2 Stars & A Wish: Establishing Boundaries

1 ) Getting To Know My Students

– As I shared on Wednesday, I used my first teaching day to get to know my

  students. Through the activities that I facilitated, I feel like I was able to get

  a good understanding of my students likes, routines and learning needs.

– I know that this is no replacement for the knowledge that I will gain through

  time, but it allows me to prepare myself as much as possible in these first few

  weeks. 

2 ) Introducing My Units To My Students

– In my past student teaching experiences I feel like I jumped into my new units

  without taking adequate time to Assess For Learning or provide a proper

  baseline.

– This week I took three days with each of my classes to introduce activities

  that allowed me to appropriately Assess For Learning with each student as

  well as provide a solid knowledge base before jumping into content.

– Some of these activities included “Snowball” brainstorming, Post-it evaluations,

  film clip responses, writing prompts, and sharing circles.

* If you’d like more information on any of these activities leave a comment below!

     One thing that I feel like I need to work on, however, is establishing clear boundaries for one of my students in my Grade 8 Social Studies class. In a meeting with the Resource Teacher, before I began teaching, I was told that this student can be a “performer” in class and is often very busy. Under the recommendation of both the Resource Teacher and my Cooperating Teacher, I planned my lessons to include shorter activities that built in time for my students to be out of their desks and interacting with others. 

     In class, I noticed that the student was easily off-track, wandered around the classroom when he decided he was finished his work, and often attempted to display “class-clown” behaviour. From the information that I knew about him, I decided that I would not reinforce his behaviour by giving him the attention of the class so I quietly approached him about staying on track but sometimes I would blatantly ignore his behaviour (like  when he was walking around the classroom). I hadn’t felt like his behaviour was disruptive and the work he completed was correct and well thought-out despite his actions. My Cooperating Teacher, however, pulled me aside after class and warned me that he was “testing” me and pushing to see what my boundaries were. She was worried that if I did not address his actions that he would quickly escalate to disrupting the learning of those around him. 

     During the break I had a meeting with the student and asked him what his opinion on the class was. He responded that he thought maybe he wasn’t being respectful and, together, we drew up the following plan for next week. We agreed that in order to make sure he and the other students could learn he would:

– Not walk around the room unless it was part of the activity

– Not distract those around him during work time

– Not speak while I or other students were speaking

To help him out, I would:

– Remind him of our agreement before class on Monday

– Plan activities that had us out of our desks

– Plan activities that allowed him to interact with other students

     I feel like this is a good basis for addressing this concern. Before class tomorrow I will individually remind him of our discussion and I specifically planned an activity that has them doing group work where he can interact with his peers. As of right now, I feel confident about the situation and will consciously work on this for the upcoming week. I will make sure to update and let you know how it goes!