JanelleMTeach-Now

Creating a Climate of Caring and Concern in the Classroom for Students from Diverse Racial, Ethnic, and Cultural Groups By: Janelle McGee When teachers can implement positive teacher-student relationships in the classroom, that in turn creates a positive climate in the classroom. When students are comfortable in their environment, they are motivated to learn. From greeting students at the door before they come into class, to making eye contact, smiling, and engaging in appropriate playful behavoirs students benefit from personal engagements with the teacher. Student's come from many diverse, racial, and ethnic cultural groups. Coming from a different country myself, Trinidad and Tobago, my skin is dark and I am from a different cultural and racial background than my students. It is very important to create a climate of caring and concern. Creating this type of environment decreases bullying and increases academic achievement and psychological well-being all while mitigating t...

ANALYSIS Roller Coaster Physics: This video was really great to watch. The teacher had the students learning physics through fun by hands on learning. She implemented project based learning by having this project run over the course of a little over a week. The first week she had them test, the next week she had the students design their own coaster. The strategies that she used worked well with her classroom. The first strategy she used was called chiming. This is where she would pick a chimer, that student would then tell about what trials and tribulations they had during the experiment from the week before, and other students would take notes while chiming into the chimer. The benefits of this was that it was a formative assessment tool for the teacher to understand where the students are at. It also promotes automus learning where students value other ideas and opinions. Another strategy that the teacher used was sketch designs. She separated the students into groups, and eac...

Reflection The international Ranking of Student Achievement Academic achievement is reported around the world by student performance on international tests that result in rankings of countries. One of these tests Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), provides a high ranking readings by policy members to determine if a country has a strong educational system. PISA is an assessment to determine if young adults starting at age 15, have the skills needed to cope with everyday society skills such as loss of a job, family breakup, solving problems, and making decisions. After the assessment, PISA allows educators and policy makers to determine the correct policies that should be in place to then adapt into local contexts. International Math and science student (TIMSS) is another international ranking of student achievement. This assessment begin as assessing students in fourth grade, and also in eighth grade. This was first conducted in 1995, with statistics that were r...

Observation Reflection Managing a classroom effectively For this activity, three special education classrooms were observed. My own K5 Special-Ed class,  Room 31 4th grade Special-Ed class, and Resource Special-Ed class.  In these observations I observed how the rules and procedures were implemented, and how teacher and staff interactions affected classroom behaviors. Observation 1: PERL K5 Room 32 Special Education Teacher: Janelle McGee Activity Observed: Social Skills When observing classroom 32, the rules and procedures were listed on a poster and visible to staff and students in the classroom. There were three posters placed around the classroom that reminded students of the school rules. Those rules were “Be Respectful, Be Responsible,  and Be a problem solver”. There was also a work done procedure in the classroom. This poster indicated the options that a student had when they completed their work. Those options included drawing a picture, writing a story...

Applying Classroom Rules and Procedures Positive reinforcement is essential in a classroom for effective classroom management. Positive reinforcement allows students who are on task to be praised and recognized for following the rules. No with positive reinforcement it also allows students who are off task, to recognize that those students who are on task get rewarded for having appropriate behavior. Positive reinforcement can also be an incentive for students to have good behavior in the classroom. In my special education K5 class, positive reinforcement is essential. I give positive reinforcements to every student who is on task. Student’s who are on task in my classroom are following rules such as being safe, raising their hands to speak, sitting in their desks, and following all classroom rules. When students follow the norms and procedures in the classroom, they get verbal praise. An example of verbal praise for my students is when a student respects the tape line by my desk a...

Reflection In K5 Special Education, standards are an essential part of Teaching. There are academic standards for the school, state, and district, as well as IEP standards. Following these standards is am essential part of being a special education teacher. In this module, although I am halfway into teaching my first year of special education, this module was especially helpful in showing me how to write and develop lesson plans based on standards. I struggled with lesson planning as a new teacher considering I had zero experience teaching before I got hired. This module also had great timing, as I am now able to incorporate the lesson plans I developed in my classroom after winter break. The importance of understanding standards and being able to identify student proficiencies, assessments, and learning activities that will help students learn and teachers know whether students are learning or not is essential no matter what grade level you are teaching at. Schools have standard...

Components Related to Math Common Core Standard Math is one of the Common Core California State standards required when teaching. The grade level I teach is K5 Special education. The subject area for this unit I will be focusing on is math at 3rd grade level. I chose this standard to develop this unit lesson plan because not only is teaching math required in the state, as well as at my school, but because I am currently teaching math, and wanted to develop new lesson plans. Math Common Core Standards are designed to Prepare students to graduate from high school and enter college and be prepared to join the workforce. These standards for math include eight mathematical practice standards. The eight mathematical practice standards include: 1. Make sense of problems and persevere  in solving them 2. Reason abstractly and quantitatively 3. Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others 4. Model with mathematics 5. Use appropriate tools strategically 6. Attend to p...

Unpacking a Standard Educational common core standards are an important aspect of teaching.  Standards help show what students should know and should be able to do in a certain subject. The Common Core State standards of California were developed by the State Board of Education. In California, almost all states have adopted the same English and Math standards, so that when students switch schools or states they can still receive a good education. As a first year teacher, I teach K5 Special education at Tolenas Elementary in California. I am required to follow the State standards of English and Math. The Common Core State standards for English  and math are true for  Kindergarten through high school. Standards help prepare students for college and the workforce. I chose to develop lessons in math and English based on the common core State standards, as well as it is my job as a teacher to develop lessons that will teach students correct content for English and math. ...