Mollie Deuel's Teaching Portfolio

Having these goals at the forefront of my classroom management philosophy, I hope to be able to cultivate a sense of community in my classroom.  I don’t expect to be every student’s favorite teacher, but I do hope they see me as someone who cares about their success and is willing to work with them to accommodate their needs.  Student’s should never feel helpless when it comes to their school work and part of what I hope to instill in them is a sense of self-efficacy, while still understanding that it is always okay to ask for help.  I also would like to empower students with the ability to help and learn from their peers through collaboration.

 

I would like my students to have a say in the classroom culture as well.  In the beginning of the year I plan to present a few expectations that I have for the students and then invite them to create any other expectations they have of themselves and some they have of me as a teacher.  I’d like to compile one list from all of my classes and create a large poster so that everyone can reference the expectations throughout the year.  This will be my way of being proactive towards any misbehaviors throughout the year.

 

As for addressing misbehaviors when they arise, I plan on doing so in a timely manner.  If I deem a behavior to be disruptive enough to address, I’d like to address it one-on-one with a student as soon as possible.  Sometimes this may be able to happen immediately, however I know there will be many times when I have to address a misbehavior at a later time as to not interrupt the class any more.   The reason I’d like to address most misbehaviors one-on-one is so that I can always give the student a chance to explain their behavior first before reprimanding them, in case I overlooked a valid reason for them to be acting as they did.  Once a student has had a chance to explain their side of the story then I’d like to give my reason for asking them to stop whatever behavior it was that caused the distraction in the first place.  For example, if I see a student texting while either myself or another student is addressing the whole class, I’d probably try to find either a moment during a transition or group work to pull the student aside and ask politely for them to put away their cell phone unless it was an emergency.  If it was an emergency, then I’d explain that I’d be happy to let them step out into the hall and take care of the situation as needed, but if not, I’d appreciate it if they would only use their phones during designated technology time (which I plan to have once or twice per class and lasting a few minutes) because it is distracting not only them, but also the people around them.  

 

Hopefully at the beginning of the year I can foster a positive, safe and fun environment, so students will feel less of a need to be disruptive during class time.  Having a good sense of humor on my part and allowing a little bit of distraction for the sake of fun will also work to my advantage, because if the students see that I’m enjoying myself in our class they’ll be more likely to let their guard down and buy into their own learning experience.  I believe that for any learning to happen students must feel safe, happy and valued first and then I’ll be able to facilitate high quality instruction.

 

Context

I am structuring my Classroom Come to Life project around Albemarle High School in Charlottesville, Va.  I hope to work in a High School that is culturally and socioeconomically diverse like Albemarle and I’d like to teach biology, ecology, animal science, and/or environmental science.  For this project I am aiming to create a classroom management philosophy around mixed level 10th grade classes as that is the demographic I will most likely work with as a first year teacher.  The following statistics were gathered from Albemarle High School’s website and a US News publication entitles “Best High Schools.  ”Albemarle High currently has approximately 1,950 students and the racial demographics are: 60% white, Black 15%, Hispanic 11%, Asian 7%, and the remaining 7% are either of mixed race or American Indian/Alaska Natives. 10.4% of the students have limited English proficiency, meaning a large ELL population, and 26.5% of the students are eligible for free or reduced lunch.  Approximately 11% of the students qualify for special education services and 14% of the population is considered “gifted.”  The teacher to student ratio is about 14:1 and the graduation rate at Albemarle High is 94%.

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References

• Albemarle High School Fact Sheet. Retrieved May 06, 2017, from https://www2.k12albemarle.org/school/AHS/about/Pages/fact-sheet.aspx

• Classroom Management - Solutions. (n.d.). Retrieved May 06, 2017, from http://logisoft.com/catalog/category/view/s/classroom-management/id/459/

• How Does Albemarle High Rank Among America's Best High Schools? (n.d.). Retrieved May 06, 2017, from https://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/virginia/districts/albemarle-co-public-schools/albemarle-high-20354

• Weinstein, C. S., & Novodvorsky, I. (2015). Managing Classrooms to Nurture Students, Build Self-Discipline, and Promote Learning.  In Middle and secondary classroom management: lessons from research and practice. (2-25) New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Education.