E-4, Beginning Proficiency, Middle School, Math

E-4, Beginning Proficiency, Middle School, Math CONVERSATION WITH TEACHER

Evaluator: What are your basic expectations for behavior in your classroom?

Teacher: My kids—and I imagine all middle school kids—have lots of energy. My philosophy is that I want to channel that energy more than I want to suppress it. I also want to teach the students that different contexts call for different behaviors, and so we have different kinds of settings for different purposes in my classroom. We actually have three different modes in the classroom: “Free Learn,” “Teacher Learn,” and “Quiet Learn.” “Free Learn,” for example, is when the kids are engaged in activities and they are encouraged to share ideas and move around, as long as they are on task. Teacher Learn is when I need to provide instruction in a way that calls for active listening, raising hands, etc. The last mode, Quiet Learn, is when they are not supposed to talk at all. It’s hard to shift from one set of parameters to another, but I actually think that’s a critically important life skill and my students do a pretty good job with it. The purpose is to not only maintain good behavior but to have students think about the different contexts for different modes of behavior.

Evaluator: Do you think the students understand that purpose?

Teacher: That’s a good question. I definitely explained it to them early on, but I’m not sure how many of them really get that point, you know? They could definitely tell you about the three modes, and some of them might be able to tell you how rules are for learning, but I am not sure that’s really understood. And I don’t know if they get this idea that we are learning to apply parameters to our behavior that are different in difference contexts.

Evaluator: What “mode” did we see in that segment of the classroom on video?

Teacher: Well, I didn’t really establish a mode well, I think. I should have been clearer that it was Teacher Learn mode, at least during the time that I was giving instructions.

Evaluator: Tell me about what other methods for maintaining behavior you use other than those in the video clip.

Teacher: I think you probably saw my key favorites. They really work for me, so I use them all the time. The points for teams and the time-counting that we take away from student time later—those really seem to help students refocus.