Maggie Reflection 2/23

I feel like I am finally becoming "the teacher" in my students' eyes. Or at least most of the time. I have had more opportunities to be on my own in the classroom this week (without my MT there) and I have seen a positive change in my students behavior and in their response to my way of doing things. One of my goals when I started lead teaching, was to try and think of a way to manage my classroom without "yelling" at my class. I felt that this method created a hostile and negative environment and it wasn't working as a long term solution to behavior in the classroom. I have been using the color card system to reward positive behaviors (such as stopping talking and looking at me when I say 3, 2, 1, voices off) rather than as much for negative behaviors. On the same hand, there were times when a behavior kept occurring in the same few students, and at that point I would use the color cards to flip those students to a "lower color". When I see a student working really hard, staying on task, and not distracting those around them, I say "NAME you can flip to blue card". The reaction of most of the students to this is that they quickly start working and not talking. I don't know about the longevity of this system, but so far, so good.