Thursday, February 5, 2009
Classroom/ content expectations
I decided to write about the coral readings that were done in class. Jessica and I decided on the “Water Boatmen” poem. I decided to chose the Joyful Noise book because it had a variety of choices, which we did explore a few. Jessica in her blogg stated the process we went through. We had fun playing with the speaking conventions and discourses. We tried reading together, and alternating the lines. We adjusted at times to each other’s rehearsal of the poem. We realized that the way we presented the poem would determine how the audience felt about, and interpreted the poem. Over all I felt that the classroom community played a role in how the class on a whole was able to present the material. This environment is a safe one where it seems that learning is fun, and we try to respect others point of view. Being grouped with certain classmates does make the task easier. It also helped me to realize how important it is for the students to feel and be included in the classroom community. Everyone needs to be aware of the rules or the norms of the class, what is accepted and not accepted in the classroom. I also realize as future teachers we need to make the experience in our classrooms one that our students will remember. We should be able to compare it to a family where everyone is a little different but plays an important role in making the family complete. As these classes exposes us to different information we can see that working together is important. We can evaluate each other as well as help each other grow in some areas. In many ways I am happy that we are moving away from the old style of teaching having students play an active role in a learning community. I feel that as future teachers we should remember so of the icebreakers we learned through out our education and use them with our students at the beginning of the year. We should set standers/ rules, make them clear, and hold everyone accountable which will promote a good learning environment
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Hey Jennivieve! After reading your post, I definately agree that having a strong classroom community is vital for activites like this. The choral reading went really well in our classroom because we all had an understanding of what "good" audience behavior was and how to cooperatively work with partners to accomplish our poetry task. As future teachers, we need to make sure that our students understand the rules and expectations for these activities as well as get along and feel comfortable working with and presenting to their peers. Having students play an active role in a learning community is definately a new perspective but really allows students to learn and grow at an entirely new level!
ReplyDeleteJennivieve,
ReplyDeleteI really like how you compared a class to a family. It supports this idea that there will be differences of opinion among the group but that there is an underlying safety net of of caring among the group as well. This net makes it okay to take risks and defend individual ideas because even if your idea fails you the group is there to catch you. No one wants to see anyone else fall and possibly be hurt. I think in either this class or our math half of the course it was mentioned that a good class discussion should be similar to a family discussing something at the dinning room table. Of course there are many different kinds of families and not all of them fit this image but I still think it is a neat way to think about your class.