Standard #3: Learning Environments
The teacher works with others to create environments that support individual and collaborative learning, and that encourage positive social interaction, active engagement in learning, and self motivation.
View all my artifacts aligned to standard 3
Reflection: Spring 2015
The teacher understands the relationship between motivation and engagement. The teacher knows how to encourage their students to be continually working productively and to achieve goals. A teacher will work with his or her students to establish a learning environment including norms, expectations, routines, and organizational structures. A teacher understands the key for a successful learning environment is communication, and they use many methods in order to communicate with others
In my Practicum class, I was placed in a Science class for an hour each meeting. During this time, I was a small group leader. During this time, we placed an emphasis on the importance of group work. The idea of group work was used to help establish relationships with people they may not have normally talked to. This will further a positive peer group relationship and trust in a classroom. I have been working with children for as long as I can remember. When helping a child there are two things I insist on trust and respect. I insist on trust because I have never given anyone a reason not to trust me. The second is respect, if I am helping a student, I expect to receive respect, and I respect the person I am helping. If there is no respect, the learning environment will be chaos. While I was in my Practicum, I knew I had to show that I was a helpful and approachable person. It was important to me that I learned from this experience. I have always been an approachable and friendly person; however, in a new situation such as this I knew that I had to be a good listener and observer. After 15 minutes, I knew would have to push myself out of that first day comfort zone and just jump in, and help the children with what they need.
In my classroom, I will insist on having an environment that everyone will feel safe, respected, and have the utmost support system. However, I want the families of my students to feel the same way, especially during the critical and stressful time of an IEP meeting. In a classroom, I will not just focus on individual learning techniques, I want my students to be able to work with one another. Group work is such an important aspect of life—I am responsible for giving guideline to my students, in order to make sure they are prepared for any type environment that can require collaboration. A key aspect of education for student who are placed in special education is an organized and coordinated environment. This is a way I will ensure an environment with minimum mess to distract the student, that will derail their learning experience.