One thing that stuck out to me in the reading this week in "Leading and Managing a Differentiated Classroom" were the descriptions of the different classroom types. The reading mentioned dysfunctional, adequate, orderly/restrictive, and orderly/enabling. Dysfunctional is described as chaotic, adequate was said to be at the basic level of order, restrictive is considered a tight-ship, and enabling is looser structure. After looking at all of the types, I would have to say that the classroom I am in is a combination of a few of them. The majority is an adequate classroom but there are also times when it is dysfunctional and sometimes restrictive. There are moments when my mentor teacher mind of lets the students do what they want without really monitoring them but there other times where she is very strict and lays down the law for certain things. In my opinion, I think this could be quite confusing for some of the students because they do not know how exactly the teacher wants them to act. It would obviously be ideal if the classroom was orderly and enabling but this classroom is very traditional and strays away from that idea. They do a lot of individual work, rarely work in groups, and they are fed the answers in a lot of assignments they do in class. One thing that my mentor teacher does very though is getting to know her students, which was also mentioned in the reading. She has told me many times that she likes to get to know her students and let them know that she cares about them. This helps with building relationships with them in the classroom and it also helps with building up the community of the class.
I have made my wondering a little more specific in the fact that it will be during math. This will make it easier when I have to come up with manipulatives for them to use during class.
Wondering: How will hands-on activities help misbehaving students to be more focused and have appropriate behavior during math lessons?
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