Mary Redden
Domain 2 Reflection
The Classroom Environment
Year 1
I have two very different classroom environments that I teach daily. The Life Skills classes at West focus not only on academics but behavior intervention and increased socialization with the typical population. My English class is in the computer lab, which lends itself to both positive and challenging opportunities for students who often have a hard time maintaining attention. For both life skills classes I incorporate positive behavior supports systems, such as a point system. This system enables the student to become reinforced for positive behavior on a daily basis. Our classroom setting is not our permanent place. I also utilize these systems when out in the community while learning English and Math in the community.
My ICT Biology students are seated in such a way that they can get the most out of class and I can ensure their work is on target during a lesson. They are mixed heterogeneously throughout the classroom according to IEP needs, and regular assessments. Additionally, the students are provided outside placement to tests quizzes and quitter settings for tests and labs. Also, I frequent their support classes to follow up on needs and review that I feel is necessary on a weekly basis.
The evolution of my classroom management system at West has gone through different transitions as the year has progressed. At first, I tried individual Classroom Dojo system, but that proved too difficult to manage. Next, I tried an individualized point system, but I didn’t feel that it was as motivating for some, so I lastly developed a whole class system, which reinforced individual behaviors, served as a response cost token system (students losing points/tokens toward the reward for exhibiting misbehavior), and rewards were administered to the whole class. We pre-determined rewards which were voted and selected by the majority. This worked the best meeting all our needs in terms of management, functionality, and it positively increased behavior. I also liked how it exposed the students to the idea of a democratic system.
My ICT Biology students proved to be more difficult to manage in terms of motivation. As the year progressed, I found it to be more difficult to motivate the students to come back and try again the next day. If a student has experienced failure, they have a tendency to give up. So, I tried breaking down the material more, I wrote contracts with certain students to try to increase their independent study habits and participation, I made myself more available to each student, adding additional extra helps to try to accommodate student schedules, I went to their support classes before a test to provide additional study guidance of terms. But ultimately I found that the more I did in terms of support, the less independent practice the students did on their own. I feel that there is a fine line that we walk as special education teachers. We try so hard to work on so many different things at one time. We’re working on organization, while working on attention, while working on study habits, while working on concept development, while working on quality of work, while working on keeping up with the curriculum. It gets to be too much for the student and the teacher. Stepping back and reminding yourself and them to do one thing at a time seemed to be the most effective path increasing growth of each student.
