Classroom Environment and Climate-

The classroom environment I am currently involved in, 2nd/3rd grade at Beech Mountain School, is very warm and “homey”.  The layout of the classroom makes for easy student movement and participation.  The desks are arranged in rows, with the grades in different parts of the room (second on one side and third on the other), with a workspace between them where students can spread out on the floor to work.  This design is very effective because it lends itself to both individual and group work.  Students can either work alone at their desks or with their classmates in the floor. The walls in the room are crowded with various lists of learning tips, rules, and holiday decorations. These make for a very comfortable, relaxed atmosphere.  The walls are very colorful and inviting, encouraging the students to feel that way. However, the lists on the walls are not as prominent because there are so many other things on the walls as well.  The visual aids might be more stimulating for students if there were less of them. One of my favorite things about this classroom are the plants that are distributed around the room. These plants make the room feel alive. They bring an element of nature into the class and encourage students to appreciate the beauty of the natural things around them.  The design and decoration of this classroom explicitly encourage students to be “good students”, as they notice the rules, learning tips, and organization of their desks.  The cluttered decor, however sends students the message that it is okay to be somewhat random in their actions; because there is no real structure to the placement of lists and pictures on the walls, it is implied to students that they do not need to be as structured.  The elements of this classroom that I particularly like are the plants, the listing of rules and tips around the room, and the setup of student desks. These things make the room a positive, inviting learning environment.

My Future Classroom-
The design of my ideal future classroom is for the second grade. It is one that is structured, but relaxed, and that lends itself to active student involvement.  The main areas of this ideal classroom are as follows:  a class community corner, stations, computer areas, teacher desk, classroom cubbies, and bookshelves.  The “class community corner” will be an area on the floor where the whole class can gather to discuss important issues and make classroom decisions. This area will be away from the students’ desks, as they need a place to get away from the workspace of their desks (just as in a house, one does not want to eat where they sleep). This area will include a rug, pillows, or other comfortable seating arrangements.  There will be about four stations in the room, with nearby station materials.  One will be where I will work with small groups and individual students who need additional instructional assistance. The other three stations will be stations where students go to work with math concepts, science concepts, etc. These stations will be set up in the same way for each activity that they involve. Students will be aware of the process of going from one station to the next and the rules for the stations will be consistent. These stations will provide students with a predictable routine for their active involvement in learning.  There will be one station that involves computer use.  There will also be a separate area where one or more computers are placed, for student use.  These will be accessible areas of the classroom, as I plan to encourage students to utilize the technology resources in as many ways as they can.  My desk will be placed in a corner of the room, where all areas of the classroom are visible.  It will be in an area that is accessible to all students, away from the other student work areas (so that students feel comfortable talking to me about their concerns and needs).  The bookshelves in the room will be in the front of the room, where reading materials are visible to students, and can be easily obtained. The student cubbies will be in the back of the room, away from the desks and workspaces, so that students will not disrupt others if they need to access their cubbies.

Philosophy of Teaching-
My leadership style is one of a more cooperative nature. Although, I believe that as a teacher, I will be the main leader of the classroom; I think that students should be actively involved in leading their classmates in learning.  I think that in order for a situation to be successful and productive, there needs to be an initiator to lead the group. Yet without the active involvement of all members of that group, the project being undertaken will not succeed. This applies to my ideas about my classroom.  I think that students must be actively involved in the way that a classroom is run.  In order for students to learn and feel comfortable expressing their ideas in a classroom, they must feel that they are important to the success of that classroom. To make students feel that their contributions are necessary and important, I plan to design my classroom as a very cooperative learning environment (stations and class community corner).  I also plan to place student work on the walls of my classroom and in the hall outside the room. This supports my philosophy of the need for making students feel successful and important.  I am going to be a teacher because I want to make a difference in the minds and lives of students.  I want my classroom to reflect my love of children and my desire for them to learn as much as they can in my classroom. The resources that will be available to students, throughout my classroom will reflect my desire for their learning.  The placement of student work around and throughout the room will hopefully reflect my care for their well-being.

Development of Second Graders-
Based on the developmental study of second grade students, I have found that students at this level need to be actively involved in learning and feel successful with their involvement.  Students at this developmental level enjoy reading for pleasure.  The availability of books for students and a place for them to read in my classroom (classroom community corner) will support their desire for reading.  At this level, students enjoy planning and building things. The stations in the room will allow students to act on these interests.  At this developmental level, students also have a need for rules and rituals.  The rules that will be clearly placed in my classroom, that students will help determine, will help meet their need for discipline and rules. The consistency of the stations that students will be involved in each day in my classroom, will help meet their need of rituals.  Students at this age and developmental level also have a need for security. The routines that I plan to establish in my classroom will serve as a way to provide students with a secure learning environment.  Since students at this level of learning need to be aware of their own strengths, I will design the station activities to meet the needs and highlight the strengths of all students.

Building the Learning Community-
I plan to begin building a learning community within my classroom by making students aware of the fact that each individual in the class, including myself, is a part of the learning community that within our classroom.  I will discuss the importance of a community with the students by role-playing with them what would happen if everyone did not get along or if every member of the class did not participate. To further build a learning community within my classroom, I will have students help in determining the classroom rules. This will give them ownership over what they expect of themselves and their classmates to promote the most effective learning environment.  I will also establish with students, the idea that if we do not know an answer, we will find it.  I will make them aware that we should never stop learning, and always be searching for the answers to our questions.
 

Routines-
The three routines that I chose to examine in my internship classroom were: the way that students line up to leave the room, the order of the subjects taught during the day, and the design of the reading groups within the class.  I chose to examine these routines because they were ones that are important and I am interested in how to establish them in my own classroom.  I wanted to look into how students lined up because, even though this seems like a trivial routine, it is important in preventing students from becoming chaotic when they leave the room.  The routine of the order of subjects was interesting to me because I had never thought about how to determine which subject to teach first, second, etc.  The third routine I chose to examine was that of how reading time was spent, in groups.  I was curious as to how this routine was determined.

The way that students line up in my internship classroom is by one student being the line leader and calling other students to line up after them.  They then leave the room, once all students have lined up and are ready to go.  My cooperating teacher says that she established this routine because it made the “getting ready to leave” process more organized. By allowing students to take turns being the leader, each student felt important and necessary.  She said that this routine sort of worked itself out and that she cannot remember it ever really being different. The routine seems to go smoothly because it is well-established with the students. They know that each day a different student will be the leader and that he/she must call on other students to line up after them.  I would use this routine in my classroom. I might have students call on other groups of students (if students are seated in pods) or individual students who seem ready to go. The routine makes the transition of moving from one place to another go much more smoothly.

The order that subjects are taught, in my internship class, are as follows:  Spelling, Reading, Math, Language Arts before lunch and Social Studies or Science and any leftover Language Arts after lunch.  My cooperating teacher said that she has found that teaching what she believes to be the most important subjects before lunch is the only way to have students' attention during those subjects. She says that she loses their attention after lunch. My teacher also said that she had tried to teach the subjects in another order (Math and Reading after lunch) and students were not alert enough to follow the Math and Reading lessons.  This routine seems to go pretty smoothly because, again, students understand in what order they are expected to focus on these subjects.  The routine does not go as smoothly when students grasp a concept either more quickly than the teacher has planned or not as quickly as planned.  In these situations, the order of subjects is varied a little.  I will use a routine for subject order that is somewhat different than this one.  I plan to integrate subjects together as much as I can, without removing the educational value from each individual subject.  I will however follow my intern teacher's advice by teaching the most crucial information of subjects in the morning and the more fun, hands-on activities in the afternoon.

 The routine of the reading groups in my internship class is that the students are broken up into reading level groups (based on WRI/IRI assessments). The groups do various activities, depending on who is leading them.  Most of the Reading groups read, discuss, do a review worksheet, and then read another story or book.  The students who are in grade level groups by themselves read to the teacher.  This routine goes fairly smoothly. The reading groups that are facilitated by a teacher, assistant, etc. work well. The students who have to read to the teacher are often, however, doing nothing while she is reading with one of the other independent readers.  My cooperating teacher said that she used to have all students reading on the grade level they were in, not on their appropriate instructional reading level.  She finds that this new way of carrying out Reading groups is more effective, because students are reading on their appropriate grade level.  I will do the same Reading routine, in the sense that I will break students up into appropriate instructional reading level groups. Yet I will carry out the Reading routine a bit differently. I plan to have reading groups that consist of more than one student working on their planned activities (with an assistant or volunteer to guide them if possible) and then to have something for independent reading groups (of one student at a given level) to work on in case I need to work with several groups as opposed to reading with them one-on-one. I will find another way to help make this routine go more smoothly, as far as students having meaningful reading work to do while I work with other students.
 

*This is the layout of my ideal classroom. The various areas of the room allow for students to have equal access to research materials, media centers, and work stations to further develop their understanding of subject matter.