Data collection is very useful and important when it comes to teaching and learning, but it is often overlooked. In instances where teachers ask themselves what did we do before and how can we do it again, data saved throughout the years can answer those questions. Data can be useful for the students in cases where they need a sample assignment to help them decide how to model their assignments. Mandinach and Gummer (2016) defined data as more than just students’ past assessments, but any physical documents related to the class. Aspiring teachers can benefit from different types of data related to the subject they plan to teach and use those data to prepare for their educational careers (Mandinach & Gummer, 2016). In my classroom, I plan to produce data throughout my years of teaching and share it with those who can benefit from it, such as parents, teachers, and students.

In my documentation and communication plans, I laid out my plan to conduct quarterly teacher-parent conferences to build a relationship with them and keep them informed about their child. Part of my documentation plan is to fill out a “conference documentation form” during each meeting, jotting down the key information we discussed. I want to also give a copy of this form to parents as well, so they can have a reminder of what we talked about and can possibly share it with their kids. In my conference documentation form, I will ask parents a general question about how they feel about my class and ask for any suggestions on how I could improve their experience, as well as their child’s. This is important because I want parents to have a voice in my classroom and to know what is going on with their child.

For student-teacher conferences, I plan to fill out a sheet that guides the discussion on how students feel about the culture of my classroom. Meetings with the students are the most valuable source of data I could collect as a teacher because students can provide me with an honest answer or reaction to certain assignments or procedures I have come up with. The class is for them after all. For certain assignments I will give students a brief questionnaire about how they felt about the assignment and what could have been better or what they wish I would have done. Maybe they have good ideas they experienced in other classes. I believe my job as a teacher is to base my pedagogy and structure on what students like best about my classroom, and what does not work for them.

To make these data useful for future instruction, I would summarize my findings and articulate what worked and what needs to be improved (Mandinach & Gummer, 2016). I would do this practice at the end of the school year when I have a variety of data. This is important because it becomes more than an assortment of documents and notes that is only privy to my knowledge. Not to say that “dispositions and habits of mind” (p. 372) are unimportant to data collection, but they do not immediately spell out how the data could be useful towards future instruction (Mandinach & Gummer, 2016).

Being data literate and “data-driven” (p. 372) as a future teacher is important because it could be helpful with making adjustments to my own instruction (Mandinach & Gummer, 2016). Mandinach and Gummer (2016) stated that data literacy is more than just saving students’ assessments. There is more diverse data that could be collected and useful for many others. Suggestions and advice from teachers working closely with me about the environment of my classroom is useful information to store as data. All in all, I believe the best people to inform me on the climate and culture of my classroom are the students.

References

Mandinach, E., & Gummer, E. (2016). What does it mean for teachers to be data literate: Laying out the skills, knowledge, and dispositions. Teaching and Teacher Education. 60, 366-376. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2016.07.011

The authoritative teacher favors rules but believes that students should have a say in the rules and structures of the classroom. This is the type of teacher I want to be. I believe that everyone in the classroom, including teachers and students, would benefit from a structured classroom because it is reliable. It requires everyone to work efficiently, and that is why students should be included in the process of creating? the rules for the classroom. Marzano et. al (2003) agreed that a “code of discipline” (p. 76) should be a collaborative effort between the teacher, students, and even parents. Rules in my future classroom will function as an agreement between the teacher and the students. After all, it is their classroom too.

This leads me to my next plan to always communicate with my students in the classroom about expectations of their behavior and assignments. I plan to build a relationship with my students where they feel comfortable approaching me with any questions or concerns they have with the material or their grades. Building relationships with my students involves me showing interest in their interests and continuing to be honest with them. In this essay, I will explain how I will utilize documentation in my classroom and maintain communication with my students and their parents.

Documentation

To establish rules and expectations in my classroom, I will dedicate a class period to discussing and agreeing on a plan with my students. We will discuss what they expect from me as their teacher and even what they expect from their fellow classmates. Students will have a vote on a fair late work policy and the consequences that come with failing to follow that policy. To aid the discussion I will provide pre-written classroom rules but allow students to add or revise any of the ideas I have come up with. Once the rules of the classroom are officially

established, I will constantly remind students of our agreed-upon policies. Especially in situations where students will be working together on assignments or students are asked to speak out loud, they need to be reminded to respect their classmates.

One procedure I will establish in my classroom in terms of late work is approaching students about their late work and emphasizing how it will benefit their grade and their overall learning experience. Students in my classroom will be aware of my late work policy because we established it together, but I understand that with the pace of the curriculum and the workload from their other classes an assignment might be forgotten. All assignments that I plan to give students will be integral to their preparation for any tests, norm-referenced tests, and criterion-referenced tests. So, I plan to make students aware of that. They should also be aware that my English Language Arts lessons provide skills that they will need in the future, whether they go to college or not.

In terms of getting students’ attention and providing transitions in between assignments in my classroom, I will make those routines clear at the beginning of the school year. Fuhrman (2022) suggested that one way to get students’ attention was by playing a song for a certain amount of time and making it clear that when the song came to a stop the students’ loud behavior should cease. This sounds like musical chairs to me, so I want to frame my attention-grabbing technique as a game students might be familiar with. I would play a clip of a popular song (instrumental) for about ten to thirty seconds and give students time to find their seats and finish their conversations before the music comes to a stop. If students fail to correct their behavior before the music stops, they “lose the game” and further action will be taken.

When students violate the rules and procedures we agreed upon, I will document those instances in a weekly behavior log that will include multiple questions that provide enough context about the incident and its severity (See Figure 1). This documentation process is strictly for classroom use and I could possibly share these observations with other teachers to stay in correspondence about our students’ behavior, whether good or bad. Keeping track of students’ behavior is important because it can help teachers understand students’ behavior and the best way to deal with it or encourage it. Violations worth documenting include but are not limited to classroom disruptions and any instances of disruptive behavior between students. If there are rules that schools implement school-wide, such as dress code or chewing gum, I will implement those rules in my classroom as well but possibly give any students in violation of that rule a warning first.

Figure 1

Weekly Behavior Log Sample

Note. Weekly behavior log with an entry example.

Communication

The weekly behavior log will be useful for parent-teacher conferences. I plan to communicate with my students’ parents as often as each quarter to discuss their child’s achievements and what needs to be improved. It is important for me as a teacher to communicate to the parents how their child has contributed individually to the classroom environment and how well they do on assignments. Another way I can show parents that their child is succeeding in class and encourage them to be a part of their learning process in some way is by expressing that in a letter I could send out to them. This is a meaningful idea, that Reed (n.d) called “Notes of Praise,” because parents have schedules and important jobs and might not be able to take a call or meet in person as often as I plan. I would even send the note home with a student to show that their achievements are being seen.

In terms of meeting with students, I plan to hold a lot of writing conferences for when students are assigned to write papers and choose/research a topic. This will give me a chance to ask about the students’ feelings about the assignment and even purposely venture off-topic briefly to build rapport with them. To document my meetings with students and their parents, which is important for any future use or relevance, I will take notes in a conference documentation form. Outside of the context of class assignments, I will hold meetings every quarter about students’ grades, whether they have an A or a D. I believe it is important for students to know that I care about their success in my class.

References

Free 9+ behavior log samples in PDF. Sample Templates. (n.d.). Retrieved May 1, 2022, from https://www.sampletemplates.com/business-templates/behavior-log-examples.html

Fuhrman, R. (2022). 7 attention-getters to use instead of raising your voice. Edutopia. https://www.edutopia.org/article/7-attention-getters-use-instead-raising-your-voice

Marzano, R. J., Marzano, J. S., & Pickering, D. J. (2003). Classroom management that works: Research-based strategies for every teacher. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

There is more to teaching than the commitment to the material and the curriculum. As teachers, we will see our students 5 days a week for almost a full year. In that time, building a relationship with the students is productive for classroom management (Marzano et al., 2003). In my experience, if a student does not like their teacher, they may not remain permissible to their teaching. In this essay, I will detail how I plan to build that trust with my students so everyone in the classroom can have a better learning experience. Teachers who show their students they care about them as people and learners leave an impression that could linger with them for a long time.

A concept introduced by Marzano et al. (2003) called “personal regard” (p. 48) is one of three key behaviors of respected and well-liked teachers that involves the simple—yet oftentimes indirect—act of showing you care about your student. To embody this particular behavior and reach out to students as a way to begin the lesson, I would like to give students a short survey where they answer 1 serious question that invites them to express their feelings and a few silly/random questions that keep them interested. This could be implemented as a warm-up or an exit slip that must be completed, even if a student writes one-word answers. The point is to give students the opportunity to think about their day without the barrier of a grade and would only be seen by me as their teacher.

Another relationship-building activity I am excited to bring to the classroom is a personal artifact game where students can bring in an item of their choice to share with the class. For this to be interesting for everyone, students would have to feel comfortable explaining their reason for bringing that item and what it means to them. This type of activity could be useful in a lesson

on writing, as I am a future teacher of English, but its format allows teachers and students to learn something new about someone they see almost every day.

Learning For Justice (n.d.) provided a scope of the benefit of teachers involving their students in the creation of the classroom rules and everyday environment. This is another activity I would like to assign to students at the beginning of the year. I would scaffold ideas for how students should treat their classmates and how they should behave during class instruction, but the nature of this activity allows for students to suggest new ideas that are more reasonable for them. Not only would these set of rules for the class pertain to the students they would also involve the teacher and how they promise to treat their students. This shows that students are not the only ones who have to make commitments in the classroom that affect other students, teachers need to be held accountable for their actions.

Marzano et al. (2003) suggested that teachers need to find the balance between dominance and cooperation in the classroom. Based on what current teachers and principals have shared in my classroom management course, finding this balance can be challenging. They all seem to agree that exhibiting those behaviors of assertiveness can be hard to establish in the middle of the school year after students have gotten used to the easygoing nature of the classroom. I want to be the type of teacher who is assertive but not in a way that loses the students’ trust and respect for me, which means I need to begin the year as that type of teacher.

In conclusion, relationship-building activities at the beginning of the year are meaningful and beneficial, but why not continue to build a relationship with the students all throughout the school year? My goal in choosing these 3 particular activities is that they can be done either every day or every few weeks. The activities give me the opportunity to develop how I respond to students that shows them that I am listening and interested in what they have to say.

References

Learning for Justice. (n.d.). A new set of rules. Retrieved February 22, 2022, from https://www.learningforjustice.org/professional-development/a-new-set-of-rules

Marzano, R. J., Marzano, J. S., & Pickering, D. J. (2003). Classroom management that works: Research-based strategies for every teacher. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Middle school goes by quickly for many young students. Students experience a new workload and a budding social life all in a short time. Needless to say, they have a lot going on. That is why it is important to leave students with memorable learning experiences that involve students being genuinely engaged in the classroom. Not only should students be engaged but I also want them to be interested and maybe even excited about their lessons. My goal as a teacher is to provide a memorable and effective learning experience for students using different techniques.

As a student, I know what it is like to be listening to the lecture but have my mind drift elsewhere. Passive listening can occur when someone is disinterested in the topic or just has other things going on. I know that when I am distracted in class, and I start to think about what I am going to do after class, I often miss important details in the teacher’s instruction. When passive listening occurs in the classroom, it is difficult to determine what information the student heard and what details they missed. This shows that there is more a teacher can do to make learning less boring. Himmele and Himmele (2017) introduce the idea of Total Participation Techniques that assure active student participation.

Total Participation Techniques would require introverted students to interact with their classmates and extroverted students to allow their classmates a chance to speak up (Himmele & Himmele, 2017). However, discussing ideas and opinions about the lessons and teaching other students what they learned is a great skill they will use for the rest of their lives. These techniques also allow teachers to gauge what the students have learned and what they are struggling with.

When I become a teacher with my own classroom, I like the idea of having my chairs and desks arranged in a circle where everyone can see each other. In one of my college English classes this semester there is a Socratic seminar scheduled for each class meeting that we are required to participate in. This is effective because we get the chance to have a discussion about the text we are reading and what relevance it has to us or any questions we have that other students might be able to answer. The professor sits among us in the circle of desks and contributes to the conversation here and there but ultimately allows the students to lead the discussion. I really like this structure because it gives students a chance to articulate their thoughts on the text and possibly see a different perspective provided by another student. It also strays away from the classic stand and talk at the students until the bell rings that I associate with middle school.

When I observed in a middle school with a teacher who taught both 6th grade and 7th grade, I saw firsthand how difficult it was to engage the students. However, one way this teacher really engaged the students and made the class fun was by allowing them to create their own version of a favored story. The students’ imaginations ran wild as they went over ideas with their group members. This teacher also makes an effort to write her own questions that students would not be able to look up word for word and find the answer. Himmele and Himmele (2017) mention a similar instance where a teacher creates their own questions that might be more interesting for the students.I plan to ask students to share their interests and possibly integrate it into the lesson plans.

While it may be a challenge to actively engage students in the classroom, it is a welcome challenge that requires teachers to step out of the box and think about their students. Not all students are going to enjoy school but it is my job as their teacher to make their education meaningful and enjoyable. I will know if a student is engaged when they show excitement about their assignments.

References

Himmele, P., & Himmele, W. (2017). Total participation techniques: making every student an active learner (2nd ed.). ASCD