Week 9 CES

This week I got to observe several kindergarten, first, and second grade classrooms.  I saw a variety of behavior management strategies that I would like to try in my classroom.  During a first-grade reading group, I saw a teacher that used coins for good behavior.  I thought that the coins were a great idea because they are visual.  If  a student is off-task on misbehaving, the teacher takes one of the student's coins away and puts it back into her container.  The students trade in their coins for Gotchas.  They have to earn twenty coins to earn a Gotcha.  I also liked how some teachers placed numbers on their floor for the students to line up.  They called a few number at a time to reduce pushing and arguing to get in line.  Every student had an assigned spot.  I also got to see classrooms with special needs while I was observing.  A couple of classrooms had children with IEPs.  I saw that some of the students with IEPs had to be pulled out for testing.  Many of the students had to have the test read to them for their IEP.  Some students had aides that had to stay with throughout the day.  I saw how challenging teaching can be when there are many different needs in the classroom.