Cooperating Teacher Interview

As a teacher-researcher, I am learning how to carefully listen and watch the children and learn from what they are showing me. This semester, I am exploring the following research question how we as teachers can include choice and informing our students of exactly what they will be doing to impact student learning? Do you incorporate choice or inform you students of what they will be doing?

  • I don’t know if I really tell students what they will be doing for the day but I do tell them what they will be doing. I do give my students lots of choice. They can choose in stations what activities they will be doing which helps them to practice something in different ways. I use this with both of my reading and Math stations. They also can read whatever books they want or when they are doing doing work. They also have free choice during writing workshop majority of the time.

How do you keep notes about what you are seeing in class?

  • I keep track lots of ways. I use checklists for a lot of stuff  like behavior and skills. I also send home weekly reports about behavior during the week to my student’s parents. During small group I use a journal to keep track of students notes along with student info sheets. I take short little notes during the day to help keep track for when I need to do progress reports or having meetings. 

What are your thoughts around choice and informing students?

  • Choice is great and really works well with all of my students. Choice works really well with students that struggle in different areas. It really works well with [name redacted]  because that way he knows what is expected of him and what will happen if he doesn’t follow through. it also helps him to have some control of his learning.
  • I do a modified morning meeting compared to the Morning Meeting that you are talking about. We learned about it in college, but I haven’t followed the entire Morning Meeting process. My morning meeting is still a valuable time that sets the tone for the day and gets everyone ready to learn. It can also set up our week too when we review our classroom rules on Monday mornings. 

How do you use choice in your classroom?

  • I try too give my students lots of choice. I try to give them choice on where to sit, what to read, choice to choose activities when applicable, when behaviors arise with certain students this helps. I always try to give them some control over what they will be doing during the day or showing how they will learn. I really think it helps them in having them engaged and keeping them interested in what they are doing. 

Do you have any books or articles you would suggest I read? 

  • None that I can think of. I have books that I have read for college or have been given to me that I have read. I have never used the books in the classroom. I have books that might have activity suggestions to use in a lesson or books that we have read of PD but none about that that I have used. 

Is there another special I should watch or teacher/administrator I should talk with to deepen my knowledge of the topic?

  • A lot of second grade teachers use choice. We plan together but we may use different activities for certain things but they do offer choice. I can’t think of a single person I would recommend for you to watch.  You can always go check out their classrooms if you would like.