First days are always stomach churning, but when you have a pack that is in the same situation, you know you have people to support you. From the first few minutes of bring in the class, I felt at home. The collaborating teacher did her best at making me feel comfortable and at ease. To give me a chance to learn all the names of the students, my teacher had us get int a circle and play a name game. The games essentially went like this: the first person said an adjective that began with the same letter as their first name followed by their name-for example, marvelous Mindy-then the person to the right repeated the previous adjective and name combination and then added their own combination. As each student repeated what their previous peers had said, the list becomes longer. Naturally, my teacher placed me last so that I was able to recall each student. This short introduction game was perfect for the students with limited English proficiency that are in the class. In TSL 4080’s textbook, The Cross-cultural, Language, and Academic Development Handbook – A Complete K12 Reference Guide, there is a strategy of having every student pronounce their name when schools starts. This mitigates the pressure ELL students may have of mispronouncing their peers names or their peers mispronouncing theirs. (FEAP 2d, 2e, 2f) Creating a safe and respectful environment can do wonders on ELL students. When any individual feels safe within a classroom, they’re much more likely to participate and be engaged with classroom interactions, activities, and lessons.

When my collaborating teacher handed me their weekly schedule, I examined the time slots allocated to each subject. I became concerned when I saw the amount of time was assigned to Social Studies. On Mondays, Social Studies is a thirty minute period; the remaining four days each have a twenty-five minute time slot. I’m not sure who is responsible for creating a teacher’s daily schedule-whether it be the county, the school, or the teacher them self-but I believe that Social Studies isn’t an academic elective. If I wasn’t able to control the amount of time that each subject is given, then I would cross my Social Studies content material into various other lessons throughout the school year. (FEAP 2g, 1b) As the year goes on, I am going to observe if my collaborating teacher uses the cross content strategy within her classroom.

Throughout the day, as the class walked in a line, my collaborating teacher would either comment on how wonderful her “fabulous fifth grade line” or question the students where her “fabulous fifth grade line” was. Her explanation of her frequent line management strategy was actually a tip, educator to educator. She was advised while she was an intern that a teacher’s line is a clear indicator of their classroom management skills. (FEAP 2b, 2c) Although I have observed within an elementary classroom before I never had the chance to examine any classes walking in a line. I think that her tip has real meaning behind it, if a class is having behavior problems while walking in a line, how is their behavior while in class? This is one suggestion that I will definitely carry out in the future.

Towards the end of the day was when their reading lesson was scheduled. During this time my teacher would work with students individually was the remaining students were to work on an assigned analysis task. The class was instructed to either work on their math homework or read if they finished their in-class analysis assignment. Although to a studious student this may seem like a perfect opportunity to finish their homework or catch up on reading, in reality every individual has different attention spans. As the case played out, many students finished their analysis, however very few of them stayed on task afterwards. It got to the point that my teacher first asked me to go around and ask each table how they were staying on task. Then as the talking didn’t stop, she asked me to hand out their version of token economy to students that were on task. I think what could have been done to keep students on task would be to implement the strategy of The Daily 5. RED 4312’s textbook, The Daily 5, describes how a classroom can stay on task with minimal sound level by having the students rotate tasks of their choice as their attention span starts dwindling away. By continually changing the task when the students start getting distracted, it creates an environment that doesn’t allow students too loose focus altogether. (FEAP 2a, 2b, 2c) Implementing this strategy into the classroom would foster an environment where students are able to be independent while the teacher works with students individually.

Knowing that this is only the beginning is an exhilarating feeling. I already know that this journey will provide me with the opportunity to uncover the most effective strategies, activities, and management skills that will guide my future students to success.