C. Classroom Management and Organization
KSA #7: The teacher understands the need for students’ security and creates effective classroom routines
KSA #8: The teacher understands the importance of establishing mutual respect and trust with the students
Descriptors:
· Involves students in developing and posting rules and consequences
· Establishes routines and procedures and enforces these consistently
· Dismisses classes in an orderly fashion
· Follows school discipline policy
· Creates an atmosphere that enhances positive relationships
· Emphasizes the importance of punctuality and regular attendance
· Pupils feel safe and comfortable in the classroom
· Pupils respect the classroom and its resources
· Teacher and students display good manners and use please and thank you often
· Utilizes appropriate strategies that maximize on-task behavior
· Student engagement is high
· Demonstrates maturity and calmness in reacting to unexpected behavior
· Uses praise effectively
· Is readily available to all students
· Treats students fairly and demonstrates respect for all students
· Effective use of humor
· Classroom décor contributes to a positive learning environment
· Displays student work
· Ensures completion of assigned work
At the beginning of the year I introduced the "Rings of Responsibility" and we had discussions about responsibilities on 3 different levels: to ourselves, to our friends and family, and to the greater community. We then based our classroom agreement on what we brainstormed and discussed. Every student had great ideas to contribute but sometimes it was hard for them to remember their responsibilities and had to be reminded. At St.Margaret's School, there are also "The 7 Habits" which everyone is encouraged to follow. The 7 habits of highly successful people are:
1. Be proactive
2. Begin with the end in mind.
3. Put first things first.
4. Think win-win.
5. Seek first to understand, then to be understood.
6. Synergize
7. Sharpen the saw.
In addition, this year after a professional development session, teachers decided on an eighth habit: to make a difference. I was asked to create a poster incorporating the school mascot that would match the posters of the other seven habits. Below is a picture of the bulletin board displaying the value of the month along with the new eighth habit. Each month a different value is emphasized and in October the value was "Respect." I was honored to be asked to utilize my art skills in this project!
KSA #8: The teacher understands the importance of establishing mutual respect and trust with the students
Descriptors:
· Involves students in developing and posting rules and consequences
· Establishes routines and procedures and enforces these consistently
· Dismisses classes in an orderly fashion
· Follows school discipline policy
· Creates an atmosphere that enhances positive relationships
· Emphasizes the importance of punctuality and regular attendance
· Pupils feel safe and comfortable in the classroom
· Pupils respect the classroom and its resources
· Teacher and students display good manners and use please and thank you often
· Utilizes appropriate strategies that maximize on-task behavior
· Student engagement is high
· Demonstrates maturity and calmness in reacting to unexpected behavior
· Uses praise effectively
· Is readily available to all students
· Treats students fairly and demonstrates respect for all students
· Effective use of humor
· Classroom décor contributes to a positive learning environment
· Displays student work
· Ensures completion of assigned work
At the beginning of the year I introduced the "Rings of Responsibility" and we had discussions about responsibilities on 3 different levels: to ourselves, to our friends and family, and to the greater community. We then based our classroom agreement on what we brainstormed and discussed. Every student had great ideas to contribute but sometimes it was hard for them to remember their responsibilities and had to be reminded. At St.Margaret's School, there are also "The 7 Habits" which everyone is encouraged to follow. The 7 habits of highly successful people are:
1. Be proactive
2. Begin with the end in mind.
3. Put first things first.
4. Think win-win.
5. Seek first to understand, then to be understood.
6. Synergize
7. Sharpen the saw.
In addition, this year after a professional development session, teachers decided on an eighth habit: to make a difference. I was asked to create a poster incorporating the school mascot that would match the posters of the other seven habits. Below is a picture of the bulletin board displaying the value of the month along with the new eighth habit. Each month a different value is emphasized and in October the value was "Respect." I was honored to be asked to utilize my art skills in this project!
I found that the students were engaged and had a lot of ideas and stories to offer. When interviewed about their impressions of the architecture project and explorations about structures so far in October, here were their responses:
"Well, I like learning about materials and I like learning about structures. A structure is something that is man made or nature made or animal made. Materials are brick, wood, steel, metal, styrofoam and stone. I liked when we made our newspaper towers. I liked when we built shapes out of marshmallows and toothpicks."
"I like doing the architecture and I'm enjoying doing the building. I like learning about the different types of structures; animal made and human made or nature made. I'd like to live in an animal made structure like a beaver dam."
"I like working on Sketchup, the program on the computer where you get to design buildings and get to measure stuff and can make infinity pools and hot tubs and I also like drawing bubble diagrams and floor plans. I also like measuring how big our desk is and how big some stuff is."
"At the Janion Building what I found really interesting were the stairs on the roof. It was flat and up and then back and down and up. It was almost like stairs. Explorations was really fun and I am wondering how much water they are going to put on the thing and maybe next time what we could do is have it quieter so we can work better."
"They are a shelter for animals or humans which usually has to hold a load. They are always really stable and it takes a long time to build them. It doesn't take a short time and they are usually where people and nature and animals live. I like doing the floor plan for our project and I like working with the groups."
"I liked in Explorations making the buildings. We had to make a building to keep a stuffy dry. It was just a plan and next time we'll be actually doing it."
"I like drawing floor plans and building 3D models on SketchUp. I like drawing bubble diagrams and am learning about architecture. I enjoy brainstorming for ideas and I also like doing bubble diagrams and am looking forward to doing the real model and presenting it and sharing it."
"We're building these homes for stuffies and we don't wanna get them wet from the top, bottom or the sides. We have different materials and it's really fun. We're building an art studio for Miss K and we've done steps one, two, three, four...Step one: brainstorm ideas. The second step is to draw a bubble diagram. The third step is floor plans and measure things. We're all on step three and need to do steps four, five and six."
"We made newspaper buildings with newspaper. We had to make the tallest building and we used SketchUp to make pictures of our buildings before. We had ideas about what we wanted the building to look like and then we drew our ideas. I liked making the building itself better."
"I guess my favourite thing with our building project is making those little tiny houses. It was fun because you get to draw a door and a window on it. Also I have enjoyed when we made a newspaper tower. We went into our groups and ours was trying to be the stablest but it didn't work."
"In Explorations we got the box that was provided for our supplies and then we used this wax paper and we taped it over the box. First we were planning, writing down what we were going to use for the top and the bottom and we actually built the model like we drew."
"Triangles are the strongest shape. They can life more than 3 or 6 weights. Yesterday, maybe the day before, we made towers in our pods and we got a prize for cooperating so well. We used paper to make it."
"We went to the Janion Building and we learned about how they are rebuilding it but they have to keep one piece of it. We are going to think about what they could do in there and we got to make 3D mini houses. We got to make newspaper structures out of newspaper and the strongest shape is triangles."
"Structures can be made by humans, nature or animals and some structures are real tippy and some structures are really stable. I forget where but there's this swing where water comes through it but people come through an "O" and they don't get wet. I found this at home in a real but true book but the Eiffel Tower gets repainted once every seven years."
"We were building this shelter for the animal. I thought that I could get some wax paper and put some tape over it to make it more waterproof. We have been learning about structures and 3D shapes and 2D shapes and we've made some crafts and 3D dino and panda houses and some more stuff."
"For my explorations, I liked it because it took a lot of materials and a lot of ideas in my head. One of my ideas was using the pipe cleaners because they can absorb water. This is my question. How much water are you going to pour onto the house? Because the water goes down a hill so it matters how much it is and are you going to dump it from the middle of the house or from the top of the house?"
"Mine was a cannon (newspaper tower got transformed.) We started off with a triangle, then we turned it into a pyramid. We put the triangle around the pyramid and then we decided that since the triangle was really skinny, we held onto it to move it different directions. Then we decided it was a cannon and we made like a telescope."
"So one of the days we were looking at what Miss K's art studio was going to be. After that we came back and on some other days, an architect came here and showed us some supplies. We were going to build what we think the new art studio is going to look like out of cardboard."
"At the start of structures you always have to pick your materials so you don't have to do that at the end and forget your whole plan. It was a really good experience and it was really fun when we made structures out of marshmallows and toothpics. We got to eat the marshmallows after. I made a cube."
"We were covering little animals. We put some wax paper over top of the cardboard but in case when they put the water on and the cardboard and wax paper gives out and makes a hole in it, we have some popsicle sticks on the bottom, inside and on top. That would keep it from leaking a little bit. We put a barrier at the entrance but the turtle can still get out. At the entrance hole we just put some pipe cleaners at the top of it."
To see some examples of student work, please click here.
"Well, I like learning about materials and I like learning about structures. A structure is something that is man made or nature made or animal made. Materials are brick, wood, steel, metal, styrofoam and stone. I liked when we made our newspaper towers. I liked when we built shapes out of marshmallows and toothpicks."
"I like doing the architecture and I'm enjoying doing the building. I like learning about the different types of structures; animal made and human made or nature made. I'd like to live in an animal made structure like a beaver dam."
"I like working on Sketchup, the program on the computer where you get to design buildings and get to measure stuff and can make infinity pools and hot tubs and I also like drawing bubble diagrams and floor plans. I also like measuring how big our desk is and how big some stuff is."
"At the Janion Building what I found really interesting were the stairs on the roof. It was flat and up and then back and down and up. It was almost like stairs. Explorations was really fun and I am wondering how much water they are going to put on the thing and maybe next time what we could do is have it quieter so we can work better."
"They are a shelter for animals or humans which usually has to hold a load. They are always really stable and it takes a long time to build them. It doesn't take a short time and they are usually where people and nature and animals live. I like doing the floor plan for our project and I like working with the groups."
"I liked in Explorations making the buildings. We had to make a building to keep a stuffy dry. It was just a plan and next time we'll be actually doing it."
"I like drawing floor plans and building 3D models on SketchUp. I like drawing bubble diagrams and am learning about architecture. I enjoy brainstorming for ideas and I also like doing bubble diagrams and am looking forward to doing the real model and presenting it and sharing it."
"We're building these homes for stuffies and we don't wanna get them wet from the top, bottom or the sides. We have different materials and it's really fun. We're building an art studio for Miss K and we've done steps one, two, three, four...Step one: brainstorm ideas. The second step is to draw a bubble diagram. The third step is floor plans and measure things. We're all on step three and need to do steps four, five and six."
"We made newspaper buildings with newspaper. We had to make the tallest building and we used SketchUp to make pictures of our buildings before. We had ideas about what we wanted the building to look like and then we drew our ideas. I liked making the building itself better."
"I guess my favourite thing with our building project is making those little tiny houses. It was fun because you get to draw a door and a window on it. Also I have enjoyed when we made a newspaper tower. We went into our groups and ours was trying to be the stablest but it didn't work."
"In Explorations we got the box that was provided for our supplies and then we used this wax paper and we taped it over the box. First we were planning, writing down what we were going to use for the top and the bottom and we actually built the model like we drew."
"Triangles are the strongest shape. They can life more than 3 or 6 weights. Yesterday, maybe the day before, we made towers in our pods and we got a prize for cooperating so well. We used paper to make it."
"We went to the Janion Building and we learned about how they are rebuilding it but they have to keep one piece of it. We are going to think about what they could do in there and we got to make 3D mini houses. We got to make newspaper structures out of newspaper and the strongest shape is triangles."
"Structures can be made by humans, nature or animals and some structures are real tippy and some structures are really stable. I forget where but there's this swing where water comes through it but people come through an "O" and they don't get wet. I found this at home in a real but true book but the Eiffel Tower gets repainted once every seven years."
"We were building this shelter for the animal. I thought that I could get some wax paper and put some tape over it to make it more waterproof. We have been learning about structures and 3D shapes and 2D shapes and we've made some crafts and 3D dino and panda houses and some more stuff."
"For my explorations, I liked it because it took a lot of materials and a lot of ideas in my head. One of my ideas was using the pipe cleaners because they can absorb water. This is my question. How much water are you going to pour onto the house? Because the water goes down a hill so it matters how much it is and are you going to dump it from the middle of the house or from the top of the house?"
"Mine was a cannon (newspaper tower got transformed.) We started off with a triangle, then we turned it into a pyramid. We put the triangle around the pyramid and then we decided that since the triangle was really skinny, we held onto it to move it different directions. Then we decided it was a cannon and we made like a telescope."
"So one of the days we were looking at what Miss K's art studio was going to be. After that we came back and on some other days, an architect came here and showed us some supplies. We were going to build what we think the new art studio is going to look like out of cardboard."
"At the start of structures you always have to pick your materials so you don't have to do that at the end and forget your whole plan. It was a really good experience and it was really fun when we made structures out of marshmallows and toothpics. We got to eat the marshmallows after. I made a cube."
"We were covering little animals. We put some wax paper over top of the cardboard but in case when they put the water on and the cardboard and wax paper gives out and makes a hole in it, we have some popsicle sticks on the bottom, inside and on top. That would keep it from leaking a little bit. We put a barrier at the entrance but the turtle can still get out. At the entrance hole we just put some pipe cleaners at the top of it."
To see some examples of student work, please click here.