Engaged Learning

I got a lot of ideas from the teacher I did my service learning with. 
1. Movement
During the day there is a time designated for centers. There are about 15 centers around the room for the students to choose from. There are a couple centers in which the student work together.  I feel like using something like this has a chance for the student to get up and move around and choose something that they would like to do. 

2. Hands on: 
Each student has a classroom job that changes weekly. They are each in charge of something to do in the class. One job is calendar. That student has to change the date and point to the day of the week, month, day, weather, what's for lunch etc. Having the students have something that they are in charge of gives them some responsibility and they take more pride in their classroom. 


3. Choices
There was an assignment about penguins. All week they read about penguins. At the end of the week they had to color a penguin how they wanted and wrote a story about their penguin. This is a good way to let the children learn a subject and take what they learned and put that information into something  their own way. 


I didn't really have an experience of something not engaging. But I did notice when the teacher would have her back turned to do work on the smart board the students had a hard time wanting to follow along and do work. Showing the students how to do something, like a math problem, but they need to be involved or I feel like you loose their attention. If they had white boards where they could write out the problem and raise their board when they got the answer, I think would keep them more engaged in learning math. 

Creating Productive Learning Environments

These are the three questions I chose to respond to. 

• Describe a time your cooperative teacher has offered choice to students.  

She asked some of the students to help her get ready for parent teacher conferences and help organize her book buckets and make sure they are in the right letter bucket. After they were all done they where given the choice of a tootsie roll or a terrific ticket, which is a ticket they can use to go to the bathroom, get a drink, have their pencil sharpened, etc. 

• What does the cooperative teacher do to establish a positive relationship with each student?  

She knew a little background information on each student and their family and I think that helped a lot to know how to help each child individually and how to help them succeed based on their individual circumstances. 

• What clear routines are established in the classroom?  How do they support a productive learning environment?

Every day the have a certain schedule they go by. They have reading first thing when only half the class is there, when all the students arrive they do their morning meeting then go on through the rest of the day as scheduled and end with reading with the other half of the students that weren't there in the morning. I think having a schedule is the best way to have a productive learning environment because the students know what to expect everyday and they are prepared for it. They have an easier time succeeding when they know what they are doing.