Exit Interview

Content:

(1) What is your essential question, and what are your answers?  What is your best answer and why?

My essential question is : How does a teacher best set a learning environment where the majority time is spent on teaching and learning rather than discipline?
My answers are:  Structure which includes lesson plans, routines, seating arrangements, and being prepared.  My second answer is expectations such as classroom rules; and my third answer is parent communication. 
My best answer is: Structure, because a teacher who takes their time in planning an effective structure spends less time disciplining their classroom and more time teaching. All of my research and experience points to structure as my best answer without structure there would be chaos in the classroom.

(2) What process did you take to arrive at this answer?
I decided structure was my best answer out of all three of my answers because of my mentorship. I was able to see how different teachers handled different situations which in the end bottled down to structure, I like how Robert J. Mackenzie and Lisa Stanzione put it "Structure it the organizational foundation in a classroom" which I completely agree with, which my experience and research proves correct.

(3) What problems did you face?  How did you resolve them?

The only problem I faced was the lack of resources to my answers. Most of the information online was extremely repetitive because once one thing works really well in the classroom it spreads like wildfire. Therefore looking for articles and resources to support my answers soon became a tedious task. I tried looking for books to do research on, but I was only able to find one book that had useful information that my mentor recommended. The other books that I found had information that would only work in a perfect world such as, if you talk to the student that is  misbehaving they won't misbehave ever misbehave again. What I did to resolve this problem was to look for articles that were parent child based not teacher child based, since parents are the students first teacher the articles that I found were actually extremely helpful.

(4) What are the two most significant sources you used to answer your essential question and why?

My best source that helped me answer my essential question was no other than my mentor, Lourdes Garay. She is an incredible mentor, that I don't even know how I could possibly thank her. She truly helped me with my whole senior project.  She helped me construct a essential question and answers, figure out why the answers we created answered my essential question, offered ideas for my Independent Components and gave me other resources I could use. For my essential question she helped me network with other teachers to see how they taught differently from her this helped me gather  valuable information that helped me answer my essential question. Which leads me to my second best source my mentor let me borrow a book called Setting Limits in a Classroom by Robert J. Mackenzie and Lisa Stanzonie. This book was very resourceful it had information for all my answers. This book was so informative and useful that I would recommend it to all teachers.  Mackenzie  and Stanzonie are remarkably well authors in the book they provide me ideas, examples that I have included to explain not only my best answer but also my other answers.

Reach for the stars!

 

Today I helped students create this because they are learning about the planets, stars and constellations. This was a simple project that they were able to do, a hands on project to learn about The Great Bear constellation.  

Independent Component 2

Content:  
LITERAL
(a) I, Stephanie Marin affirm that I completed my independent component which represents 30 hours of work.
(b) I completed my Independent Component Two hours by doing extra hours at my mentorship which is at San Jose School with Lourdes Garay my mentor.
(c)  Independent Component Two hours
(d) By completing my hours at my mentorship I was able to get more experience with working with students. I was able to learn from my mentor how to handle different situations for example, what to do when a student doesn't want to put any effort in participating in class. I  also got to work with another third grade teacher, Mrs. Anderson which was refreshing. I saw how she handled different situations and taught differently form my mentor. I was able to work with groups of students that needed extra help in understanding a certain problem or on a concept. Although the pictures I have included not show me working with students since I am not allowed to take pictures of them I included pictures of other tasks I did such as help prepare for different activities or simply showcase students work.
INTERPERTIVE
As I said before I was able to work with two teachers who helped me by allowing me to work with the students and experience first hand how to handle various situations.
APPLIED
How did the component help you answer your EQ? Please include specific examples to illustrate how it helped. This Component helped me answer my EQ because I am able to use my experience at my mentorship to explain my answers for example, expatiations is one of them. It's important to make sure the students know what you expect of them. My mentor hands tickets as a reward for staying on task which they could use to gets prizes; my mentor gave me the ability to give students these which showed me that students who are rewarded or even thanked for staying on task helps them follow directions which decreases disruptions.



This a project I helped prepare for Dr. Seuss Day.



This is a Spelling Test I graded.

This is a math classwork worksheet that I helped hang up. 

This is a close up from the picture to the right.

This is a classroom project that I hung up.



This is a tree graph that the students worked on and I hanged up.

This a writing assignment that I helped the students with and hanged up on the wall.

This is a story summary that the students worked on that I hung up.

 

Oh, the Places You'll Go!

 

For Dr. Seuss's day the students did a project in which I pre-cut all the construction paper before hand; for this project the students wrote three of their goals on a paper arrow for example going to New York, keeping their room clean or passing their AR goal. After they finished doing their project I posted them all up on the wall and door.
 

Fourth Interview Questions

I will be interviewing Mr. Harper a teacher who is well respected by both his colleges and students.

Questions:

1.      How do you keep parents involve in their child’s academics?

2.      Do you use parents for support? Why or why not?

3.      How do you deal with difficult parents?

4.      Do you ever make good phone calls home? Why or why not?

5.      If you had to choose from only structure, expectations or parent communication for getting the students attention which one would you choose and why?

6.      When you explain your classroom rules how do explain them?

7.      Do you write down your classroom rules for the students to see them on a daily bias? Why or why not?

8.      How do you handle a disruptive student?

9.      When do you decide when you know a student is not going to listen to you anymore and you need to take action?

10.  How many distractions do you have on a regular bias?

11.  If you send a student out of the classroom for misbehavior do you talk about their actions and what they can do differently when they come back? Why or why not?

12.  Do you think that attention getters actually work for example, “hands on top, everybody stop”?

13.  Do you ever ask for your student’s feedback after you taught a lesson or at the end of the year on what worked and what didn’t?

14.  Do give out incentives? Why or why not?

15.  Do you have classroom routines? Why or why not? If you do how do you feel they help you stay on task?

16.  Do you ever change up how you teach for example; do you start the day differently like asking a question to get the students attention?

17.  What do you do when you know you’re losing the students attention?

18.  Have you ever considered giving thank you note or compliment notes? Why or why not? Do you think they would work?

19.   How would you answer the question “How does a teacher set a learning environment where the majority time is spent on teaching and learning rather than disciplining?” and why?

20.   Do you know of anyone I that you think I could interview or learn more from?

Blog 17: Third Answer

Content:

1. My Essential Question is “How does a teacher set a learning environment where the majority time is spent on teaching and learning rather than disciplining?”

2. By having a line of communication with parents teachers spend less time disciplining their classroom and more time teaching.

3. Parents are the students first teachers in which if the child misbehaves the students know that their parents will be contacted. Teachers are able to have the parents as a support, lets be honest when a third grader is messing around and the teacher tells him to stop and they don't, but when they say they will be contacting their parents they will stop. By staying in contact with parents are able to reinforce the teachers rules and habits that are used in class.

4. My best source is Setting Limits in a Classroom by Robert Mackenzie and Lisa Stanzonie. Another source is my mentor because I see first hand how a lot of parents offer their assistance to her because she always try's to keep the parents update by creating a newsletter which is sent out every two weeks.

5. All in all parents are a key element in making sure students are less disruptive in the classroom.

 

 

My Thank You Experiment

I have started my experiment which is on making sure the students are encouraged to do simple tasks for example, keeping their desks clean and will receive a thank you card to see if thanking them will encourage them to do those tasks more often; so far the experiment is going okay I haven't received a lot of response from the students, but I believe it's going to take a little more time for the experiment to work.