November 30, 2014

Field Blog Post 4

Beachwood Middle School

        To begin my individual observation hours, I returned to Beachwood Middle School and Ms. Karim's classroom. I enjoyed her classroom when we went as a class, so I felt that spending more time in her room would be very beneficial for me. For my field blog post, I decided to focus on different aspects of being a teacher for each post. The focus of this visit was communication and its uses in this classroom as well as its significance in the field of education. Within communication, I also took a big notice in the team format that Beachwood uses for this math program. The team set up was initiated mostly because of the textbook program that they use, which outlines the teams and the best way to use them to teach the students.
        The teams are made up of four students each and have specific jobs for each of the members. The jobs are Facilitator, Resource Manager, Task Manager, and Recorder/Reporter. While the book takes the jobs very seriously, Ms. Karim said that she is more relaxed and allows anyone in the team to ask questions, while the book would say that only the Resource Manager can ask the teachers questions for the team. It is designed so that students work on the problem and communicate with each other before insisting that the teacher needs to intervene. While this is a great format, Ms. Karim believes that the students do not often call her over because she walks around during team tests, which shows the effectiveness of the team strategy.
        I believe that Ms. Karim does an incredible job with communication in most aspects of the classroom on a daily basis. She speaks in a respectful way to her students, as if they were the age that they are. Sometimes I see teachers falling into the habit of speaking to their eighth grade students as if they were in first grade. This form of communication does nothing for the classroom, and Ms. Karim successfully avoids doing it. She encourages the students and works them hard because she knows she can do so, She works at a fairly quick pace but works to ensure that all of her students are able to keep up. Beachwood is able to have successful students because the students are incredibly involved with their education and take pride in their work. It also seems like the parents of the students work hard to make sure that their children are on task and completing all of the necessary work and doing so successfully. Ms. Karim said that parents are able to come in and look at the student's work at any time and she tries to make sure that the parents are able to be involved in their children's classroom life. Both Ms. Karim and Beachwood work to have good communication with parents, which is a key part of teaching and assisting the student's learning ability. Ms. Karim also works well with the students and is able to have a good communication with them, which helps the overall atmosphere of the room.
        I have also seen Ms. Karim's interaction with her colleagues and it always seems to be lively and friendly. Overall, I feel that she has worked to use the advice of Ayers without knowing it. As I read the comic book To Teach, I believe that it re-inspired me to teach and to work to teach the right way. In the same way, seeing Ms. Karim's classroom and the way that the environment encourages the children's learning has also inspired me to have new ideas on what I can actually accomplish in my own classroom. Ms. Karim always makes time to talk to me, telling me her opinion on what works and what doesn't work for her, and she is able to communicate well even with me as an observer of the classroom. In all, I hope to accomplish the same level of communication and I hope that I will recognize that as a teacher, communication is something that you need to re-commit to on a daily, hourly, and sometimes even per minute throughout the day. While it takes a lot of work, a classroom with good communication will do wonders to the way that the students are able to learn and feel comfortable in the space.
     

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