Classroom Management for Dummies

The biggest thing that teachers struggle with is classroom management. As an aspiring teacher I want my classroom to be exciting and the environment to be safe. Students with orderly classrooms and fewer disruption learn more. In the organized classrooms teacher have planned and talked about the rules of the classroom since day one. As a teacher you have to lay out these rules in the beginning so the students know what to expect. A way to do this is modeling and practicing, this will get the students into a routine. Anita goes into detail about what makes a good teacher. The first aspect is teachers care about their students, exercise authority, and make learning interesting by being creative. Students that feel like they belong in school are least likely to drop out and more motivated. It is important that teachers put their students before anyone. Anita did an excellent job of explaining how to manage your classroom and techniques that some teachers might use.

The video gives some examples of how to manage your classroom. In the beginning of this video you can get a clear sense of what classroom management really is. I recommend watching this video because it will show you ways to excel in classroom management.

Good Ol' Procrastination

Anita first starts off explaining what procrastination is. A good way to explain this word is looking at this blog. I only had three more blogs to do for Anita's podcast, but I waited the last minute to do them. According to Anita's research procrastination is "extremely prevalent." A high statics for college students was 80-95% of students procrastinate their work. That is a lot of students pushing their work aside. The work that is done the night before is usually poor quality, more errors, less original, and borrowed from other people. Even though Anita makes it seem that procrastination is bad, she highlights what good comes from it. If you gather material for your essay beforehand and have a background knowledge of what your doing. Anita then asked a question, why do people procrastinate? The obvious answer is either the task is too challenging or the dead line is later on in the semester. I have a problem with putting things to the side. In the middle of the semester when a professor hands out an essay that is due at the end. I won't look at it until it's the week of. That is a habit that I and many people suffer from. We are consumed with other work that needs to be handed in before that one specific task. A good way to avoid procrastination is taking little bites from the assignment. Each day do a little bit and eventually the work will get done. The other aspect that I liked was setting goals for yourself. Every time you reach these goals you reward yourself. This podcast was very helpful and I think every college student should listen to this podcast. It doesn't matter how many times  listen to this podcast, procrastination will still be my biggest weakness.

Oh Tests!

This podcast starts off with some soothing music that makes an entrance into Anita. Her main focus on this podcast is talking about test taking skills and how to succeed in test. The first thing she mention is how anxiety makes the students panic and no learn the material. I can relate to this podcast because I suffer from test anxiety. During high school, I would start panicking and my body would start to shake. Having this anxiety did not help me do well on tests and learn the material. Anita talks about good ways to fight this anxiety. One way that she tells us, is to have a good strategy for studying. Anita then goes through a step by step for before, during, and after the test. The strategies that she supplied us with would help any student that has anxiety. I really liked how she explained what to do during the test. The student has to make sure to focus on one question at a time. She also states if you feel nervous breathe and take a break for a second. This podcast was very insightful for me and my test taking. All the key strategies that she explained I will used during every test.

Final

The final project that I constructed shows all the information that I learned in this amazing course. In this project I showed my ideal classroom and what type of philosophy I would be using. The two different websites I used were Google Docs and Present me. This was my first time using Present me and it was easy to work with. The only problem that I faced using Present me was adding a video along with my speech. It would not allow me to post my slides from Goggle Docs which made it difficult for my class to follow along. Overall this presentation tied up everything I learned in this class into one PowerPoint. The other aspect that I really liked was adding my presentation on Live Binders. This allows other people to access my work and read about my ideal classroom. There are two links below that have the PowerPoint and the audio. I hope you enjoy :)

My Ideal Classroom

Presentation