Safe Learning Environment

To demonstrate an exemplary safe learning environment, a teacher candidate must "use rituals, routines, and proactive responses that create and maintain a safe physical and intellectual environment where students take academic risks and play an active role—individually and collectively—in preventing behaviors that interfere with learning".

Expectations

Having rituals and routines in the classroom helps create and maintain a safe physical and intellectual environment by setting a standard for students to follow. Once routines are established in the classroom, the transitions between activities and procedures should be very smoothly run by the students. The teacher has the responsibility of ensuring that all interactions between students are respectful and supportive. Going along with that, teachers should monitor behaviors to reinforce positive academic effort and have a quick response to inappropriate behavior. Furthermore, students should be in an intellectual environment where they take risks and attempt challenging tasks. These are characteristics of a safe physical and intellectual environment for students. If students are aware of the rituals and routines of the classroom, they can focus on the material that they are learning rather than finding a loophole to get past the teacher’s rules.

Discipline

To reinforce positive behavior, teachers should provide rewards for students to learn and stay engaged in class. A reward system in the classroom is a good way to motivate students to do work that they otherwise might not have any interest in completing. A little bit of competition and some rewards are very helpful in keeping the majority of the students in the classroom wanting to learn. The type of reward system really depends on the preference of the teacher, the age group, and the behavior of the students. Rewarding students is beneficial to the classroom as a whole; not only do the students learn more because they are more engaged in learning, but the environment of the classroom is more controlled and welcoming. This idea is supported by the idea of operant conditioning; behavior is governed by rewards and punishments. All employees work for the reward of money, so why would students be treated differently. By rewarding in the classroom, the students are motivated to do a better job, and therefore, get more out of their education. Rewarding students for random acts of kindness is also beneficial to the classroom atmosphere. Congratulating the class when they do well on assignments, and personally going up to the students who may struggle and telling them when they did a great job on their work creates connections and ensures that students understand that the teacher truly cares about their success. Keeping a positive work environment for the students is important to making sure that students always feel welcome and comfortable in the classroom even if they don’t enjoy the subject.

To deal with inappropriate behavior, the teacher should have a definite plan of what to do if discipline problems occur. Teachers should always try to prevent discipline problems from happening by knowing their students, making the classroom a motivating place, teaching responsibility and care, establishing effective rules and consequences, and dealing with stressful conflicts. Although teachers try to work really hard to prevent discipline problems, they do still occur and when they do teachers should have a 'game' plan. Teachers need to stop the misbehavior quickly, get back to teaching, keep students in class, implement the consequence, and collect data on how that action dissipated or worsened the problem. To resolve the problem, the teacher should find what is needed to prevent another problem, develop a mutually agreeable plan, implement the plan, monitor and revise the plan when necessary, and use creative and unconventional approaches when necessary. Having effective rules and expectations is a key part of having a safe learning environment for all students in the classroom.

Rules of my Classroom

Required Materials

Every class, you should bring your: Pencils/Pens, iPad, all completed assignments

Class Expectations

• Come to class prepared. Keep your materials organized.
• Participate in class discussions; remember to raise your hand.
• Listen and be respectful to others; when someone is talking you’re not. This same courtesy applies when you are talking.
• Conduct yourself in a responsible manner during any experiment or demonstration.
• Follow all written and verbal instructions. If you do not understand the instructions, ask the teacher.
• Do not touch any tools, machines, or materials without permission from the teacher. Handle all tools with care.
• Give your best effort!

School Expectations

1. Respect yourself and others.

2. Follow the rules.

3. Put effort into every class, every day.