Environments for Learning

In our class discussion and teaching project about creating environments that are effective for learning, we talked about having engaging materials and activities. Something that my group discussed during the activity from the teaching project was the importance of giving the students a signifier of time to transition like five minute warnings. I know from my own experience with really young children that this is especially important for their own self-regulation. It helps them prepare mentally to change from one task to the next.

In the Ormrod text, the section on "Creating an Effective Psychological Climate" was really interesting to me, and it really describes how I want to set up my future classroom. It discusses having a classroom with a "general sense of community and belongingness" (p. 465). Regardless of the age of the student, I believe that it is important to show that student that you care about them as a person, and that you notice when they aren't in class and how they are doing during class. My best teachers that I ever had were really fantastic observers of what I had been doing, and then they cared enough to talk to me about it afterwards in a way that meant a lot that they had noticed.

The section on setting rules and limits was interesting too, and it talked about only setting a few rules at the beginning of the school year. Personally, this seems like a trust thing with the classroom as well by showing them that you don't have to set up tons of rules for them, because you trust them to do the right thing. It also talks about frequently reflecting on the rules and their appropriateness with the class and involving your students in the rule making process. I think that's an invaluable idea, because then the students want to follow rules they thought of themselves and actually care about. It also helps to build that sense of community and belongingness when the students themselves are helping construct the structures and limits of the classroom.

In the Curtis and Carter textbook Taylor and Samantha brought in, it also talks about bringing in some of the student's home items to school to make the space more their own -- like hanging their pictures on the wall that they drew or bringing in pictures of family members or a favorite stuffed animal. Even if this is not as feasible with older students, I think it is still important to at least bring ideas from home to the classroom and talk about out of school experiences, hobbies, and interests to actually know all your students.

Case Study: Early Childhood Sample

"It has been one month since the school year began and most of your 25 kindergarten students know class procedures, such as the schedule of learning activities, where they are supposed to be for each learning activity, where they are supposed to keep their personal items, and how they are expected to move about the room and the school building in order to ensure a productive learning environment.  Then there is Willard.  He must ask 20 or more times a day, “Teacher, when can we go outside to play?”  In addition, he often does not stay where he should to work on a given learning activity.  Instead, you find him wandering around the room and getting into other children’s personal things.  Three times this past week you looked up just in time to see Willard walking out of the classroom without permission.  Some of the other children in your classroom community have started making fun of Willard.  Others are beginning to become less engaged in their learning. "

The first thing I would address with Willard would be the schedule questioning. I would make sure that I had the schedule posted WITH IMAGES at Willard's height on the wall somewhere close to his desk. Since other children are becoming less engaged with their learning, I may make flash cards with pictures of the schedule with numbers on each event to know what activities go where and put those on a key ring for each child to carry around and have at activities. This way if they are ever unsure, they can look at their own schedule. I would have the children help me take the picture for the schedule and put them together so the children would feel ownership of these schedules.

Since Willard is becoming disengaged at different learning activities, I would first check and see how engaging my activities actually are. They might just be boring, and so then Willard would rather go do something more worthwhile with his time. If I check my activity and it seems engaging enough, I would look for Willard's personal interests and pull those in for him into the activities.

When Willard wanders, it says he is wandering into children's personal items. I would talk with the children about keeping their personal items either in their desks or in their cubbies to keep them away from being distractions to the other children. We could have a share time too if the children have things they want to share with the other children and have the other children look at with them.

Willard walking out of the classroom is a safety issue. I would work first at preventative measures -- moving Willard's desk far away from the window might help to take longer to get to the door. This way I would have a longer period of time to get to him and redirect him before he leaves the room. This could also happen from a lack of engaging materials. I would work to make sure there were materials in the classroom that Willard wanted to work with, and I would ask him to see what materials he wanted to use.

References

Ormrod, J.E. (2011).  Educational psychology: Developing learners (7th ed.).  Boston, MA: Pearson Education.