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Classroom Management
 

Assignments and Grading
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Confidentiality Note

Much of your work involves children.  I want us to get used to not using the actual names of  your children either in class or in our writings.  Use substitute names in our EdEl 188 class.  In writings, use "girl 1, girl 2" or another substitute such as initials.  Vermont is a very small place.  Just assume, everyone knows.

Please make sure "girl 1" in the Classroom Structures assignment is the same "girl 1" in the Complex Instruction assignment.  The best way of doing this is to take a class list and assign numbers next to the names and just use this as your reference point for identifying children in your work across the semester.    

Thanks, Charlie


Weekly Assignments
This course endeavors to teach you a group of skill sets that will amplify your capacity to work successfully with an range of management challenges.  Our range of activity will extend your knowledge about working with student strengths, identifying why children misbehave and doing something about it, designing curriculum that can be surprisingly inclusive, understanding how the social and academic structures work in your classroom to impact certain children for good and for bad, and working towards implementing effective and empowering groupwork.   Each week you will have something to do for our next class.  Sometimes it will be an assignment to carry out in the classroom, sometimes it will be an entry on the webct discussion board, sometimes both.  It is expected this work will be competed as part of your responsibilities for this course syllabus and your student teaching.  
 

Classroom Structures Assignment
assess and analyze the interaction of the social and academic structures on the learning of certain students - how do they impact each other - how does their impact influence the Social Darwinism of your classroom -  embed sociometric analysis questions in an interest questionnaire to determine the status order of children in your classroom  - show where you can manipulate your academic structures to affect the impact of the social structure on your children's academic progress - determine which instructional levers are your strength  - give examples of how you might highten achievement in your classroom for children of concern by creating learning situations of more equal status
 
 

Complex Instruction Assignment

create a situation of readiness for a complex instruction rotation by establishing collaborative norms in your classroom, conducting 4-6 skillbuilders, teach children how to perform basic group processing roles, teach several cooperative skills -  design at least three rich learning tasks identifying the necessary multiple abilities to carry out the task - run the tasks simultaneously, assign competence, conduct and analyze pre/post measures of content acquisition - track academic content acquisition of four identified children
 

institute collaborative norms
 teach group process roles
 build collaborative skills 
 design at least three rich learning tasks around a big content idea
 follow the orientation, learning activity, wrap-up format
 teach the rich multiple learning tasks simultaneously in rotation format
 identify of multiple abilities needed for rich tasks
 assign competence to a variety of children, but especially to "identified"  children
carry out a pre/post assessment of content acquisition

 embed in interdisciplinary unit if possible/useful/necessary
 ample coverage of program, NCATE, and  State of Vermont competency requirements
 

 

Professional Portfolio Assignment

Since this website was first designed, the form of the Professional Portfolio has shifted from a large three ring binder to an web-based document.  The faculty of the Elementary Education Program have worked with the TaskStream (TS) to provide this opportunity.  All the portfolio work we will do in this course will occur in the taskstream environment, once you have registered as a TS user.  Keep in mind, the best portfolios are the ones that are able to connect what you know to what you are able to do as a practicing professional.  One of our tasks in the course will be to teach you have to write a good caption, and urge you to keep thinking about the theoretical grounding of your everyday classroom practice.  This is probably the most challenging multi-tasking you'll be doing this semester and it will be the most rewarding.
Weighting of Assignments
Classroom Structures Assignment  (rubric)                                      25% of final grade
Complex Instruction Assignment  (rubric)                                       25% of final grade
Preparation of Professional Portfolio Through Upload (rubric)   25% of final grade
Weekly Assignments, classroom work and discussion board      25% of final grade