Teacher Observations & More

As I sit down to write this final blog post, I am amazed at how fast the time has flown. I was skeptical at how I grew over the past few months. This semester felt extremely monotonous and at times, I felt like I hadn’t made any progress in my personal growth. If you’ve ever felt this way, you’ll know that this can feel so discouraging. Thankfully, our last assignment in a class of mine is to reflect on the past few months. And after reading my older blog posts and collecting my thoughts, I’ve come to the realization that I have in fact grown!

As we attended our field placements, we were given some guidance on the skills of observing, questioning, researching, reflecting, and using technology. Having multiple hands-on experiences to practice these skills helped me to grow in these areas. In the beginning on the semester, my observations were simple. I remember looking at big things that happened in the classroom that day, as they happened. Over time, I began to observe more and more the reactions after an event occurred. I found myself diving more into observing the how of it all. How did an action make the students feel? How did they show they understood what happened? How did it effect the learning environment?

Observing often leads to questioning. As for creating questions, I originally felt overwhelmed with the weight of extensive possibility that I had for creating a question. However, by the last day of my placement, I realized that I was able to narrow down all these questions floating around me much more easier than I used to. I think somewhere throughout the field placement days, I started to figure out the things I was more interested and passionate about and I began to focus my questions around those categories.

Research was the category I personally believe I have shown the most growth in. My main experiences with writing about research have been through research-heavy papers in high school. These blog posts were a far ways away from the formal and academic language filled papers I had so much practice with. My first article, titled The Importance of Positivity in Preschool, incorporated research in a way I could only describe as chunky. Each article I read had its own paragraph, with a formal introduction and summary. My most recent article, titled Parent Involvement in Preschool, incorporated research in a much more casual and flowing way. I found that as I wrote about the articles I read, my writing felt more like a blog post that I would read instead of a research paper. I even asked my readers questions while summarizing articles. This improved because of my exposure to so much research! By my last article, I was able to figure out exactly what I need to search to pull up the results I wanted in a much more efficient and quick way.

As for reflection and technology, I have had extensive practice with these in the past. I have had many personal blogs before where I reflected on multiple aspects of my life. I enjoyed getting to use these skills in this project. I personally feel that because I had had so much experience with these two things, I was able to grow stronger in the previously mentioned areas. However, I know that I have not had as much experience reflecting on research that relates to teaching, so I enjoyed broadening my horizons and collecting new ideas and connections to teaching as I wrote my blog posts.

The following are a few summative questions that I would like to share with you about this experience!

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

If I could do this project again, I would choose to focus my questions that guided my research on one specific concept or idea. My research ranged from sensory bins to positive reinforcement to parent involvement. I wish I would have thought to be more cohesive with my posts. I am a very organized and linear person and would have liked my blog to reflect that instead of being somewhat all over the place.

What are you taking away to your future teaching practice from this R2P project?

I find myself taking a few things away from this project. The first thing is the importance of questioning. Nothing is ever perfect, so it is important to have a questioning mindset. The day we stop asking questions is the day we stop learning. As a future teacher, I am going to ask questions such as “Why did someone do this?” or “How can I improve this specific thing?”.

Another thing I’m taking away from this project is that I am not alone. No matter what situation I may be faced with in my future classroom, I can be reassured in knowing that somewhere in the world, there is something very similar happening. And chances are, there’s research on it! This is a very comfortable thought to have.

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

1. THINK ABOUT YOUR READERS!! Find your unique way of engaging the readers of your blog post. This was something I struggled with and felt I didn’t quite grasp. Take the time to ask your readers questions or find additional material for your readers to look at. Engage them!
2. Don’t get overwhelmed. In my first day in the field, the word “observation” hung over my head like a giant gray cloud. I felt so overwhelmed by all the newness to observe. I didn’t want to forget a single thing. But I’m here to tell you to don’t underestimate yourself. If something eventful or intriguing happens, you’ll most likely remember enough of it to write it down as soon as you leave your classroom for the day. Don’t get too caught up in intricate details.
3. Read other blog posts. I know, it takes time to sit down and find a post about something you’re interested in. But seriously, reading blog posts by current teachers or people who have had a lot of experience blogging is a great way to see what works and what techniques you would want to use in your blog!

Have a great summer readers!

Hannah

 

Click here to read my group post about our experience teaching Squishy Circuits at a first grade science fair!

Imagine this: you’re a first year teacher at a preschool. It’s already April and your year has gone better than you had planned. The day finally comes for your last parent workshop. The past two workshops you had, all but two parents came in, enthusiastically ready to learn how to continue the education of the classroom into the home life of the child. The last parent workshop is set up similarly to the previous ones, with an activity for both parents and students to complete together and some key topics to cover. The materials are all set up and the clock ticks closer and closer to 11 a.m., the time when parents are supposed to arrive. You keep checking the door, but no one is standing there. By 11:05, only two parents have showed up, the students are getting antsy, and you realize that these two parents are the only ones showing up today. You go through the workshop and try to brush it off, but it hurts. You worked hard and it seems in the moment that it was all for nothing.

According to a study done in Indonesia, parent involvement is affected by the education level of the mother, the location of the school (urban vs rural), and home life. This parent involvement has been observed to positively affect students both in their mindset about school and their actual academics as well. While you may be thinking “But this is in Indonesia, not America”, I believe we can use this information to our advantage when struggling with parent involvement!

If you know for a fact that some of the parents in your classroom have not been to college or are not what society would label as “highly educated”, this is something you should try to combat. If parents never went to college, they may feel lesser than you, a teacher who went to college. Letting parents know that what they have to say is important is just one way to hopefully help parents feel like they can be more involved in the classroom.

If you ever feel discouraged about the lack of parent involvement, try to remind yourself to not give up on something that is so important to a child’s development. A study done in Norway  states that “children whose parents and teachers both reported very good cooperation with one another were rated as having better academic skills and social skills and as having fewer negative behaviors than children whose parents and teachers did not report very good cooperation”.  A teacher-parent relationship is another key thing to increase parent involvement. Clear communication and patience can help with the cooperation that is deemed as necessary.

My initial purpose for sitting down to write this blog post was to attempt to find reasons for why parents do not get involved. I thought that maybe if we all understood why involvement may be low, we can figure out a way around it. However, after finding research that talks about how important parent involvement is, I am now leaning towards the question of “How can I involve parents?”

Have you seen any techniques in the classroom that made you think “Wow, this is great for parental involvement!”? If so, I would love to hear them!

 

Have a great week,

Hannah

 

We all have our passions. The thing that gets us out of bed in the morning may be different from person to person, but we’ve all got something. As I’ve grown through my college career in early childhood education, I’ve found I have a few passions. To keep it brief and just name a few, I am passionate about differentiated learning, engaging lessons, and integrative STEM.

During my most recent placement in a preschool setting, I noticed something that caused a question to form in my mind, pulling at some of my passions. Let me set the scene for you guys. It was free choice center time in the preschool classroom. The centers available to play in that morning were library, writing center, math center, dramatic play center, science center, and block center. The science center typically has small sticks from trees, rocks, dinosaur figures, and magnets, amongst other things. This morning however, there was something I hadn’t seen before. The sensory table was open for children’s use! I had never seen a sensory table in action before, so I was very curious to see how the students would interact with it. I was curious as to how something with the potential of being very engaging would have to do with science. I spent most of center time sitting near the table so that I could make some observations.

The students were drawn towards the table. It was at standing height for the children in the classroom and was full of small black beans, Q-Tips, small rocks, dinosaur toys, teaspoons, and tablespoons. Only two children were allowed at the table at a time. As the children played, I saw them bury the dinosaurs in beans, walk the dinosaurs around the table as if the dinosaurs were exploring the beans, and hold beans in their hands. A majority of the students interacted with each other while they played, making up games between each other about hiding and finding buried dinosaurs. One student in particular enjoyed using the measuring spoon to draw in the beans.

As I watched, I was amazed. What was seemingly very simple items created what seemed like a fun and engaging addition to the science center. When I got home from field that day, I found myself still thinking about the sensory table. I had heard of these tables before, but had never seen one of these in action before. What was the purpose of having a sensory table? Is there any benefit to it besides it being fun? Did it positively affect learning about science or STEM?

In order to find some answers, I did some research. To find articles, I used the following terms: sensory bin, sensory tub, sensory table, pre-school, preschool, early childhood, and benefit. After some scrolling and skimming, I located two articles that took a stab at beginning to answer my question.

The first article, titled Let’s Get Messy! Exploring Sensory and Art Activities with Infants and Toddlers by Trudi Schwarz and Julia Luckenbill, highlighted how learning through senses and possibly creating a mess through learning about science is child-centered and engaging. Having sensory learning available to children can help with the development of motor skills as well as social-emotional skills. A quote that I enjoyed reading from this article was “Children must explore to know. A direct connection exists between sensory experiences and the development of creativity”. The rest of the article went into detail about the process of creating a curriculum that involves sensory and art activities.

This article reminded me of the creative experiences class we take for our education major here at Millersville. While what I read wasn’t necessarily about sensory tables or bins, it was interesting to read about engaging senses in learning. I feel like sometimes it may be easy to overlook using sensory learning in lesson plans, especially if you are in a classroom with older students. I ended up saving this article on my laptop as it had multiple ideas for sensory tables that I could use in my future classroom. As I read, I found myself trying to integrate sensory learning into STEM education. What a jackpot! But I still wanted to learn more about sensory bins specifically, so I continued to search.

The second article I read was Effects of the Sense-Based Science Education Program on Scientific Process Skills of Children Aged 60-66 Months. This article was about research that was conducted to test how children’s understanding of the scientific process was effected by learning through the use of all senses. The conductors of this research integrated using the five senses into science lessons with preschool children and took note of how the students responded. If I’m being completely honest, the tables in this article were a bit difficult to understand. If you are a big numbers person, this might be interesting to look at! The conclusion of the research was that there was a significant difference between pre-tests and final-test score averages of children who experienced the sensory learning and that the final test scores were higher compared to pre-test scores. A quote that stood out to me was “We can conclude that using all senses actively and in balance may have a positive effect on children’s scientific process skills” (pg 247).

While this article was a bit of a challenge for me to read, it was very interesting. I found it went well with the first article I read. Not only does sensory learning keep students engaged, but it also may help raise test scores. Sometimes, I feel like teachers fall into the trap of teaching right out of a book, thinking about teaching to the test. However, this article showed that sensory learning will allow students to truly learn the material, resulting in better test scores.

Now that I know a bit more about the benefits of sensory learning, I am glad to see that my field placement has a sensory table! It seemed like the students enjoyed playing and learning with the table, but I would like to ask them how they feel about it. I wonder if the teacher changes the table contents based on what they are learning about in class. I know that they were learning about dinosaurs a few weeks ago, hence the dinosaur figures. Also, is one material better than others? For example, are beans more effective than beads? What about sand or dirt? I would also like to dive more into teaching STEM in a preschool setting. How can that be done effectively?  These articles are a great diving board for me as I continue my field placement.

Until next time,

Hannah

Field placements are always my most favorite time of the year. Being able to start fresh in a new classroom with a new co-op and new students brings about such a feeling of excitement and hope. As I stepped into my classroom on the first day of what I hoped to be a great semester, I was amazed. This classroom seemed like a dream! There were centers all over that aligned to many of the concepts and standards that have been addressed in the various courses I’ve taken here at Millersville. Student artwork hung all over the walls, students sat at tables with other students, and their daily schedule allowed for plenty of time to learn through play. I quickly took mental photographs of this classroom to remember it as long as I could.

Most of the day went by without any trouble. But there was once instance that I observed that immediately brought a question to my mind.

A student was not following the directions on the morning work assignment. The rest of the students were on task, their heads bent over their worksheets as they completed writing the letters they were learning about that week. I did not see how the student was misbehaving, but I heard the teacher’s assistant say something along the lines of “That’s it! Go move your clip down,” loud enough for the rest of the class to hear. The student walked slowly and quietly to the back of the door, where a behavior chart was publicly displayed. Each student had a clip that had their name written on it. Each clip started out on the medium level. There was a level higher and two levels lower. As the student moved her clip down to the lower level, I saw that a majority of the students were now sitting with their eyes wide open, looking at this student. For a few minutes after this happened, the room was very quiet. Then, the students got back to work.

When I got home from placement that day, I had multiple questions running through my head. I jotted them all down along with my observations of the classroom, and eventually chose to focus on the observation I just described. The question I settled on was the following: What is a positive classroom management technique to use in an elementary school classroom? I felt sure that there must be other ways to encourage good student behavior than what I witnessed.

As I researched, I used terms like “positive reinforcement”, “classroom management”, “preschool”, “kindergarten”, and “early childhood”. Using a combination of these search terms brought me to two articles that I would like to share with you today.

The first article, titled Using Teacher Praise and Opportunities to Respond to Promote Appropriate Student Behavior, was about the positive effects that teacher praise and opportunities has on student behavior in the classroom. Teachers who have negative interactions with their students when addressing behaviors often makes the behavior worse, encouraging it more. If a student, especially in preschool, wants the teacher’s attention, he or she will learn that the only way to do so is by exhibiting bad behavior. As a solution to this, it is recommended to praise students when the teacher sees good behaviors and create more opportunities for response.

I thought it was interesting to see that many scholars agree that focusing on the positive reinforcements rather than the negative attention was more beneficial. I find that this is not always what happens in my preschool classroom. Calling students out and making them walk across the room in front of their peers to move their clip down a level does not seem like positive reinforcement to me. I wonder if this negatively affects the other students. In my past schooling experiences, I know that personally, this type of classroom management made me scared to raise my hand or do anything because I was worried that I would get into trouble. Can preschool students feel this way?

The second article I read was titled Blending Effective Behavior Management and Literacy Strategies for Preschoolers Exhibiting Negative Behavior. This article focused on three main behavior management techniques that can work in preschools and how to blend them with literacy. The three techniques mentioned were group contingencies, anger management, and individualized behavior plans with different reinforcement of other behaviors. These techniques all involve some sort of positive reinforcement. Blending literacy is easy to incorporate into these techniques and can help preschoolers grow in both behavior management and literacy.

After reading this, I again thought about the behavior management technique that I saw in my placement. This article described how appropriate behaviors should be reinforced in a positive way and never mentioned reinforcement in a negative way, like I observed. I also thought it was interesting to blend literacy into in, even though that did not quite relate to my original research question.

After reading these two articles, the main thought floating around my head was “Well, why does this behavior management chart exist in this classroom?” I wonder if it has worked well the rest of the year. I am only a guest in the classroom and I do not know the students as well as my co-op. So maybe this has worked in her classroom. But I do think that more attention should be spent on praising rather than criticizing, especially when in front of other students. What do you guys think? Does anyone have any experiences or observations of something like a clip chart? In your experience, has it worked or would positive reinforcement have worked better?

 

Until next time,

Hannah

 

sources:

Partin, T. C. M., Robertson, R. E. ., Maggin, D. M. ., Oliver, R. M. ., & Wehby, J. H. . (2010). Using Teacher Praise and Opportunities to Respond to Promote Appropriate Student Behavior. Preventing School Failure, 54(3), 172–178. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eue&AN=47696986&authtype=sso&custid=s3915890&site=ehost-live

Smith, J. (2009). Blending Effective Behavior Management and Literacy Strategies for Preschoolers Exhibiting Negative Behavior. Early Childhood Education Journal, 37(2), 147–151. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10643-009-0326-z

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