Classroom Community Paper

Classroom Community Paper Miranda Guptill EDUC 1301.001 Professor Sumrall December 5, 2011

Classroom Community Paper Children learn best when they feel comfortable and safe and can relate to their teacher. Making your classroom feel more like a community is the best way to achieve this environment. Creating a community in my classroom is an idea I eagerly look forward to. I am working toward a degree in early childhood education to be able to teach students between first and sixth grade. I hope to create a home away from home feeling for a fourth grade class. To begin having a sense of community in my class I would want to introduce myself to my students and let them know that I am a person too. I found a great example of how to do this on the scholastic website. First I would share a Power Point slideshow of pictures of my family, my home, things I did over the summer, and pictures of me when I was their age. We would discuss the fact that teachers have lives outside of school and I would answer any questions they might have for me. Then the students would take turns sharing about themselves and what they did over the summer. Having a very hard time remembering names, I want to create an activity focused directly on this to help me learn and remember who my students are. I will create a take home questionnaire for the students to fill out with their parents. It will ask questions such as, what is your full name, were you named after anyone, why did your parents choose your name, and what do you think of your name. Then it will ask the students to draw their name in a creative way at the bottom of the page using color. Lastly it will ask for a small picture to be attached if possible. This will allow me to study who my students are without embarrassing myself and my students in class. I also want my students to have a chance to get to know each other better. Though, they may have gone to school with each other for most of their lives, I want them to ask each other questions that they may not know the answer to so they learn something new about each of their classmates. A good activity for this is called Getting to Know You Bingo. I will create a bingo card to distribute to the students with possible facts about students like I have three siblings, I was born in a different state, I play the piano, I have been to another country, and I have a pet lizard. The students will move around the room trying to match facts to students. When a student gets a bingo I will have them will sit down and go around the room sharing something new they learned about a classmate. The student who got the first bingo will share first and pick first from a basket of candy. Then each student who shares will receive a piece of candy. Trust is a key element in creating a classroom community and is easily abused by both the teacher and the students. I hope to create strong trust between me and my students and between each of my students. One way is to create a list of rules or a classroom constitution with my students. First we will discuss why rules are important and how they keep us safe. We will then create a list of about six rules that we all feel are fair and appropriate. Another way to employ trust between the students and the teacher is to leave an open line of communication. I want my students to know that they can speak to me about anything and that I will be there when they need me. An idea I have to achieve this is to have a kind of suggestion box where the students can place any grievances they may have and each week we will have a class meeting where we will work together or privately to discuss and resolve these issues.

Classroom Community Paper To have complete trust in the classroom the students must also trust each other. I would begin this process by letting the students know that they control their emotions and that someone can change the way they feel only if they let them. Affirmations like this will be posted on the walls around the room. We would also do a trust fall activity where each student will get the chance to fall into their classmates arms to promote the sense that in this classroom someone will always be there when you fall. To me there is no question whether or not core values should be taught to our children at school. Without things like trustworthiness, respect, responsibility, fairness, caring, and citizenship the world would be in chaos. A way I would promote these values is to have an activity where I would show a number of National Geographic pictures of people from different cultures. Each student will write down their initial thoughts and feelings about each picture. We would then have a discussion of the importance of respect for others and the similarities and differences between us and the people in the pictures. Lastly we would reassess each picture and write down how we now feel about them. Then we would discuss how our opinions have changed. Traditions have never been very prominent in my home life, something I am trying to change, but I believe having ceremonies, celebrations, and traditions in the classroom is a great way to establish solidity. Something I look forward to every year are holiday dinners and I think having holiday dinners in the class could become a fun, exciting, and messy tradition that the students would look forward to. Each year I would have my class pick three holidays that they would like to have an in class. Then me and each student, if possible, would bring a dish appropriate for the holiday. We would spend a period eating and enjoying each others company. I also want to incorporate a celebration the children can cheer anytime a question is answered correctly out loud. An example would be if we are doing math problems on the board, each correct answer would receive a cheer such as a verse from a song of the childrens choice or a firecracker cheer where the students raise their hands in the air, clap, and say Ahhh! as they bring their hands down mimicking fireworks. Another tradition I would like to implement would be an activity done each Friday where me and the students would sit in a circle and pass around a ball taking turns sharing what we liked learning the most that week. Each student would get a chance to share and explain. They would also have a chance to explain what they disliked the most. This activity will help me learn from my students what type of teaching works best for them and what their learning styles are. Implementing cooperative learning in my classroom is a main goal of mine. I believe that students receive the deepest understanding of a subject when they are able to work together and use multiple intelligences to gain that understanding. My classroom seating will be set up in groups of four desks facing each other so that students can work easily together but still receive privacy with a divider when needed. As often as possible, my students will work in their home groups on projects and assignments to reach a common goal together. I will also break my students up into different groups to work on certain

Classroom Community Paper projects throughout the week so that they can benefit from the variety of multiple intelligences in their classroom. These are categorized as the Learning Together Technique. Another way I plan to use cooperative learning is the Jigsaw Technique where each student in each group will be assigned an essential part of an activity that must be completed and understood for completion of the activity. This technique gives each student a sense of importance. Lastly, I will use the Group Investigation Technique in which students are given an open-ended assignment to form their own focus and give a group presentation. Here the students decide what they will study and how giving them a deeper understanding of subjects that interest them.

Classroom Community Paper Works Cited A Guide to Cooperative Learning. (n.d.). Prince George's County Public Schools. Retrieved December 5, 2011, from http://www.pgcps.org Sharan, Y., & Sharan, S. (n.d.). Group Investigation Expands Cooperative Learning. Membership, policy, and professional development for educators ASCD. Retrieved December 5, 2011, from http://www.ascd.org Great Schools Staff. (n.d.). Learning to be a giraffe: The value of character education GreatSchools - Public and Private School Ratings, Reviews and Parent Community. Retrieved December 5, 2011, from http://www.greatschools.org