ARTEFACT : THE LEARNING PIT
Classroom management is an important component of a teacher's identity (Lazarides, Rebecca, Watt, Helen & Richardson, Paul (2020) and is a part of the graduate standard. The flow and success of a lesson is dependent on classroom management. If students are completely disengaged with the work, or it is a chaotic learning environment, students will lose focus and it is sometimes hard to bounce back. The artefact is something that I have currently implemented in my stage 2 placement. The learning pit is a concept by Nottingham (1999) which expresses 7 key components, however the main idea to extract is that students learn better when they see others struggling too. The pit promotes willingness to accept errors, strengths and weaknesses and then assess, reflect and grow/move out of the pit.
This artefact is an incentive to manage classroom activities (4.4.2) as it allows students to visualise their learning purpose and have a vision to see why/what they are learning and feel supported in their environment. Applying theory behind this practice, ‘The Lyford Model’ is a conceptual scaffold that develops classroom management through a series of four steps: plan, implement, review, cycle = a successful satisfied teacher (Lyons, Ford & Slee, 2014). At the start of my observation days, I had been thinking of different ways to manage classroom activities after modelling had been done as I noticed a few students asking me to help them with the new content. I had implemented this concept and explained how it would work. It was as simple as moving their nominated fruit/animal (to remain anonymous to other students) to where they thought their learning was at and I knew exactly I needed to go and assist them directly. Relating back to standard (4.4.2), through this activity management tool, students had felt supported within their learning environment positively. (308 words)
