Student Motivation and Engagement Program - Essay Example

?Running Head: room Management room Management s room Management A. Video Response 1. Observation & Description (a) The video depicted a typical Elementary student on the first day of school headed by a teacher, who was guiding them through the daily routine. In the video, the teacher covers all the various aspects of a student’s situation and provides a detailed description of the procedure in order to accomplish the routine. From organizing their desks in the morning to free time at the end of the day to enable the student to move around the class and casually chat with their peers. The teacher further explains various rules when it comes to leaving the classroom for bathroom and distribution of material so that every child can share and utilize the items fully. They are further told about the attendance chart and the schedule; as the same schedule is to be followed throughout the academic year hence it is require for all students to refer to it every now and then as it is important to smoothly transition between activities. They are also told how to get water from the water fountain and use the sharpener and how to wait for their turn, if another student is using those items and how to sign on to the list every time they have to take a bathroom breaks or step out of the classroom. Being the first day, the children are given the latitude to look around the classroom, guided by their teacher, who explains them various procedures that can be adopted for all the possible situations. For recess, all children are lined up in two file; one for boys and one for girls. All students return to the classroom in the same fashion and the students are given the promise of being assigned to various duties to help them engage in the implementation of this routine. For effective implementation, the teacher explains exactly when, where and how to perform various classroom routines. The teacher further explains the sequence of the activity in a concise, clear and precise manner; in this regard the tone of teacher is essential that further help the students to understand the importance or gravity of a particular situation. The teacher further tells all students what to do, rather than what not to do so that further motivates the behavior in the children. In order to make sure that every student understands the routine the teacher prompts them to repeat after her and for the routine to become automatic it is rehearsed over and over again. Especially when the teacher adds this to their knowledge that the routine is to be followed every day therefore, the child knows exactly what to do and when to do it. It can be further observed that the teacher rewards the students and acknowledges their good behavior to enhance motivation of the skill. For instance, the teacher distributed “super first days” certificates at the end of the day for the good behavior of children and the rewards for perfect attendance. She further enhances the children’s motivation to actively partake in activities by telling them about cursive handwriting and various other future classroom plans. The aforementioned techniques were employed by the teacher for implementing classroom routine and effective management of the students. 2. Analysis, Exploration & Reasoning (a) The routine is primarily designed by the teacher to help the students feel more comfortable however, their participation and engagement is of equal importance to help gain the prior benefits of the routine in their lives. In order to postulate the children’s level of engagement is done largely through the number of responsibilities that are assigned to them. As the teacher states in the video, each child would be given a ‘job’ in the class to maintain order and acquire a sense of responsibility, which will enable him or her to have greater participation in the implementation of the routine. Furthermore, the children will be given ample freedom of movement and dialogue with other student that helps the children feel more at ease, which will enhance cooperation. Since, children are more impressionable the manner in which the teachers interacts with them will further motivate them to partake in the implementation of the routine and therefore, ensuring greater levels of engagement on part of the students. The regular dialogue between students and freedom of movement would enable them to form social bonds that will further enhance their self-efficacy to adhere to the routine. (b) In the video, the routine established for the recess is important to help the students organize themselves as they leave for the recess. The teacher divides the students into two files one for and one for boys, which clearly shows the need to give enough space for the child to move around as squeezing both boys and girls in one file will not only make a huge mess when they have organize themselves in a line but will further make it difficult for the teacher to manage. Therefore, in order to help the teacher keep an eye on each and every single student, the girls are required to form one file and the boys another, and they are required to move out of the classroom one by one in an organized that will enable the teacher maintain order at all times and prevent accidents caused by pushing and pulling due to an badly formed line. 3. Connections to other effective teaching practices (a) The classroom routine is meant to enable he teacher to manage the class as effectively as possible. According to Wilen et.al (2004), the first task to establish a healthy learning environment is to educate the child about the teacher’s expectations regarding the student’s behavior and how to go around the class in case if they need or want something. The main idea behind the establishment of routine is to add predictability, which then paves way for greater and effective management both from the teacher and student’s perspective. (Wilen et.al, 2004) It is then conducive to a healthy learning environment as every day the children come mentally and physically prepared as to what to expect from their teacher and fellow students. The routine handles everything from the organization of desk to the way the children are required to enter and exit the classroom, this gives them a greater sense of awareness of their surrounding thus motivating them to learn and grasp whatever knowledge the teacher is handing down to them. And once the children know how to organize their materials, automatically they can apply the same thing cognitively and become better students and establish a stimulating environment. B. K-8 Situations All the situations listed for K-8 refer to the components of a child’s daily routine in a school and therefore, the type of situation that they undergo acts as the factor that affects or triggers a particular behavior in the child. For instance, during the beginning of the day a child may feel sleepy or irritable; therefore, some light stretches and breathing exercises helps the child warm up for a full day of learning ahead. By the end of the day, the students must clean up in order to learn to respect their classroom environment and all their study materials, by carefully organizing and clearing up the mess that was made throughout the day. During transition of activities, a child may feel excited and is likely to make a ruckus depending upon his penchant for the upcoming activity. Moreover, a child must keep on referring to a copy of their schedule in order to memorize it and it will help them to have certain amount predictability in their environment to help them feel comfortable. On the other hand, children are naturally prone to making a ruckus when they are taken away from the restricted classroom environment to an open environment during field trips, recess and even fire drill. Since an emergency drill may not be taken as seriously as opposed to a real emergency. Therefore, one routine that should become a major part of their procedures is organizing in a single file. (Hunt et.al. 2003) This behavior is vital for every K-8 situations since, children are likely to be disorganized and as a result it becomes impossible to manage everything and will only create disruption in effectively carrying out the class schedule. Therefore, every child needs to know how to organize themselves in a single file and should know how they enter and exit their classroom in order to create a peaceful and systematic school environment. Organization further leads to cooperation between peers and they will also know how to organize their own personal belongings that will aid them in their academics and maintain order and adhere to all the rules of their classroom. (Emmer & Everston, 2009) C. Routine & Procedure 1. Situation: Beginning of the day Routine: Starting the day with exercises, consisting of stretching and deep-breathing lead by the Class President (a) The class president would come forth and carry out a set of light stretching and breathing exercise as teacher demonstrated by the teacher at the beginning the year, under her supervision. (b) The entire class is required to push back their chairs and follow all the exercises. (c) Once the exercise is complete, it is the job of the class president to collect all the homework and place it on the teacher’s desk. 2. Situation: End of the day Routine: Packing up personal belongings and tidying up the classroom before leaving school (a) Students should gather up all material and keep them in their place (b) all waste paper should be stowed away in the recycle bin (c) the children should pack their bags, double check that none of their items are missing and after cleaning up everything should leave the classroom in a single file. 3. Situation: Transition between activities Routine: Winding up one and preparing for the next activity (a) All children are required to review the copy of the schedule that they are given (b) after carefully reviewing the schedule, all children must take out the relevant items for the activity and keep them on their desks (c) once the students have taken out all the necessary items the students should organize themselves; in a single file, if the activity is to be conducted outside of class and carry out the scheduled task 4. Situation: Distribution of material Routine: Distributing and collecting answer scripts before and after a test or an exam (a) the student in-charge should step forth and take the stack of answer scripts from the teacher’s desk and start handing them out, while the teacher hands out the question paper. (b) All students must remain in their seats and maintain silence, after distribution of the papers have been done, the in-charge must take one answer script and go back to his or her seat. (c) All students should remain seated and quiet even if they have finished their tests and as soon as the time is over, the in-charge get up and collect the test scripts and place it on the teacher’s desk. 5. Situation: Field Trips Routine: boarding the bus and going to the trip destination (a) All students must hand over permission slips to the teacher as she pins on the name tags on that were created earlier (b) All children must board the bus, sit on their designated seats and answer their roll call. After reaching the destination all children must hold hands and keep up with the teacher. (c) Once the trip is over, the procedure outlined in (a) and (b) should be followed as the class makes their way back to the school. 6. Situations: Recess Routine: Lining up to leave classroom for the recess and getting playground equipments (a) All students must line up according to their heights, preferably in two separate files for boys and girls, and head towards the playground (b) Students must write their names on a sheet and the equipment they are taking for their play (c) At the end of the recess, all equipments should be returned and then the class should follow the same procedure as (a) to return to the classroom in an orderly manner. 7. Situation: Fire or Disaster drills Routine: Training for an emergency situation (a) during a fire drill, as soon as the alarm is sounded all students must gather their belongings in an organized and calm manner. (b) They should make a single file and head out to the playground (c) Upon reaching the playground, all children are required to stay with their classmates, answer their attendance call or do not roam around when the teacher is carrying out a head count. D. Routine Explanation The routine outlined in the aforementioned part is designed to not only establish effective management of the students but to spur creativity and spontaneity through an apparently monotonous routine. The light stretching and breathing exercise will help the students relax and is not only beneficial from a physical point of view but also refreshes them mentally, warming them up for a challenging day ahead. (Slavin, 2011) By the end of the day, the routine requires them tidy up the classroom before they are allowed to leave so that they learn to take responsibility for their actions and are able to grasp basic organizational skills. They learn the importance of cleanliness and after being prompted by the teacher two or three the children will eventually learn to work without creating a mess and greater neatness can be observed in their modus operandi. Furthermore, the reinforcement of organizational skills will become an automatic practice at home and will also aid them in the long-run while they are studying. For transition between activities, it is important that the child makes it a habit to keep on referring back to their schedules, which will not only enable them to memorize it but will also expedite the transition from one activity to another (Emmer & Everston, 2009). Taking out relevant items beforehand will help the child learns the art of time management and will enable him or her to organize their materials as effectively as possible. Similarly, such organization skills are required distribution of materials; however it is better if the teacher assigns the duty of distributing materials to the most responsible student in class so that it is easier for the teacher to manage the class and to enhance the compliance level of students. For distribution of material the routine uses the example of a test or an exam during which it is really important to maintain order in the classroom and to provide all the necessary items to the class to help them manage the allocated time. The procedure is simple as the teacher hands over the answer scripts to the class president; the most responsible student to distribute it amongst his or her peer while the teacher distributes the question paper. After the test the same procedure is followed and the collected work is then placed on the teacher’s desk. This helps the student to manage their time and the teacher to control and maintain the class as she can further keep a closer watch on the students in order to prevent them from using unlawful means in the test. During field trips, children should get their parents’ consent and are also given name tags as a precaution so that they can be easily found, if lost. After getting done with the preliminaries, the students must board the bus in an orderly manner because young children might create a ruckus and to avoid pushing and any sort of injury, the children are required to board the bus one by one, sit on their designated seats, which is decided by the teacher (Slavin, 2011). After everyone has boarded, all students should answer their roll call so that the teacher knows everyone has made and to keep track of her students and the same procedure is followed when they are coming back from the trip. During the trip everyone should stay together, hence holding hands is essential so that no one gets lost and the teacher knows exactly where his or her students are. Organization is of prime importance during field trips and the same goes for recess; children should line up when the bell is sounded and leave the classroom. In the playground, if the child wants to utilize the school equipments they should check in their names and the equipment they wish to use and must return it after recess. This teaches the child to respect and take care of other people’s items and they also learn a great deal about taking responsibility for their actions. (Wilen, 2004) Furthermore, the procedure for fire drills is primarily to prepare the children for an emergency situation; if it ever arose in school and teach them not to panic but calmly follow the teacher’s prompts to get to a safer ground. This activity further puts their organization skills and compliance levels to test as they begin to understand the usefulness of this drill and learn how to take of themselves and their peers at time like these. The routine teaches the students organization and enables them to deal with situations in a systematic order so that goals can be achieved and activities can be executed properly. References: Emmer, E.T & Everston, C.M. 2009. Classroom Management for middle & high school teachers. Boston: Pearson Publication Wilen, W.W. et.al. 2004. Dynamics of Effective Secondary Teaching. Boston: Pearson Publication. Slavin, R.E. 2011. Educational Psychology: Theory & Practice. New Jersey: Prentice Hall PTR Hunt, G. et.al. 2003. The modern middle school: addressing standards & students needs. Illinois: Charles C. Thomas Publisher Read More