This week for TeachNow I got the chance to watch three videos that were to show teachers creating a classroom environment that would help students become successful. The three videos were one on Science and STEM, one on Chinese Math, and a final one on the whole-brain child.
For the Science and Stem class, the students were working to create a roller coaster using pool noodles and marbles. The teacher had very high academic expectations, behavior expectations, and her norms and procedures were well documented as well as followed. The teacher started class with a Chiming exercise where she chose a "chimer" someone who would tell of their trials and tribulations of the day before, making sure they used proper vocabulary to the project, the students would then chime in and work towards understanding and learning together by going over the trials and tribulations together, giving the students an autonomy and freedom where they were not only given the tools they needed to succeed but also put into an environment where they were given the chance to excel. In the whole video, there was no doubt her academic expectations were high, she had a goal the students needed to achieve, which was creating the roller coaster, and she gave students different ways to figure out how to improve by letting them see what they needed to change as they went. For example, the students were given the chance to make a change at a time, as long as they documented the change and explained what they change was supposed to do, or how it might benefit them. This gives them the ability to learn from failing without the fear of failing. Her classroom environment was very well behaved as well. Students, even in a relaxed environment, were not tempted to goof off. They understood what her expectations were of them and they were able to follow suit. She had a board in her classroom with all the norms and procedures down, as well as the goals for the day. Students knew what her norms and procedures were and were able to follow through with them. Overall I believe she did excellent in her method of teaching STEM.
The second video was a Chinese Math Class. I found this class to be very energetic and fast pace. I feel like I could cheat in watching the video since I can speak Chinese I was able to follow along. I was swiftly taken down memory lane of all the times I had to do my Chinese Math Timetable. I feel she did have high expectations in academics for students, she wanted them to be able to understand directions, respond does directions, and know the Chinese time's table and do simple math in Chinese. I feel that most students understood the instructions, though I would be concerned that since there was a lot of group work and not so much individual work, that the teacher might not be able to identify using different formative assessment methods to identify who those students who are struggling are. Behavior expectations were mentioned through the video, she would give instructions like one two three eyes on me, and hands behind your back. However, I don't know if it's because her students were excited, young, or eager to answer the questions, some students would speak out of turn. She would say that she didn't call on them and focus on the student she did call on, but once again, I don't know how many of the students really understood the behavior expectations if the teacher had to redirect the students several times because of a student answering out of turn. Considering norms and procedures, I am not so sure on norms and procedures in her class. There were a few things she did that most students followed along with and seemed to understand the norms and procedures, but I feel it would have been nice to have them posted on the board in dual language to help the students remember the norms and procedures.
Whole brain Teaching video was going through geography and some math using the whole brain. I was very impressed with how she had high academic expectations for the students. The way she commanded the class showed she was not wanting any student to fall behind, her eyes were on the students as she walked around the room. But the techniques she used to give the instructions was very helpful to the students. She infused movement to the vocab to help students retain the difficult vocabulary words. She also used two other methods, one where a student made up their own movement to the vocab words, and the other where each student read the text as fast as they could only reading every other word. She made sure each student was able to follow along with the instructions and learn the content need for the lesson. HI am assuming that her behavior expectations were high because of the level of involvement of each student being on task the whole time. Though some of the student's body language showed that they were more engaged than others, overall the students were engaged in the learning that was taking place in her class. I was very impressed when it came to norms and procedures, she must have had drilled it into them, because she was able to go over classroom rules and norms with the students, once again using hand gestures and movement as well as a passionate tone to help set the tone of the classroom. I feel it's because students had such buy-in with the rules and procedures that she was able to have a class that behaved excellently.
After watching the three videos of teachers who set high-performance expectations with their students I feel inspire to go back to my 6th-grade art class and revise how I could better set my expectations with my students. I teach at an international school in Hong Kong where the students are really good at being overachievers, but not necessarily being indipendent thinkers. Out of the three classes I would most like to use some of the strategies I saw in the STEM video. The way she used Chiming to help students give each other a voice and a chance to give critique in a healthy way that promotes growth. I find it very empowering to a student when they work with a peer and develop the concepts of what they need to do to improve on their own. I find that this would work really well in my Art class, to give the students a chance to go over their trials and tribulations in a group setting that would provide them with the support that they need.It also would help them learn to think for themselves and not rely on the teacher the whole time. To teach the students how to think for themselves to give them a voice will give them the buy-in that they can achieve anything as long as they can put their mind to it. I also feel that there are aspects of the whole brain learner that I could use in my class as well, using motion and movement to help solidify ideas. Also, the way she was able to passionately review her norms and procedures is something I would like to look into for my class in the future. I think I would have better classroom management if we could go over the norms and procedures in such a way where students buy into it and remember it with their whole brain. I, however, will most likely not be using any of the Chinese Math teachers strategies other than one two three eyes on me. Not because she taught poorly, but because her style of teaching is so fast pace and I would end up feeling stressed and causing stress to students would then make it harder for them to succeed.
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