Lead Teaching: Day 1

Today was the first day of lead teaching and I woke up this morning feeling excited and a little bit nervous. I got up extra early so that I could get to school well before the bell rang to prepare the classroom, activities, worksheets, etc. An hour and a half before school started I was velcroing pencils to desks, taking care of morning business, running seat work, etc. The students were very surprised to see that their desks had been re-arranged in a pretty drastic way. The kids walked in a little chatty but soon were calm and quiet after I told them about their behavior expectations in regards to the new chart systems (the star chart reward and the raffle system). Going into the day, I was very excited to see if the change in seating arrangements would deter the students from talking to one another so frequently. However, the change didn't seem to have much of an effect on them and the talking continued. Also, in my original seating chart I had most of the class make a U and the kids who were "naughty" or who were always being reminded of their behavior were in two rows in the center of the U. However, this did not end up working well because the kids in the center were in way too close of a proximity to one another and they were distracting each other and the other kids around them. I am beginning to think that this group of kids just likes to talk a lot and maybe I should start concentrating on the positives of that. Maybe I can design my lessons and activities by incorporating conversation and discussion among students.

The other change I made that kind of surprised me was the behavior chart systems. I thought that if I just explained the rules and expectations to the students and was honest with them, they would respond well to the new system. However, after the initial introduction of the new system, the students were back to their own ways. The addition of "no" tickets into the bag didn't deter the students from acting out. Also, I think this certain system requires a little too much maintenance and it is hard to keep up with it while teaching. I think that it might be more beneficial if an individual reward system/behavioral plan were given to students who are constantly being reminded about their behavior instead of a whole group system. I am struggling with how to make a whole group reward system that will prevent individual students from acting out...

The star chart that I made up (students get stars for good behavior, I get stars if students have bad behavior; if the students win they get a reward, if I win I take something away from the students) is also hard to keep up with. I think it may be because what I am asking the students to do is really unattainable for first graders, and for my particular class especially. It seems unfair to expect that children this young (some of whom have only been in school one year or less) can control their urge to speak without raising their hand. I think it might be a more realistic goal to put a fair limit on the amount of times a student can shout out throughout the course of a day. Maybe each student is allowed to shout out somewhere between 3-5 times a day. It may even be possible and beneficial for students to have some easy way at their desk to keep track of how many times they shouted out a day. That way, it wouldn't require that much extra time and as a result, lessons wouldn't be interrupted. Also, I think tomorrow I am going to discuss possible reward ideas that the students may have. I think it is important for them to choose their rewards so they will be more inclined to want to work hard to earn them. Additionally, it requires students to be accountable for their actions if they helped to come up with a reward.

Throughout the day I think I did a really good job of "rolling with the punches." At times it was hectic being the only one in the classroom but I got used to it and learned to manage my time. I came up with a couple good ideas on the spot while I was teaching. Because the students' desks were re-arranged and they no longer had "teams" (a, e, i, o, u, y tables) I thought it would be fun and creative if each row or cluster of students came up with their own "team" name. Some of the groups already picked their names, but a few groups are still deciding. I think the students liked having more freedom and responsibility; they really seemed to like the idea of deciding something on their own. The other idea that I came up with on the fly is talked about more in detail in the Science Lesson 2 post...