FEAP 2: The Learning Environment. To maintain a student-centered learning environment that is safe, organized, equitable, flexible, inclusive, and collaborative, the effective educator consistently:
2a: Organizes, allocates, and manages the resources of time, space, and attention.
2b: Manages individual and class behaviors through a well-planned management system.
For my centers groups, I use the blue bins pictured up top(left) to arrange guided reading books and activities based on the groups level and abilities. Pictured below is my books bins and library (still growing as I just began) where I have AR books in leveled purple bins so they are easily found and returned by students. On the right I have pictured my alarms that keep the class flowing smoothly and on time. Each timer is set 3-5 minutes before the time needed to give time for transitions.
For this FEAP, I included the main classroom behavior chart with I pair with class dojo. Students earn and loose points based on their behavior throughout the day. Students earn about 10-15 points a day and need 50 points on Friday to purchase a ticket to my treasure box. This has been helping behavior immensely. On the right, I have an individual behavior chart for one of my students with high problematic behaviors. We sit down every morning and choose her rewards for 10 smiles and 17 smiles. Today was the first day she has ever received all 17 smiles and she was ecstatic. I also think it is important to set and enforce expectations regarding behavior within the classroom. Going over classroom rules and expectations daily can help curb behaviors.
2c: Conveys high expectations to all students.
Our classroom rules and "I can" statements are paired together on our main whiteboard. We go over the rules and expectation every morning as well as the I can statements for the day. Because I set my expectations daily wiht students, it allows us to have a mutual respect because they know and understand this is a supportive and positive environment.
2d: Respects students' cultural, linguistic and family background.
I absolutely love our Benchmark Universe curriculum. The diversity with people, cultures, languages, etc is very vast and exposes and educates students from a very young age. In Unit 2, our first read aloud book was Abuelita's Secret. It was a book about a boy who was nervous to share his heritage and family culture to his class. His Abuelita helped him overcome this fear and his classmates and peers were all extremely interested in learning about him and his culture/family. Students were confused about what Abuelita meant, but I had two students who are Spanish and were so excited to share their knowledge of the meaning with peers. Alongside this, Benchmark Universe also explained it and elaborated on the culture more.
2e: Models clear, acceptable oral and written communication skills.
For this FEAP, I included and example of our daily journal entry. Students are given a prompt and we draft different ideas, details, and supporting facts on the board together. Student are also asked to brainstorm and "think, pair, share" with a partner during this process. The prompt is displayed on the board clear for all to see. I also like to include one students journal as an example on the board incase students are confused. We discuss the expectations for the prompts and length of our journal. We also go over this at my back table during small groups to correct sentence fragments and misspelling.
2f: Maintains a climate of openness, inquiry, fairness and support.
Every morning before specials area, I like to have a class discussion with students. These discussion have to do with upcoming holidays and what they did over the weekend. In this video we had a discussion about Thanksgiving foods and we shared our opinions and thoughts on different foods for Thanksgiving. Not every family eats the same things for holidays and it's interesting to share and learn about how we celebrate individually while also seeing what we have in common. Every student gets a chance to share and I also encourage students to be polite peers by sitting quietly and listening. Students must raise their hand to share and speaking out of turn is not acceptable.
2g: Integrates current information and communication technologies.
Liberty Elementary does have a facebook page to keep parents and family members updated and included. Unfortunately I am not part of that facebook page yet, so I do not have access to screen shot it. However I have included the school website and also use technologies such as Remind and Class Dojo to keep parents involved and updated on behaviors and activities.
2h: Adapts the learning environment to accommodate the differing needs and diversity of students.
For this specific FEAP, I have included our Benchmark curriculum assessment as well as a movement break. Some students have extra energy they need to get out throughout the day. We have daily movement breaks before and after long periods of sitting and instruction to ensure their energy is not too overwhelming while sitting as well as to get their blood flowing. I think this is critical for younger children. The benchmark assessments have
writing tasks at the end. Students are given 2 options for this writing task, paper and pencil or typing on the e-assessment. Students are able to choice at their own leisure and this has been a great accommodation for the two students who need this! Students who choose to do paper and pencil are able to do so, I just have to manually grade (1-4) and enter the score into benchmark.
2i: Utilizes current and emerging assistive technologies that enable students to participate in high-quality communication interactions and achieve their educational goals.
One of our assistive technologies that are used at Liberty is the Audio Enhancement. Luckily, I am in a smaller classroom and have not had to use this too often. But in larger classroom and if you have a student with a hearing impariment, this would be a life saver. In my CTs neighboring classroom, Mrs. Stagle had a student who was hard of hearing. She placed the student under the speaker to ensure the student had the best advantage and would wear the tear drop microphone around her neck like a lanyard. This helped the student be able to hear even when Mrs. Stagle was facing away or speaking quietly. I think this is a great assistive technology.