Hello!
Welcome back to the teaching practice 2021 series!
In this entry, I would like to share with you some thoughts about classroom management elements that I observed during my practice. First of all, I have to admit that maintaining discipline in a classroom full of young learners is not an easy task. 1st, 2nd and 3rd graders' attention span is quite short and they are usually very active.
These lessons that I had a chance to see were in 3rd grade and the teacher was revising some places in a town and the Past Simple tense. At the beginning, kids had a chance to ask me a question because I was a new person in their classroom. They were asking me questions like "Where are you coming from?", "How old are you?" or "Are you a new teacher in our school?". I answered all of them with a smile on my face - it was a nice conversation and they welcomed me really nicely.
Then my mentor teacher started a revision point - she has sent a jamboard in a chat and the children's task was to add one place in a town that they remember from previous classes. At this moment the remote learning troubles came - some kids were not able to see the jamboard, a few of them did not receive the link for it and finally someone erased the entire board prepared by the teacher for this task. I could see then that the teacher was pretty nervous and she told the student that she wanted to give them more freedom but they erased the board so they will not get another chance to fill it with their ideas.
She decided to do a revision in a traditional way - asked kids for places that they remember and said them once again loudly. After this, the teacher continued her lesson with a presentation "In my city 100 years ago". We could see beautiful places in Warsaw which are not there anymore. The presentation led to a class discussion in Past Simple tense.
I am sure my mentor teacher felt a bit disappointed with students being not able to open the link and especially erasing the board. I do not know if she tried once again to do other tasks using jamboard but I would give kids another chance. Showing what to do step by step would be for sure helpful.
What would you do in such a situation? I think that a challenge of remote learning was visible there.
Let me know in the comments.
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