Another aspect that I loved was her disciplinary system. The system was not based on the traditional “red, yellow, and green” behavior. When a student would misbehave, he or she had to go and place their pin on a safety card, a disruption of learning card, or a responsibility card. So she was not focusing on the negative behaviors, but instead was focusing on what the students could do differently. I liked this because it allowed the students to immediately change their behavior instead of labeling a child with the idea that they are “bad” students. 

The students seemed to react well to my teacher’s management techniques. The class rarely got out of hand or too loud, and behaved very well when there was a substitute. They knew exactly what to do in each hour, and were even silent during reading when the substitute gave them a time to read silently. I think one of the main reasons the students behaved well were because of my teacher’s experience and demeanor. She never got angry or frustrated with the students, and even was nurturing to them. I will replicate this in my own classroom to gain the students’ respect. I believe that one of the main reasons a class can be “unruly” is because of a lack of mutual respect between the teacher and students. 

    My biggest “a-ha” moment while observing her classroom management techniques was the immediate response after the attention grabber technique. To see its effectiveness, I tried one in the Montessori class with my students there, and clapped my hands three times. The students stopped everything without hesitation and repeated the claps and looked at me. 

Another aspect of differentiation I observed was allowing students to use headphones while reading on the IPads to have the stories read to them. Many of the students I observed utilizing the audio text would read along silently, and I thought that was a great way to allow the kids who were not ready to read on their own yet get extra assistance. Since they are only second graders, I think the audio with the books was definitely necessary. 

The students reacted well to the differentiation techniques. In the small groups during centers, the students were focused and eager to read out loud together and complete whatever work they had. Another thing I noticed about student behavior was during the pumpkin investigation. For the students who seemed overwhelmed with the task of weighing the pumpkins, I assisted the group with sorting the weight blocks by size. Once they realized that it would be more effective to start with the bigger blocks to be able to skip count, they seemed more at ease. 

     In many lessons, my practicum teacher would model to the students how to proofread whatever they are writing. She would purposefully make mistakes while writing under the doc cam, and some students would even notice right away and raise his or her hand to notify the teacher of her mistake. My teacher would act like she did not know what was wrong until it was time to proofread, and then would ask the students what needs to be changed. I will use this practice in my teaching career because I think it is important to teach children how to double check their work early on so that they go through school knowing when to notice something does not “seem” right. Whether it be math calculations or writing, it is an essential and useful skill to teach. 

     My teacher also was good at giving work that had purpose. There was never a time when students were completing “busy work.” She also used each minute of the day wisely and made sure to use up each block to teach lessons. One thing that I will do in my own classroom is go over the “I can” statements as she did after finishing each unit. On the whiteboard, there were papers with “I can” statements for each standard. She would ask the students if they could do the skill. And then she would highlight each statement until a whole square was filled to show the completion of a unit.
     
 I liked this a lot because it involved the students in tracking their own progress. Along with the “I can” statements, my teacher would give the students the learning goal for the lesson. I saw a huge response in the students after this because they were usually engaged throughout a whole lesson. This surprised me since the students were so young.

    

     My teacher also gave many formative assessments throughout the day. Her ways of assessing varied from discussions to written work. I graded a lot of the little assessments before she would start a new unit. At the beginning of my practicum, the students were beginning to learn about the water cycle. The students had a little square with a diagram and blank lines, and were encouraged to look back in the text to figure out where to write evaporation, condensation, and precipitation. 

 While the students were coloring the diagrams, the teacher gave another formative assessment by put the diagram under the doc cam and asked students to identify each part of the water cycle. After going over it as class, many of the students that seemed unsure before were way more confident. The “lightbulb” went on in their faces as they said “oh, I remember now.” I loved seeing this and I even asked a student questions to extend her thinking. The student seemed to be eager to answer my questions, and I think it was because of the full understanding developed throughout the activity. 

     My biggest “a-ha” moment through my observations of assessments was the need to constantly give formative assessments at different points throughout the day. It is the most impactful way to benefit the students the most because the teacher is able to know exactly where each student is at in a unit, and to know what needs to be modified in a lesson. Giving assessments works directly along with flexibility during the school day. If a lesson does not seem to be working, and the students are not engaged, then it is absolutely necessary to change the lesson.