Johnathan Harvell

Dr. Karen Rowe

Student Teaching Reflection: Classroom Environment
When I was in high school, I found it very difficult to learn in a classroom environment
that was both hostile and not suitable to help with my educational needs. Although each teacher
has their own teaching styles and preferences for setting up their classrooms, it is still important
to demonstrate an ability to adapt to students needs both through pedagogical skills and the set-
up of the classroom. As part of student teaching experience, I utilized some ways to help attend
to my students needs on a variety of levels, both in sense of content education, but personal
education as well.
At the start of each day, I would display what was to be done in each class, and what each
student was expected to pick up, perform, as well as understand by the end of the class period.
As a result, each students was given opportunities to develop personal management skills that
would make them self-efficient in the classroom, and to have better ability to learning the
selected material for the day. If a student was late, the to-do list of the day would be posted on
schoology to where any student could see what they need to be caught up in my class despite not
being in class on that day. Just as well, there assignment inboxes and outboxes in place to show
student were they should turn in their assignments as well as picking them up after being graded.
This minimized the time to collect assignments during class, and allow for that time to be used in
learning new material. Lastly, to help with their individual studying needs, a binder with answer
keys to all the worksheets in the back of the classroom was provided to allow students to check
their answers at any time during the day. This allowed students to double check their answers
and provide further foundations for potential inquiry if they were still having misconceptions.
In this set-up, I found that most students found the environment to be beneficial to their
individualized learning needs and also promote a sense of autonomy in the classroom that would
usually hinder potential learning possibilities if not present. There are still some things that the
set-up of the classroom should include to help maximize the beneficial nature of the classroom
environment to each student, to which I will use my anecdotal notes to further better my
classroom management in the coming years of my teaching career. For example, for the answer
keys, I may need to provide further break down the process of obtaining each right answer, so
that students can further understand and mimic the track of thought I am promoting during my
lessons in the classroom. Another aspect, I would provide more physical resources to use during
or after class for each students educational needs. In having a higher variety of resources in the
classroom, each learning style demonstrated by each student could be better accommodated in
further iterations of the course.