In my 17 years of classroom teaching, I have found that clearly communicating my classroom procedures and behavior expectations to students and parents at beginning of year is essential to establishing a positive classroom climate and smooth operational procedures. To impart my expectations of student behavior, I distribute a copy of my rules, and we then review them as a class via a quick “rules quiz” that I present to the class and discuss with them via the EPSON brightlink smart projector. Linked below is the rules quiz that will be presented with the EPSON.
STUDENT RULES QUIZ FOR CLASS DISCUSSION
I also utilize my teacher QUIA website for a variety of communicative purposes, and want both my students and their parents to recognize the information that is available on the website, and how to utilize it. Therefore, I developed a website information sheet, which features screenshots of essential components of the website. I require parents to sign a slip and return it via their child to me, indicating that they have read the document and browsed the website, and are aware of its informational and communicative content. A link to the website informational document is below:
TEACHER WEBSITE INFORMATION RESOURCE FOR STUDENTS AND PARENTS
Once these procedures and expectations are communicated, creating and maintaining a positive classroom climate and smooth operations depend on establishing a consistent structure and set of classroom procedures. Among these procedures is the use of both a “homework assignment due date” section of the classroom whiteboard for the posting of homework assignments, and also the posting of these assignments, as well as upcoming project due dates, test dates, after school help sessions, etc, on my QUIA website. This redundant posting helps parents to monitor their child’s responsibilities, and it also allows for a safety net for kids who forget to record an assignment in their agendas, or make a mistake in doing so, etc. I also will post links on my teacher QUIA website to be used to complete and/or check student work on homework assignments. So, the regular use of my QUIA website becomes an integral part of keeping students up to date with their assignments, and providing a platform for the delivery of documents and websites for use in conjunction with those assignments. Below is a link to my QUIA teacher website. Scrolling through it will reveal sections on homework assignments, test information, upcoming important dates, downloadable documents (such as PowerPoints, assignments, answer keys, etc), and finally external web links for accessing sites used in class lessons.
MY TEACHER QUIA WEBSITE- Use your browser's back arrow to return to this page
In order to clearly communicate class/lesson goals and activity or lab procedures, I will produce a PowerPoint listing and explaining the goals and procedures, and I will use the Epson Brightlink interactive whiteboard to preview them with the class prior to beginning a lab. Many of the labs in my physical science class are of a high school level of complexity, so I have found that reviewing procedures ahead of time, and keeping key slides or “hints” posted as reminders as the students work on the lab to greatly improve their efficiency, by minimizing the need to vie for my attention to have a procedural question answered. Below are two PowerPoints that are previewed prior to lab activities in my class:
SODIUM BICARBONATE/CALCIUM CHLORIDE LAB INTRO & PROCEDURE PRESENTATION
THE ELECTROLYSIS OF WATER LAB INTRO & PROCEDURE PRESENTATION
Finally, once a lab or an assessment has been completed, it is of course necessary to debrief the students, review results, and address student questions and concerns. Here again, I make use of the Epson Brightlink smart projector to debrief key points of labs, and to show and review assessment results. Leaving these up on the screen during a debrief or review section allows students to digest the information at their own pace, and allows me to interact with them by annotating answers and diagrams to better illustrate points. Linked below are, respectively, a lab debrief display, and a test results display that I share with my students.
VOLUME OF AIR IN A SAND MIXTURE LAB DEBRIEF
DENSITY TEST ANSWERS PRESENTATION FOR REVIEW
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