environment so I decided to speak to that classrooms teacher to see what she did differently. She told me that since these are preschoolers, she has them go over the rules every single morning and doesn’t let anything slide. She said that it took about 2 months before she saw significant improvement but that it’s well worth it.

 

Question

What is the an effective way to establish classroom order and discipline?

 

Research

An article I found about classroom management and discipline was called Gender, Order and Discipline in Early Childhood Education by Ylva Odenbring. It focuses on a preschool class in Sweden and implementing some “teacher helper” strategies to bring order to the class. The study found that assigning some children to help the teacher with everyday tasks helped promote respect and a positive environment. They also assigned some children to be “dampers”. This is when they would assign a well behaved child to be a “damper” and to sit beside a noisy child in order to have the “damper” encourage their noisy neighbor to keep themselves in check. What’s interesting about this study is that they almost always ended up placing girls next to any troublemakers. In this class, it seems that the boys tend to be the only ones that cause problems.

 

Reflection

Thinking back on what I observed in both classrooms and what I read in this article, I think it is very important to layout the rules early in the year. Most importantly, however, it’s even more important to follow through with the rules. Whether that be through a teacher’s helper, a damper, or just by rehearsing the rules every morning with the children, it’s important to stay consistent with the expectations.

 

Citation

Odenbring, Ylva1, ylva.odenbring@gu. s. “Gender, Order and Discipline in Early Childhood Education.” International Journal of Early Childhood, vol. 46, no. 3, Nov. 2014, pp. 345–356. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1007/s13158-014-0121-x.

Entertainment through technology… good or bad? by Andrew’s Afterthoughts

Today I dive into technology and its effect on children

Citation:

Dube, N., Khan, K., Loehr, S., Chu, Y., & Veugelers, P. (2017). The use of entertainment and communication technologies before sleep could affect sleep and weight status: A population-based study among children. International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity,14(1). doi:10.1186/s12966-017-0547-2

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