Internship Reflection #11

5) Classroom management

 

Art classrooms easily tend to be a crowed and busy place in which many students have to be organized and directed in ways that maximize involvement and minimize disruptions. Many situations occur simultaneously so teachers need to react often and immediately to circumstances since the course of events are frequently unpredictable. Teaching, I believe, always requires a highly developed ability to manage every event. Each student and each new day could bring various situations that need careful attention and, sometimes, quick action or maneuver.

I have observed various strategies related to classroom managements. And the strategies have been effectively working in the classroom and are great choices for art class in many ways. As I mentioned earlier in the previous post, the host teacher only counts from 1 to 5 with a hand movement rather than say directly like “Be quite”. As soon as students hear the teacher counting, most students automatically stopped doing their works and remain mute and silent. But as times went by, the effectiveness has been decreasing because some students started not to follow the rule. So the host teacher, recently, prepared practice time for GIVE ME 5 activity in order to remind students to follow. She explained again that 1 means eyes on speaker, 2 means be quite, 3 means be still, 4 means put materials down and 5 listen to speaker then, she have students keep in mind the rule through actual activity. She allowed students to walk around the classroom and talk with peers and then watch how students act after listening the counting. Students were so excited about the practice and, after the practice, their response were much better.    

Star Student

        

At the first class of every month, the host teacher picked a STAR student who helps teacher for a month. Before announcing a new star student, the teacher has students make the sound of drum roll by using their fingers. Students were excited and there was positive tension. After calling on the students’ name, she put a star necklace on and encourage them to give the new star student a round of applauds. It was effective way to draw students’ interest in the class and maximize their involvement.

There are also management strategies in terms of punishment toward students who persistently misbehave or disrupt the class. The teacher put the students in the separated place and has them stay during two or three upcoming classes. Avoiding humiliating the problematic students, the teacher could effectively train them and fix the students misbehavior. And if there are some children who keep arguing, she rearranged their seats in order to avoid conflict which could hurt positive classroom atmosphere.    

As I exemplified, I believe the class management is well organized and systematic so that many students know well what to do and how to do even though art class includes various preparation process and activities. One more thing I have been very impressed is that the teachers’ behaviors. Keeping neutral stance, she not only respects each student and their ideas or abilities, but also fully encourage and motivate students to get involved in the class.

I would like to apply these management strategies to my future class and add few ideas. Since the role of art teacher, sometimes, requires wide, time-consuming and physically taxing works so I would designate few helpers who can help works like washing and arranging art supplies. It could be also good to students because I found that many are really excited about cleaning up by themselves. Through this strategy, I would reduce physically taxing works and spend time on more important things related curriculum or art mediums since art teachers have to be always aware of new aspects of arts. Another one is about TIME-OUT SHEET (image 1) which is pretty common strategy in Korea. I would have students who persistently misbehave write the sheet. Through writing, the problematic students could think deeply about their misbehaviors and, furthermore, this process could effectively restrain the next occurrence of misbehaviors. Besides, in some cases, the parents need to know their children’s misbehaviors in class in order to help them adapt to the classroom environment.