Module 4 – Unit 6 - Activity 4

Marc Finks

Module 4 – Unit 6 - Activity 4

Video and Reflection

Both Mr. Torres and Ms. Felix are first year teachers. Even though they have different approaches, I do like their attitudes about how they want to interact with their students from the first day of class. Mr. Torres keeps stating that he’s nerdy, which I think some of the ‘cooler’ kids may sneer at, but I think he’s trying to show the students that it’s okay to be smart and to like odd things. He smiles a lot and shows personal photos and tells them that he believes that school should be fun, rather than boring, and then he had the students create name cards and introduce themselves to each other.

All of this is an excellent way of building rapport with the students and creating a classroom environment where the students get to know each other a bit, which can help them to feel more comfortable with one another and respect each other. However, he didn’t seem to notice students using their cell phones, and didn’t really establish any rules or expectations besides having fun, and so that is something that will lead to classroom issues for him later on. As Marzano (2009) noted, “Regardless of how well behaved students in a given class might be, they still need rules and procedures” (Marzano, p.117)

Ms. Felix’s goal was to set an environment where kids respect each other and themselves. She does a good job of establishing routines and having the students come up with rules and possible consequences because this can help the students believe that the rules are fair because they came up with them themselves. She tries to do a “superstar” project where each student has to write something on a piece of paper to say why they’re awesome, but she doesn’t seem to understand why her students are reluctant to do this. She says that she wants the students to know that she cares about them and that she believes in them, but showing them this through interactions with them, and just having them write something on the first day of class that other kids may tease them about are two different things.

Both Mr. Torres and Ms. Felix have great interaction with their students one-on-one or in small groups, and the students seem to feel that they can trust them and don’t hesitate to ask questions. They also both come up with great, collaborative projects that are engaging and can help build class rapport, and from the scenes that were shown in the video, the students do seem to get along well.

However, both teachers have serious control issues. In one of the classes, the students were just joking and making rude comments when the teacher asked them to do something and there wasn’t any negative reprisals. One of the mentors mentioned how teachers need to change their tone and pitch of their voice to show that someone has done something wrong and that they’re displeased, and this is something I completely agree with. Students should trust their teacher – like they can trust their parents – but, just like  their parents, students should recognize from the tone of voice if they are behaving satisfactorily or not.

I’ve also had the issue that Ms. Felix faced during the confrontation where none of her students wanted to do the work or respond to her questions. It’s a horrible situation, but I think that teachers oftentimes views that situation from the wrong perspective. It’s not that the students want to make the teacher angry or for themselves to get in trouble. It’s more about that they either aren’t sure how to complete the assignment, and/or they are afraid that they’ll look stupid or feel embarrassed if they try to do it and fail. I have found that when the directions are very clear, and there are certain steps that the students know for sure that they can complete without any help, then they will be much more willing to do what’s asked of them. As one of the mentors said, we expect students to know how to do everything that we ask of them, and we often forget that they probably don’t understand what we expect for them to do.

At the end, both teachers seem to have positive relationships with their students. Mr. Torres works really well one-on-one with his students and he has a great relationship with them. And I really liked Ms. Felix’s incentive program where she lets students retake tests. As she mentioned, she changed from averaging their scores to just giving them their best scores because the goal is for them to master the material. I think the fact that she shows that she truly cares that the students are learning, as opposed to just testing them once and getting a grade written into the test book, is something that the students can recognize and respond to.

References -

Marzano, R., & Brown, J. (2009). A handbook for the art and science of teaching. Alexandria, Va.: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.