Teaching Lesson 4.... Learning classroom management

Teaching Experience 4 by Ryan Fromoltz

I can count this experience as being ready in one area, but another area overshadowing it. I was fully prepared for my lesson, the notes were done, the worksheet was complete, the only thing I wasn’t prepared for was the kids not paying attention to me.
The period started only innocently enough as I calmed the class down, but as soon as I took attendance it may have seemed like a lost cause. I got the class settled back down for current events, but that may have been the last time I got control of it. Several students decided to speak out, and I never challenged them to keep quiet. I would stop talking as I have learned to do, but that only works for a while. By the end the kids, just felt like they controlled the room, and they were probably right.
It’s something that I have to learn to quiet kids down quicker, and to keep them quiet. As a teacher I know I have the power to throw them out of the room, but I have been confused on whether I can or not. It’s something that I should have asked a long time ago for clarification.
Besides for the problems with management, which are slowly being, addressed the class was decent. Those students who paid attention to the class seemed interested in the topic. A lot of questions were being asked, and for 99% of them I felt I had decent answers for them. The distractions by the students took away the gains I thought I made with the lesson plans so I know more work is still ahead for me.

Standardized Testing (from october)

From my mentor teacher:

I favor formative assessment for a couple of reasons. First, students tend to do poorly on summative assessments because they are nervous and they psych themselves out. Formative assessments measure student progress on a more frequent basis. This way I am able to see what areas students are struggling with and it makes it easier for me to review ideas that are difficult.


Standardized testing does not really play a role because students are not tested in Social Studies. At times too much emphasis is placed on standardized testing....is it really measuring student progress??