The last month in the classroom has been awesome! we have just finished reading Animal Farm and besides a few behavioral hiccups all is going well. The students have enjoyed the novel though they did struggle with the link to communism at first.
The only real issue we have had is one week when I was gone for the KATE conference and my CT was sick. This was the first time this year the students were left without one of us and they tried to take full advantage of it. The principal had to be called in 3 times and 5 students had to be removed from the classroom.
The next class when we returned we lectured over classroom expectations even when a sub is there. Also, we assigned a two page essay over proper classroom behavior. This assignment I felt was unfair to some of the students whom most likely were not involved in the mischief; however, we did not want to show any favoritism.Though a few students complained at first they were able to see why we made it a classwide assignment. I wish we would have been able to come up with a better option, but I am still not sure what that would have been.
Mr. Allen,
ReplyDeleteI also agree with you about not showing favoritism when not all of the students were not involved. Unfortunately, as future teachers, we will find ourselves in that type of situation. I have noticed that after long weekends, or if either my CT or myself has not been in the classroom with the students we need to review classroom expectations with them. Last week, my students had their bellwork privilege revoked and they had grammar homework because they could not follow bellwork procedures. , they were going to have their grammar worksheets as their bellwork as well as the other homework that they might possibly have. They had been warned days prior that if they were not able to follow procedures. Even though not all of the students in the classes were involved, we had to make all students accountable for the actions of the rest of the class. This week, we have noticed an improvement with the classes that were assigned the grammar homework. Other students are reminding others when they are not following procedures because they do not want to do grammar homework anymore. Thanks for sharing your encounter, and I am glad the semester is going well for you.
Mrs. Roseberry