I chose this article because I have been struggling with one student in my class this whole semester as a result of defiant and disruptive behavior. Since I began full-time, no matter what strategy I have used or patience and positiveness I have exerted, it continues to be a constant struggle, day by day, hour by hour, and minute by minute. I struggled in my first couple of weeks of full-time because I was letting my frustration with this student affect my body language and the tone of my voice without even realizing. I have quickly learned that I need to have a “poker face” and am continuing to learn what I need to ignore instead of trapping myself in the “power struggles” with the student. But, over this past month, I feel that an “understanding” between the two of us has grown, but it still remains a struggle for me. Most of his defiant behavior is disruptive and then an “anger” that ensues when he does not receive the attention that he is trying to get (in my opinion).

The article was interesting for me because some of the strategies that were suggested I have used. The one that has proven to be the most successful with my student is the Premack Principle. With this strategy, I use the format of “when you do x, then you can y.” I developed the use of this strategy after he continued to refuse to listen to the carpet rules. Sometimes when I dismiss the students from the carpet I remind them to be criss-cross applesauce and on their bottom, etc. He continues to intentionally lay on the carpet, sit on his knees, etc. So, I started to tell him “when you can sit criss-cross applesauce on your bottom, then you can return to your seat to do x.” He responds to this 90% of the time. I even use it with some of my other students and it works pretty well. I also use it for other situations and I really like this strategy!

Not necessarily related to defiant behavior, this article made a good point of how to use effective directions. I have realized that sometimes my directions are not clear or specific enough or are too long, and so this article pointed out how important it is. I will definitely work on this for the upcoming week!

What I feel was lacking in the article is what to do when the behavior is not addressed at home, when it results as a lack of parental guidance and support at home. The article listed that as one of the causes but it did not offer suggestions for when home life is a big factor. With my student, his home life is a direct relation to the behavior exhibited at school (as demonstrated in his sister as well). My student had ISS the day before spring break because of other behaviors (not defiant towards me, but sexual towards another student multiple times) and his mom tried to act like she tries to do a good job at home of keeping him in line. When my teacher and I have talked, she has to remind me that only so much can be done at school to help the behavior because in most cases, the home life is a direct cause and when the behavior isn’t dealt with at home or is a result of home life, then only so much can be done. This makes me sad and makes me wonder what can be done for parents such as these? What more can we do to try to help the students who behave like this?

It is hard to accept that it may take years for the result of your impact to be seen in a child.

As far as updates on my student goes, I think the changes that have been made for her have been gradually beneficial for her behavior. I noticed that at her table she becomes very easily distracted by her tablemate across from her, so we moved her to the seat over. We have not wanted to change table seating arrangements because the current arrangement works pretty well for all the students so this strategy was a good compromise and the little extra distance away from the other student has proven to be helpful. Also, I have not allowed her to use her spacer in writing because it is a very distracting tool for her, and without using the spacer she has been able to write more and focus more on her words and her picture. This was something simple to do and I was worried at first to take it away because it’s a good tool to help students who struggle with spacing, but I noticed it was more distracting than helpful in her case.

Also, we assigned new rug spots for all students because all students were having difficulty on the carpet in the current rug spots. My student in particular would constantly be touching the student in front of her and he would vice versa, and then she would constantly be talking to the person behind her. Another thing that has developed from her moving her rug spot is that she gets up from the rug to blow her nose and use hand sanitizer at least once every time we are on the rug. This has developed from her being very close to the tissue and the hand sanitizer because her previous rug spot was the farthest away. Because of this (and because other students have decided that it is okay to get up from the rug as much as they do, about every few minutes a student leaves the rug), I have had to set guidelines for the rug. Now, they may only get up if I ask them to, if they show me they want to go to the bathroom, or if it is the first time, meaning they cannot get up multiple times because we are never on the rug for such a long period of time to warrant multiple visits to tissue. Since I have set these guidelines, the students do not leave the rug as much anymore and she is having some difficulty with this, but it is gradually helping.

Additionally, I noticed that during lunch she sits near other girls in the class that distract her from eating and making good choices at lunch, so they are not allowed to sit next to each other. This is difficult sometimes because there are a group of about five girls (including her) that act like they are teenagers, so it proves to be difficult to space them out sometimes.

Overall, the little things that have been done have been helpful in some way. Let’s see how this next week goes!

I thought that this reading was interesting because I have a student in my class who exhibits impulsive and aggressive behavior. I am having a difficult time with him (actually he is my only behavior issue at this point!) and it is starting to sadden me. I talked with Marcia about a few things I can do to change his behavior, so tomorrow I am going to work on these changes. He is disruptive, rude, and demonstrates a lot of the impulsive behavior from the reading. My CT has worked with him throughout the year and so these behaviors he does not demonstrate as much with her, but for me, he is testing me and it has escalated a lot over the past couple of weeks. I try to use the positive behavior reinforcement, but he makes it difficult and per suggestions of my CT, I have had to ask him to leave the carpet and sit by himself and work with him during recess to practice how to act on the carpet, at his desk, in the classroom, in the hallway, etc. I did that today and he did not like that at all, and as for the emotional behavior, he did not respond well. Tomorrow I am going to try different incentives with his behavior chart as well as leaving positive notes for him in the morning. I hope it goes well! What are some strategies that you have used to help with your impulsive students?

What is difficult for me is that I am fighting against his home life, so no matter everything I do it still won’t help the influence of his home life. I thought that maybe bringing someone to read with him once a week or trying to get him into the Big Brothers, Big Sisters program might be helpful.

So I am having a very hard time trying to gather information. I have taken some notes and tried to observe my student’s behavior more than others, but it was difficult this week for me. I actually did full-time for Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday because my teacher was gone and so I focused on just being the teacher for those three days. I will try better this week, but with this semester’s focus on learning all the ins and outs of being a “teacher” and preparing for full-time, this project is not as big of a priority for me as being in the classroom getting to know all the kids, preparing for my lessons, and observing my teacher. For me I have found it quite difficult trying to add this to what I need to be doing for student teaching.

Anyways, from what I have gathered and observed, she has difficulty focusing in writing. This is one of the things she needs to improve, but she tends to talk a lot with her tablemates, especially the student across from her. I have made it a point this week to have her set goals for how many lines she needs to write. She usually struggles writing just a few words on the page but depending on how much she has written or how much time is left, I usually tell her to write at least two or three lines. She uses a spacer to help her space her words, but I honestly think that at this point she does it just to do it because she is sooo cautious with using it. She also struggles with letter sounds so it makes it even more difficult for her to try to write her stories. Other behaviors that I noted are that on Thursday and Friday she and the other student started to put up folders in front of work so that they could not copy off of each other; she needs to use the word wall a lot so she gets out of her seat for that; she tends to look around the room for bits at a time and/or look at the alphabet chart in her folder; she does have good ideas for her writing but she has difficulty putting it on paper; she was not listening to her partner when they were sharing stories on the carpet- I had to sit there with them to help them; and her pictures are not as detailed;

As for other behaviors, she tends to get water, use the bathroom, and get a tissue often. She is friends with a group of girls in the classroom that can be catty and mean, but she is not as mean as them. She likes to sit with them during class and at lunch, but on Thursday and Friday I had to move her away from some of them so that it would not pose problems during lunch and class. I also noticed over Thursday and Friday that she is starting to bother Jake a lot on the carpet (they sit next to each other). She says things to him and does things that upset him about half the time, so I had to ask her to move away a few times. I’m thinking that the carpet needs to rearranged soon because we are having problems in other areas, too.

She was in class everyday last week which is great because she usually misses a day every week. I was also very surprised with her on Friday because during morning work, she asked me if she could move out of the room so that she could focus because it was too loud and the other student was talking to her. I was so surprised that she thought about this that I let her move to the writing table away from everyone.

Something funny that she said to me on Tuesday was that we were talking about something and after she looks at me and says “I don’t get you” meaning that she doesn’t understand me and what I am in the classroom. It was quite funny- my teacher, TA, and me had a laugh!

After reading about the Behavior Intervention Plan and the process of data collection and what not, I am a little overwhelmed with the idea of what we have to do! I know that data collection won’t be as difficult as I imagine right now, but thinking about the student that I have chosen makes me think that it might be. My student has some behavior issues in general but I do not think they are as consistent or specific as the example in the book. She also is absent frequently (she missed last Thursday and Friday, the only two days we had school). I guess I will talk with my CT about it because when I was reading the questions that are to be asked and the behaviors that are challenging and need intervention, I really feel that my student is not as severe as some students are. But, she does have behavior issues so I can still focus on her and work with her on those. Anyways, I think that the development of the BIP is an interesting but effective process. It looks at all possible reasons for the unwanted behavior, and so that is comforting to know that it includes influences of culture, gender, experiences, self-esteem, and so forth instead of just seeing it from one perspective but incorporating all perspectives. I liked how it outlines certain questions to ask and certain behaviors to watch for, so that will be helpful.

For me, the rest of the chapter was interesting and almost seemed like common sense because some of the suggestions I felt like were things that should already be in place (for instance, there should be classroom helpers everyday and there should be a consistent schedule). Also, I guess I see a lot of the suggestions in my classroom and so I see how they are effective and how they influence and affect the students in a positive way. For instance, my teacher always makes a point to say “good morning, ___” to all the students as they walk in. This makes them feel special and starts the day off on a good start. She always compliments students and takes interest in them, and they love to share when she does this. She makes an effort to establish a meaningful and thoughtful relationship and to get to know the students.

One thing that I found myself not understanding or accepting as much are the group behavior management discussed in the later portion of the chapters. I didn’t like how groups would be formed and behavior would be based on the group. I think behavior is an individual thing and is influenced by a group but should be based solely on the decisions of the individual student. What do you think?

My CT does a great job of managing the classroom. The school has a positive behavior support policy that she follows really well. She uses phrases like “no thank you” and “make a better choice” and she will compliment the students who are following the rules rather than constantly calling out students to fix their “bad” behavior. So she will often thank each child who is sitting on the rug criss-cross and being quiet and the students who are not tend to realize this and will follow suit so they can be recognized. She does have to call out students sometimes, though, but she opts for being positive first. The students respond really well to her and I think it is because she does have a positive environment and the students know that she values them as people and she respects them. Also, the school has a policy of Manatee Manners tickets that reward students who are following the Manatee Manners (safe, responsible, respectful, and a problem solver). She gives these tickets out, but this is not a big part of her management. She also has a “Thinking Jar” for students who really do not follow the rules after a warning. The students do not like to put their name in the Thinking Jar because they have to sit out at recess for some time. But, when they come to speak to her about why their name was in the Thinking Jar, she expects them to tell her why and say what they should have done instead. Additionally, she expects the students in the classroom to solve their problems on their own. She does not allow tattle-taling and will encourage the students to work out their problems using their words. This promotes them to be more independent, but oftentimes the children are still developing this skill and the problems are usually because one child was doing something that bothered the other child.

For me, it has been a little difficult to follow this same pattern just because I am not used to this type of classroom management. I have been around environments that discipline rather than support the children in a positive manner. But, I am getting used to it day by day and the students are starting to respond to me well, too.

Last spring, Jessica and I were in a third grade classroom for about a month in which there was a child with autism. It was interesting to see how the other children interacted with him and how his situation was handled by the teacher. I think that since the students were older and had known him for half the year, they were used to interacting with him. They knew what would bother him and what he needed at times, which I thought was really cool. I remember one time a student in the class was doing something that was bothering him and other students quickly realized this and resolved the situation, which I thought was neat and special to see. I don’t know if the teacher had talked with the other students about the inclusion aspect, but whatever she did worked and the students understood and respected that he needed extra attention and care from everyone.

Inclusion is important because it values all individuals equally. Just because one student might have a disability, another student may not have the discipline that the student with a disability has. This is even true for a classroom that is not inclusive but diverse in general (practically every classroom nowadays!) Everyone is different and unique and therefore all should be welcome in the classroom and respected in the classroom. With this, though, it is important to manage and set-up the classroom in a way that supports this idea. The article highlighted important ideas about doing this, and I think that it is important to think about collaboration, especially the parent aspect of this. Parents are important in relaying information to the teacher and for realizing what is the best interest of the student. Parents know the students way more than the teacher does, and I think that this is an aspect that is often weak in school.

I think that positive behavioral support is very important and more effective than any other punishment, just like the article discussed. I witness this in my classroom and it is helpful to see that instead of punishing the student and making it a negative situation, surrounding the situation with a more positive atmosphere and corrective atmosphere is more beneficial and effective. My CT did a great job in the beginning of the year establishing the classroom as a place where the students are respectful, attentive, and independent. As far as practices, I actually try to redirect behavior in my classroom right now and it seems to make more sense to talk with the student and have them redo what they did rather than punish them every time and make a scene in front of other students. I believe that students at this age are fragile and still developing their understanding of social situations, their emotions, and their independence, so it is important to understand the student and respond accordingly. I have a student in my classroom who is on a behavior contract and it is based on rewards where he gets stars for every subject he does well in. His stars can never be taken away and rather than yelling at him every time he makes a mistake or acts out, the teacher tells him “this is your warning” and the second time he doesn’t get a star. This system has worked well over all, but every so often he reverts back to his behavior from before the contract and I think it has to do with his life outside of school that has affected him. For me, his behavior has been a challenge, especially since I have started to be in the classroom every day. It has been a challenge as well, for me to support him in a positive rather than a negative manner. I have had to bluntly talk with him about his behavior and my role in the classroom. I am still figuring out how we are going to get along this semester, but I’m working on it.

It was nice to have a chapter on struggling readers and some of their challenges that they face in the classroom. It makes me sad when I am working with a student and I can tell that they just don’t get it or they are not confident enough to realize that they do get it and it is okay to take risks. I see them look around the room and I wonder what they need or what interests them so I can help them. I am slowly starting to figure out how to do this, especially this semester, and hopefully our kidwatching project helps me out (which I think it has!).

I also think it is so important to set-up a classroom in which each child feels competent and does not have to worry that they are not like the other children in regards to what they are reading and what their needs are, especially if they are not as advanced as the other students. But, at the same time, this is something that is almost unavoidable in most everyday classrooms. Children are smart and they notice very subtle differences some times, but I really feel that fostering a classroom environment in which diversity is appreciated and recognized as a positive force and not as a negative aspect is one of the best ways to combat this problem. Another way would be tiered instruction or center time in which everyone does the same thing but just with a different focus.

One strategy that I really liked was “easy reading time” discussed on page 363. When I read this at first I was like “huh?” but then I realized that it builds so much confidence for a student to realize that they can actually read a book, or many books. Providing this opportunity for them to foster this confidence provides so much benefit to the student. I remember one kindergartner this semester was so proud of himself that he could read his book titled Beaches; he looked at me to see if I was watching him read and then continued reading the pages with just a few words on them. Yet, knowing that he could finish that book was just enough for him. This is just one moment in this child’s beginning reading journey and it should be repeated over and over and over for him until he has that confidence in reading.

I found the different literacy models interesting, especially in how some of them were very different from each other. I know that at my placement school we had Reading Recovery until this year, and it seemed like it was a positive influence and presence in the school. Funding of course was the reason why it is not a current program, but the Reading Recovery teacher is still there and still works with the students in the same manner, just as a different title. I think I am going to ask my teacher more about the program to see how it was in action, not just as it was discussed in the book.

I really liked this book

In the reading, there was a lot of meaningful talk about what to expect in a literature circle discussion as well as how to effectively set up one. I think that noting the differences between an effective and a not so effective discussion is important because oftentimes when something goes wrong, we have a difficult time trying to figure out why. But, I feel more prepared and more knowledgeable after the reading because it really gives us some good advice and tips on what is effective. For instance, setting the goals of the literature discussion are very important and I feel that teachers might set up a discussion with an “idea” of how it should go, but no clear and specific goal in mind.

One thing that I really liked is how it said that the student’s position in class affects how they will participate in the discussion. This is so important to keep in mind because students who are dominating or view themselves as more advanced can shut out a student who is not as confident and vocal. In order to have an effective discussion, it is important to keep this in mind and to provide strategies for the students so that all feel comfortable to speak. Something it mentioned in the text is to have the student’s set clear and specific goals and characteristics for how a literature discussion should go, therefore all students understand that they should all participate and that all opinions are valued.

I do have one thing that I want to explore more; it said that student-led discussion are often more difficult to structure because students talk over one another. I think that student-led discussions are so invaluable to making students feel competent, confident, and an active participant in their education, and I would love to incorporate these discussions in my future classroom. But, with the concern noted above and with how younger students may not be as controlled, how would you think I could structure these discussions in my classroom? Do you think setting clear and specific goals and have a discussion about how literature discussions should be is enough, or should there be more?

I thought that working with the fourth grade students went smoother and better than with the second graders. I felt that, although we had a structure and plan, we were able to be more flexible with how the lesson went because of the student’s thoughts and ideas. This might have just been because I was more comfortable, but I felt that I could have more of an in-depth discussion with the fourth graders because they knew more and were more engaged. So, I guess what I need to work on is how to have these authentic and in-depth discussions with younger children. I feel that the younger children do not have as broad of an understanding as the older children because they haven’t had as many experiences and exposure. I want to teach younger grades, so, how do you think I would engage the younger students in discussions like the fourth graders did?

What I really enjoyed about the ball drop activity is that one of my students blurted out a misconception: that the heavier ball will fall faster than the lighter ball. I jumped on this opportunity to test out his “hypothesis” and so Vanneisha and I had each student feel how heavy each ball was and then we would drop them and eventually he realized that his hypothesis was wrong! It was great to see him discover it on his own rather than have us tell him that he was mistaken. It made the activity more authentic and it gave us experience with trying out different strategies to combat misconceptions.

As for the parachute activity, I experienced some difficulty in explaining the concept because some of the modifications to the parachute were not working correctly. But, what I enjoyed a lot about this activity was that the students were so engaged and interested in seeing what the modifications would do to the speed of the flight of the parachute. They were not groaning about having to do the experiment, and I think part of this engagement was part of the teacher’s classroom environment- she was awesome

One thing that also was difficult for me was to try to combat their idea of “lift” instead of “air resistance” because the two are actually related. And, regardless of using the wrong terminology, they did understand what air resistance was because of their understanding of lift and how they had already studied planes and how they fly. So, we discussed this on Tuesday but didn’t revisit this on Thursday, but we probably should have to discussed it to clarify between the two.

If I were to do this differently, I would probably pair some of the students with different students than they had. It seemed that some students were not as actively participating in the lesson as others and that some students were dominating the activity in their groups; this, I think, was mostly related to personalities.

Overall, the experiments went well and the students were engaged