Professional Documents
Culture Documents
K. Suk
EDUC 230-02 Education Field Experience
Spring 2019
Classroom Management and Routines Rationale Statement
The teacher engages in meaningful and appropriate professional learning experiences aligned
with his/her own needs and the needs of the learners, school, and system (New Jersey
Course: EDUC 230-02 Education Field Experience and Field Experience and EDUC 212-01
Foundations of Education
Rational Statement:
Both artifacts are observation papers discussing classroom management and routines. During my
time at the private school in Gladstone, I have been observing the class’s daily routine and how
they are able to manage their time for all their lessons and activities. I have also been recording
Education course, I also observed a preschool classroom and recorded my findings on their
classroom management and their daily routines. I related these artifacts to standard 9.i.2, “The
teacher engages in meaningful and appropriate professional learning experiences aligned with
his/her own needs and the needs of the learners, school, and system” (New Jersey Department of
Hess 2
Education, 2014). Throughout my observation at the private school I was discovering how “age
appropriate” does not just relate to items or toys or even lessons, but it goes into every aspect of
teaching. Their schedule needs to be appropriate and enriching for these second graders. If a
lesson goes on for too long, they get antsy. Even that behavior is seen as age appropriate if they
are sitting for too long. Even aspects like reward and discipline need to fit their age and the
school systems rules. The first day I went to observe there was a boy who kept interrupting,
would constantly get up while they were sitting for a lesson and just could not stay still for long.
I thought to myself, why is the teacher not telling him to sit down? Why doesn’t he tell him to
stop talking? Maybe they do not have strict discipline at this school. A few weeks into observing
I find out that this boy does have special needs. The teacher does a great job giving him space to
do his own thing when he feels the need to, but also keeping him on track when they are doing a
lesson or working on an assignment. The teacher takes his teaching tools and implements them
differently for each individual student. A teacher has needs as well as the students. Main needs of
a teacher are trust and connections to their students. When this teacher accommodates to his
students, they know they can trust their teacher because he is doing what is best for them. By
putting their needs first, he is ensuring that he will do what he needs to for his students. Through
his specific schedule and his classroom rules, these students are able to bond with the teacher and
make connections with him. The classroom management observation from Foundations also
related back to the same standard. In that two/three-year-old preschool classroom, these students
are just beginning to learn classroom rules. It is the teacher’s job to reinforce these rules in a
positive way. Again, it is crucial for the teacher to make bonds with these students. It is mutually
beneficial for everyone’s needs. The more of a connection the teachers made with these
These artifacts have reinforced for me the fact that having a routine is crucial for
students. They thrive off of having a set schedule. They feel more comfortable knowing what is
coming next. This promotes effective learning because they can focus and be involved in their
work knowing that they will not be interrupted and there will be no surprises. When students do
not know what is happening next, they will always have a rough transition into the next lesson or
activity and feel uneasy about when that will happen again. These artifacts also showed me that a
teacher needs to be able use their teaching skills and implement them differently to work for each
students’ individual needs. The teacher I work with is able to keep all his students involved and
paying attention. This gives less room for bad behavior. They are always actively engaged and
excited about what they are working on. This keeps them well behaved. I have never heard the
teacher raise his voice. At the private school, the few times my cooperating teacher has had to
talk to any of his students, he uses a soft, yet stern tone. The students always straighten out after
having been talked to. When the students respect their teacher, as they do in this class, they want
to please him. They act well behaved and they want to prove that they are good students. The
teacher praises good behavior and points it out to the rest of the class as an example. I even saw
this when I observed in the preschool room. The teachers were stern, but never yelled at the
students. From working in a preschool room, I have learned these teacher tools myself. Getting
another view of it in a different school, watching a different teacher, I learn different ways to
I can use these artifacts in the future as a reference to set up an age appropriate schedule
for my class. I can also look back at this to get an idea of proper classroom management. Both
classes have routines that work well with their students. In the private school, even the way they
get together and plan for the morning as a class is a great idea, and this artifact has all of these
Hess 4
ideas in it. This artifact also gave a different perspective on how schools handle behavior
differently. With different students you may need to handle situations differently and these
artifacts have those skills noted in it. I can always look back at these artifacts to try different
Reference:
New Jersey Department of Education. (2014, April 1). New Jersey Professional Standards for Teachers
https://www.state.nj.us/education/profdev/profstand/ProfStandardsforTeachersAlignmentwith
InTASC.pdf