My name is Ms. Rios and I have published this site to share my teaching philosophies with you and how I plan to foster a positive classroom environment for my students. Classroom management is notoriously known for being difficult but I believe if you focus and work hard to think about your students and what their needs will be it is relatively easy. I believe creating relationships with students is one of the most important things I can do as a teacher so I can understand them better and meet their needs, however it is also my job to make sure they take responsibility for their education and show them how to take responsibility in other aspects of their life as well. I also want to make it a point to foster positive relationships so that our classroom feels like a community where everyone feels safe, accepted, and taken care of.
Fostering positive relationships with students means that I will really get to know my students. This will help build a firm foundation that we can continue to build on throughout the year. This includes learning names quickly and correctly, listening, finding small ways to connect, and supporting them. By fostering positive relationships I am showing my students that they are valued and understood. It means I will continue to get to know that student throughout the year so I can build that trust with them and support them in any way that I can.
Student responsibility means that students are taking an active role in their learning by recognizing that they are accountable for their academic success. This also means that I will give students a sense of responsibility through certain tasks such as helping to come up with class rules, students are given classroom jobs, team leaders are appointed, and so on. It is important that students are given a sense of responsibility in the classroom because it will help them realize the importance of caring about the things they own and know that it is important to them. Giving the students a sense of responsibility gives them a chance to see what it means to take care of the things around them and be accountable for themselves. I feel that this is so important for them to understand even at a young age because it will go with them as they get older and continue through school.
To me positive reinforcement helps to reinforce behavior that I would like to see again in the future. Some students need more reinforcements than others, but this gives them an incentive to continue the positive behavior they have demonstrated. This idea also helps students grow out of some misbehaviors before they reach middle school and high school. These reinforcements should be able to decrease over time to the point where they are not needed anymore. Positive reinforcements really help to instill the idea that when a good behavior takes place the student will get recognized for it.