In this weeks post I would like to look at another part of my classroom management. I will be discussing organization. I will mostly talk about how my classroom organization is going. I feel that mostly my organization is going good. I feel to run a successful PE class you must have great classroom management and organization. For the most part I feel that I have done well in this department. The students seem to react better when you know what you are doing instead of just flying by the seat of your pants.
The only thing that can mess up my organization is when the plan will not work for the day. Sometimes I am working with other teachers who change their mind on the activity they want to do. I am team teaching a class and one day the teacher decides we should split up the classes without talking to me before hand. The reason she did this was because she didn't like some of the students in my class. I made my lesson up as I went that day but I felt that the class still went well.
Today was a struggle because of having a sub in the department kind of threw off what I had planned for the day so again I went as the class went along. The class went great exfept towards the end when the students got bored and uninterested in PE. When this happened I had two students who don't like each other get in a fight and the class just felt very unorganized to me. The students were always wanting to fight in class but today it finally went off. They were building up to this point.
I will need to make sure that I can stay as organized as possible while teaching my classes. I know this is common sense but sometimes hard to do when things change at the last minute.
Chadillac,
ReplyDeleteIf you have to team teach with other teachers or have to share equipment, facilities, etc, it sounds like it would be a good idea to sit down with everyone and plan out a unit so that you don't have to feel "unorganized". My CT teaches pre-algebra and algebra, but I have taken over all his algebra classes so every unit I get with the other pre-algebra teacher in my school and we plan out the unit together so we end around the same time. It would be annoying if you had things planned for class and you had to change them because of something that could be avoided. I can totally understand what you are saying with your kids if you are unorganized and they have nothing to do. That's when things get out of hand quick and kids get into trouble.
Hi Chad,
ReplyDeleteHave you come up with any ideas of how to defuse situations like that in the future (the fighting I mean). I think as student teachers sometimes we hit situations that may not happen to 'real' teachers...both from the students and other teachers. One thing for sure you are getting a lot of practice with being flexible and creative with lesson planning!
I had some technology fail on my in class one day so I had to revamp my lesson plan on the fly. It never occurred to me to have a secondary plan set up in case the notebooks didn't work (which is what happened) or something similar. Have you thought of this option?
Classroom management is such a big, big issue. I have one class where sometimes I feel like all I am doing is managing disruption and there is little learning even happening.
So I guess my question is what is your plan to help organization and overall classroom management?
D
Hi Chad
ReplyDeleteThat would definitely be frustrating if you are working with people who affect your ability to be well planned. Denise asks a good question about what could you do to preempt that? What could you have in place in case that happens that would make it easier on you and your students?
I have many questions for you. You say that you feel your organization is pretty good. First, what are you including in "organization?" When you say it is pretty good, what does that mean? Also, how do you know it is pretty good? What data have you collected to help support that conclusion: supervising teacher notes/observations, student feedback, peer feedback? Also, what are you finding out about how your organization affects your students? What do they think is organized? What are their different reactions to different organizational structures?
I would discuss with your group how to formulate a data collection plan so that you can utilize your data when generating some of these conclusions. :)