Standard #3
Learning Environment
The teacher works with others to create environments that support individual and collaborative learning, and that encourage positive social interaction, active engagement in learning, and self-motivation.
What the Standard Means?
This standard highlights the importance of creating a safe, respectful, and inclusive classroom that encourages and fosters individual and group work. With the input from students and their families, as well as other professionals, it is the teacher’s responsibility to create a learning environment that encourages students to actively participate in their learning. This can be done through engaging activities and lessons that meet the needs of every student.
Artifacts
What the Standard Means?
This standard highlights the importance of creating a safe, respectful, and inclusive classroom that encourages and fosters individual and group work. With the input from students and their families, as well as other professionals, it is the teacher’s responsibility to create a learning environment that encourages students to actively participate in their learning. This can be done through engaging activities and lessons that meet the needs of every student.
Artifacts
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The above pictures and videos took place during the Language Arts inquiry project. Students learned and discussed the expectations, then applied them to their group work.
Students work together, with teachers, to create a web of compliments to show the importance of a positive learning environment.
Why the artifact was chosen and how it is an appropriate representation of the standard?
My first artifact demonstrates how I helped students maintain a respectful learning environment during their Language Arts inquiry project. To do so, I began by addressing the routine and expectations for the activity. This review allowed the students to understand their personal responsibilities, as well as their group’s responsibilities. Once the expectations were set in place, the students returned to their seats to work independently by drawing out key ideas from their story, and then they collaborated with their peers by sharing the main ideas of their story aloud.
Next, the students worked together to answer the inquiry question: What was life like for George Washington? This interaction also required the students to work collaboratively with other students, while expanding their knowledge. Together, the students had to establish a plan of action for researching the topic, then they referenced books and an iPad to conduct research. After researching, it was their task to write a conjecture to the question.
The artifact discussed previously, implements many of the sub-standards outlined in standard 3. For example, establishing the individual and group expectations before student’s were allowed to join their inquiry group aligns with 3(c), which states, “The teacher collaborates with learners and colleagues to develop shared values and expectations for respectful interactions, rigorous academic discussions, and individual and group responsibility for quality work.” The videos demonstrate this performance taking place. In addition, the student's interactions with the iPad to conduct research correlates with 3(m), "The teacher knows how to use technologies and how to guide learners to apply them in appropriate, safe, and effective ways." In this case, the iPads were linked to a predetermined website to ensure the students were staying on task and finding age-appropriate information.
The second artifact is a picture from morning meeting, a brief time in the morning where the students come to the carpet to greet each other and participate in a team building activity. The purpose of this daily meeting is to create a classroom culture that is open and respectful. The goal is to help the class build community with one another.
During the pictured activity, the students greeted each other by saying, “Good Morning _____,” followed by a compliment. They then tossed the ball of yarn to the person they complimented. This continued on until each student gave and received a compliment. At the end, the students created a web. This image portrayed to the class that we are all dependent on one another, if someone lets go of the string, which happens when we insult a classmate or hurt them, the whole web breaks.
This visual showed the student's that in order to create the web, each classmate is necessary. This activity aligns with 3(a), “The teacher collaborates with learners, families, and colleagues to build a safe, positive learning climate of openness, mutual respect, support, and inquiry,” and 3(n), "The teacher is committed to working with learners, colleagues, families, and communities to establish positive and supportive learning environments." Since the goal of morning meeting is to create a community of respect among the first graders, this activity highlighted how important each student is to our learning environment.
How the artifact represents growth and development as a teacher?
As can be seen from the artifacts, after the expectations for the inquiry project were set in place, a majority of the learning that took place was student-centered. The students were engaging in the research and finding the information to answer the question. Their engagement and active learning in this inquiry project shows the importance of continuing to use a student-centered approach as I continue my career. In order for student-centered learning to be successful, it is vital that the teacher creates a classroom learning environment that embodies respect and openness. This learning environment is created through the teacher engaging in positive, respectful interactions with students because this creates the standard for which students model their peer interactions. Thus, a respectful learning environment begins with a respectful and supporting teacher and grows with respectful and supporting students. One way I plan to continue building a respectful and supporting classroom community is through the implementation of morning meeting and similar activities that show value and appreciation to every student.