Welcome-
I plan on teaching children in grades three through five in a resource room for subjects like math, reading, and writing. The room should be located in the middle of the school where it can easily be found by all students. The room must accommodate all types of needs. This includes children in wheel or walkers chairs, children with autism and aspergers, and children who are hearing/visually impaired. This means that the room must be easy to move through and everything should be easily accessible. There will be a small part of the room sectioned off that has foam mats and other equipment children need to relax themselves. The room would also include equipment that could assist students with hearing and vision impairments. My classroom will also be equipped with laptops, a white board, a chalk board, and a small library.
As a teacher I will also work to use all teaching styles in my classroom. Not all children learn in the same way, some are visual learners, others are auditory, and then some learn better with hands on activities. As a teacher you have to adapt your style so that all students benefit. As a special needs teacher I plan to be a collaborative teacher, this means I work with the students on deciding classroom rules and punishments. I still remain in control of the classroom but I make sure the students know that they are a valuable part of the classroom.
I feel that as a teacher my power base would be a combination of referent, coercive, and expert. I want my students to feel comfortable coming to talk to me and want to come to my classroom. But I also want students to know that I am still their teacher and not their best friend. I also believe that children should be given rewards for positive behavior and good work, children should be given punishments for bad behavior in the classroom or failure to complete what were suppose to. Students have the main responsibility for controlling their behavior in my classroom, but I will help remind children by following a set list of consequences for the classroom.
Classroom management will be student and teacher based, I feel that when we both work together collaboratively everyone benefits. Students get the chance to have some control of their classroom. Teachers learn what their students want to learn and how they feel. All children will be treated as equals in my classroom regardless of disability or cultural background and everyone will have to work with everyone at some point in the year. Students with langue barriers will have time during the school day to work on their English langue skills. I will respect all forms culture in my classroom and try to the best of my ability to work with those cultures.
Classroom Layout-
My classroom is set up in a way that I find to be the most efficient. My desk is set to the back of the room which keeps me from sitting down, and reminds me to interact with students and walk around the room while I teach. At the front of the room I have placed three long tables for students to sit at, these long tables give students the opportunity to work with one another and eliminate the time consuming process of moving individual desks around. The long tables are separated far enough apart that there is room in between for students to move in and out and students who are physically disabled (wheel chairs, walkers, blind/vision impaired, ect.) can move around the outside of the tables comfortably. Also located near the desk, is a white board and a chalk board attached to the walls. Both the students and I will us this equipment in class for various skills and activities. Located behind the long tables is a table with computers.
My room will be equipped with a variety of educational and fun games. Programs like “Jump Start” are games that I use to play when I was in elementary school and I enjoyed them as well as learned. You will also find a laptop cart in the room for if or when there are a great number of students. Next to the laptop cart is a word wall. This wall will contain vocabulary words that students need to learn by the end of the year. Next to the word wall is the math facts board, this contains all multiplication facts for students. Behind one of the half-moon tables you will find one more bulletin board, this board has a long list of commonly misspelled words. This wall will come in handy because I plan on having the students write in journals at the beginning of class.
The two half-moon tables that I mentioned earlier will be used for small group work and one on one time for me and certain students, other students will work on the other half-moon table and I will migrate between to make sure students are on task. Next to my desk in the back of the room two bookshelves can be found. Each book shelf will be filled with an array of books from all genres and all age groups. I have decided to place a fuzzy, red rug next to the bookshelves for group reading and for comfort. I have also included a chair for me to sit in when I read stories to students. The last feature I have included in this room is what I will call the Chill Out Zone. This semi-blocked off zone will be for students who feel they need a break in the day. The space will include a soft carpet, bean bag chairs, cd case and head phones to play calming music. This part of the room is here to benefit students with ADD, ADHD, Autism, and Aspergers.
Instructional Glimpse-
Here is a project I created for a lesson plan. The students will use this power point I created to learn about a topic. By clicking on the various iteams in the power point they will be sent to website or they will learn the right/wrong answers to the questions.
Annotated Bib:
"GOP Pushing School Vouchers In Several States | News One." Breaking News for Black America | News One. Web. 15 Dec. 2011.
"South Orange Middle School." The School District of South Orange and Maplewood. Web. 15 Dec. 2011.
