Eshrop's Blog

Case Study Power Point presentation

eshrop — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 20:01:04 +0000

project progress

eshrop — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 22:34:19 +0000

So my student had an interesting day the other day. She has been doing so well and we’ve been progressing in behavior and respect. But the other day, just had issues. She actually acted up while my supervisor came to observe me. The problem I have is that her behavior is so inconsistent. There is no telling when it will hit. She came in from recess and sat away from the carpet because her allergies were bothering her. Then, I gave her enough time and asked her to come back to the carpet. She circled everyone around the carpet and was very disrespectful but finally sat down. Then she sat facing away from me because she did not want to do what she was told. I asked her to turn back. Then, she complained about her shoe and went and sat at a table behind the carpet. I was pretty firm with her the whole time, but she was completely taking about from the lesson. After talking with my supervisor, she told me that it was evident that I still had control because she still did what she was told. However, now we are facing the disrespect issue like we’ve been facing. I am planning on talking with the counselor at school, but he has been busy everytime I’ve tried to talk to him, so that will happen.

I know that I’ve tried so many strategies. It’s not that she thinks that I don’t love her. She comes in every morning and gives me a hug, tells me she loves me. I ask her about her life. I’ve sat down and talked to her about what’s going on in her life. I give her positive reinforcement. I really want to talk to her grandma that she lives with, but she works during the day and it’s been hard to get in touch with her. It’s hard when it is this inconsistent, and now it’s like a couple weeks left in teaching and hard to know what to do.

April Article

eshrop — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 14:49:06 +0000

I read the article, “Collaborative Preteaching of Students at Risk for Academic Failure.” In this article, it talked about what it meant to preteach and how to intervene for students at risk. Many times as we know, we can see when a student is at risk long before the build-up of ramifications happens. This article addresses the fact that we can preteach and model for students before a unit is discussed so they have the advantage of knowing material within the unit. I think this also helps with confidence of the student to feel like what they are learning is interesting and they know something about it. It prevents the child from feeling lost in the classroom when discussing a topic. The article presents the idea that a teacher would need to plan ahead and have the student go over something like vocabulary before a topic is introduced. This is called preteaching. I think the article lays this out specifically for this to happen with resource teachers or specialists. I think this is a great way to use the specialists and collaborate. The specialists will be able to give a background and some knowledge of the topic before it is taught. I can see this even happening with specialists for the whole class instead of a specific group of students or in addition to these students.

The setback is we as teachers have to really really plan ahead. I am already learning to do that even more than I already do right now, but it can be difficult when you have a child at risk to plan way ahead for them as well. It does add up. I’m counting on the fact that it will continue to get easier and smoother as I go along, as it already has.

Update on Behavior Study

eshrop — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 22:28:36 +0000

My student is doing better for sure than when we started. She has progressed immensely, not acting out with throwing of chairs or tables. Now, we are addressing behavior issues that relate to disrespect and tattling. I tend to ask her a lot who her responsibility is and she has a hard time answering that question still because she wants to tell me everything else everyone else did. Finally she will let me know that she knows that her responsibility is her. Then I ask her who my responsibility is and she says everyone else. So I think the more I ask her this, the more she will understand what a tattle is and when it is ok to come to the teacher and when it is not. We used to have her “tell it to the turtle” in which she would write it on a note card and put it in the mailbox. However, I think that this was not that effective because no one would answer her note cards.

The other thing we struggle with is disrespect. Whenever she has to be asked to do something multiple times and she has trouble listening, she gets upset and her facial expressions and tone changes. She crosses her arms and says WHAT!? Then she makes noises with her mouth. We are working on the disrespect issues and she doesn’t say WHAT as much anymore. She has trouble with her math skills especially. I notice that some of the disrespect issues occur when she tries to answer a math question and it is wrong. I know that she is upset that she does not answer the question right, but we are working with her math skills to try and improve them and her confidence.

Specific Behavior Challenges

eshrop — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 01:22:50 +0000

This article was interesting because it listed many behavior challenges and the reasons that a child may act out in class. I have a student right now that is not my behavior student that continues to act out in class. I have been trying to pin point his behavior. I thought it might be me being the teacher and the fact that we might not have as strong of a relationship, but I got to know some things about him outside of school through him. He opened up to me and is still disrespectful and disruptive. Then, I tried lots of positive behavior support and am still trying this, but it’s been hard to find times to encourage him in positive behavior, and I’m not sure that it is working for him. I also thought that he might be disinterested in particular with the books that I’ve been reading in his guided reading group, but I’ve picked numerous kinds of books that I thought he might connect with, and he still says he doesn’t want to read everytime he comes to guided reading. It is really frustrating because I am trying to work with him, and I am trying to give solutions, but there’s no help on the other side. I don’t really think that he has an impulsive behavior. I think he wants attention, but not necessarily in a positive way because he doesn’t know how to receive the positive. I don’t think he gets to spend much time with his dad, but he always talks about his dad like he is his world. I really have never met his dad, but have spoken on the phone with him once. I’m not quite sure how close they are or how much time they get together. This might affect how he acts in school. He complains he is tired a lot and doesn’t want to be at school. He will say he wants to switch classes, and while this hurts my feelings I know he is just trying to get at me in some way to get a reaction. I think he knows he cannot, and he is trying to see what he can get away with. I don’t know; I guess we will see how this pans out. It’s hard not to get frustrated. For now I am going to continue trying positive reinforcers.

I also have a student that has been diagnosed with ADD, but I’m not sure about the hyperactivity. He is very hyperactive after lunch, and I believe that is when his medicine wears off. It’s really interesting because he is like in his own world. It is interesting to watch because it is like he doesn’t even know people exist around him until I loudly and firmly say his name. I’m not one to judge whether he should be put on medicine or not, but I can’t say we did much before he got tested for ADD, so I’m not sure if we could have found a different solution. I’m also not sure that the medicine would mess things up now.

Behavior Child Study post 1

eshrop — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 00:40:41 +0000

So this is what I know of my child so far: She lives with her grandmother. Her mother I think has been involved in drugs in the past and is now living on her own. Whenever my student sees her mom, she usually acts out in the classroom. At the beginning of the year she had just seen her mom and the time before that her mom told her she was going to make a place for her at her house. However, when she visited, she had not made a place for her. In class, my student refused to follow directions, threw a crayon, started screaming and crying, threw herself on the ground then started throwing chairs. After talking to her grandmother, we found out the situation and that she struggles with trust and feeling like she is not being abandoned.

A lot of the time she will act out refusing to follow directions. She also is a huge tattler. She craves attention. She is extremely smart in literacy, but struggles with her math skills. I have had issues with her lately being disrespectful. Although she’s been disrespectful and refused to follow directions, we have had a really good end of the week. She is a child that I have to constantly speak to firmly or else she does not respond. However, she always comes up to me to give me hugs every morning and tells me she loves me. She knows that I love her and care for her. I decided that I needed to be more intentional about the times where she was having positive behavior, so I started praising her doing good things. Thursday and Friday were a great success, and I believe it was due to this fact.

A couple of weeks ago, I sat down with her after she was being disruptive in class and asked her why she acted the way she did and what she was thinking when she acted that way. She was not able to respond with much. I wanted to be the one that could listen in the conversation, but it ended up being ok. I got to explain to her that I wanted her to be successful in school and I could only help her be successful if she let me. We talked about her being disruptive in class and how that affected her classmates learning as well as hers. I wanted to do this to build more of a relationship with her and sit down and talk through things with her. I hope to be able to do this again if there is another time where she acts out hugely. This I hope was a foundation.

Salend Chapter 7

eshrop — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 18:35:35 +0000

I definitely think that developing a positive environment in the classroom is something that I will be working on for a long time. There are so many things involved in doing this that it’s a little overwhelming to put all of them together. I wish there was a template that worked for every class I ever have, but that’s just not the case. We have to take into account the different children and their different needs.

I think it is very important to take anecdotal notes and record behavior of children in the class, especially those that have behavioral management issues. However, with all the recording Salend talked about in the beginning, I feel like this is a bit unrealistic. There is not time in the day to record the behavior management issues you have with a child or children. Of course this would have to take place after lessons or school. I guess I just looked at this and thought, I am not going to be able to do all this. However, I think there are some very great techniques to recording data about students.

Most of this I feel like is a review of everything we’ve talked about especially with Dr. Wilkerson about how to maintain a positive environment for students in the classroom. I think it’s a good reminder though of what to do. I’m struggling right now as I am taking on more responsibility in the classroom. I have one student with behavioral management issues that is feeling out my management in the classroom. I don’t think I have as demanding of a voice as my teacher does, but most of the kids still respond to me well. I don’t want to be as forceful as my teacher can be sometimes. I want to develop relationships with the kids and still be an authority figure over them. This one student is testing me though, and I am running out of strategies. she is an extremely bright student and she always gets excited to see me, but during instruction time, she is slack on the rules. And sometimes it really does disrupt the positive environment in our classroom. So I will have to continue to try strategies and stay strong, but maybe I can pick up the praise of her good work while she is doing good work.

CT’s classroom management

eshrop — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 21:41:25 +0000

I sort of mentioned my CT’s classroom management style earlier but my CT incorporates more of a punishment system. We have the “pull a light” system structure. She has printed and laminated pictures of each one of the students. Then, she cut out their faces and velcroed them to the “Happy Bus”. They all start out on the happy bus everyday. Then, if they do something wrong and they’ve been asked more than once, the child is to move their face to the flat tire. If there is even more issues after the flat tire, the child will move their face to the garage. The garage says that you will get a note and phone call home. We haven’t had to have many people on the garage thus far which is great. However, we will have kids on the flat tire for hitting, kicking, not following directions, etc… At the end of the day we do folders. This means that the teacher sits up at the front of the classroom and asks each individual student how their day was. Each student either says, “super day” “smiley day” or “bad day”. The super day people get a sticker in their folder, the smiley’s get a smiley face, and the bad day people have to say why it was a bad day. Usually this means they are on the flat tire. They have to tell the teacher why they are on the flat tire. Then, the teacher puts a straight-lined face in their folder and writes whatever they did. The teacher reinforces working on good behavior.

Besides the light system, my teacher also implements some positive behavior support. She will say to the kids, “so and so is doing a great job right now. They are sitting with their legs crossed, eyes up front, and voices off.” This sometimes helps, based on the student my teacher is trying to get the attention of. Then, sometimes she will just call out that child’s name.

I like my teacher’s system actually. I think it would be good if there was completely PBS in the classroom and I would like to see that implemented in its truest form. However, I also believe that some students don’t respond to PBS. Some students grow up in an environment where they are told what to do in a stern voice if someone wants them to get something done. I think these children are going to have a hard time with full-on PBS. I think some students need this type of talking if that is how they respond and have been used to this response for many years now. They will be confused by someone trying to get their attention in a different way. I think it definitely depends on the child. There’s also an accountability factor that is added in when you involve the parents in how you run the classroom. However, for the most part, I agree with my CT’s tactics in managing the classroom. I think she does a great job and is pretty consistent with her management style.

Inclusion article

eshrop — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 22:03:05 +0000

My school is not a completely inclusive school. I have no children on IEP’s, but I have one child that gets pulled out of class for speech. However, there are services within the school that children receive where the students are pulled out or worked with within the classroom. It varies. My school also does not really have a PBS in place. My classroom individually uses the “pull a light” system except the students start out on the happy bus, move to the flat tire, then the garage when they get in trouble. There is also what is known as a backup room in the school for students that get too out of hand in the classroom.

I like the idea of inclusive classroom management. However, I also see some benefits of pulling out the children in the classroom for one-on-one attention. I think if the classroom is going to be inclusive then we need to take it case by case almost. I think that what is best for the child should be considered and carried out. I think that should trump over everything. It’s hard sometimes to be individualized for each students when you are trying to consider 20 or so other students, but I think it’s important to refocus on the individual frequently.

I liked how the article talked about facilitating friendships, collaboration, and promoting membership. I think it’s important as an inclusive community to have all of these things. In my opinion, your school should feel like a family and try and operate as a family. Of course, just like families, we will have our differences and will not be perfect, but we work together for the good of those involved. Every child deserves to belong to the community. Therefore, I believe that if the child is to receive any extra services the teacher should be in contact with the parents frequently about what’s going on. In an ideal world I guess this would exist. But practically speaking I think it’s beneficial for the students, teachers, and parents to have a conference about what is being offered for the student’s success and how beneficial it is.

Educ 513-Collins Chapters

eshrop — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 15:37:58 +0000

I thought the reading for this week was very helpful. Collins seems really well-versed on all of her mini lessons. I felt like that is the main thing I took away from reading her chapters. She likes to give a lot of mini lessons. And there were a lot of options for substitute mini lessons to convey the same idea. I appreciated how she went through all the things she said to children and all of their responses too. It really helped to hear how the conversation would go. I thought it was a little much to go through everything, but I also think it’s helpful that I can go back to it and see what her conversation with her students was like. It also gave me an idea of what reader workshop looks like in the lower grades. I don’t really see that at all in my classroom. They are learning how to read in Kindergarten so I’m wondering if it will happen next semester, but I think it’s really cool to see it done in first grade. I guess I always thought of reader’s workshop as an older grades task.

She also always starts out the point of her lessons with “Readers…” This is kind of like us saying good readers do… I like the fact that she does this in outlining her chapter as well as in what the students are learning. It shows that really what she is teaching is the same as what we should be reading…if that makes any sense. There’s no adult language like we are better than the students or something. It is just very consistent.

She had really great mini lessons that I think I will use in the future!