Blog #5: Best Practice Ch. 8 &9

I really enjoyed reading Chapters 8 & 9 in Best Practice (Zemelman et al., 2005). As I read through the seven structures of best practice teaching, I learned just how creative one can be with implementing these strategies. As a new teacher, I don't have a lot of experiences to relate to these different structures; however, I think it will be beneficial for me to learn about these various techniques and methods prior to becoming a head teacher. In my classroom, I find that small-group activities are quite effective. Although, it doesn’t take long for students to realize that there is an unstructured element to small-group work. The head teacher and I will walk around the class and listen to the conversations, answer questions, and at times suggest an idea or topic to help, but I can see and hear other groups slacking off when they know there is no teacher around. I liked the idea of small-group activity centers because it gives students an opportunity to visit and explore ideas in an organized sequence (pg. 230). I wanted to see a 'center' in action, so I recently observed our kindergarten classroom where the students were participating in literacy centers. Two tables read the story independently, two tables do structured phonics work from the curriculum, two tables work on phonemic awareness and ‘word work’ activities (i.e.: word families, site word memory). One head teacher is in the classroom facilitating the centers, and the other head teacher is working with a small group outside of the classroom with reading out loud. The day I observed, the students knew exactly what to do. I was impressed how seamless the process appeared to be; however, both head teachers said it has been a work in process. Similar to the example of Delois Strickland in Ch.9 (pg. 269-273) implementing new strategies within a classroom takes time. The kindergartners at my school have been working in these centers all year and now they’ve finally mastered the process. You can see the confidence in their faces as they work because they’re comfortable in this learning environment.

Chapter 9 'Making the Transition' was an interesting read for me, because I don't really feel like I am in a place where I need to transition from one way to another. As a new teacher, I can observe other classrooms and teaching styles, but I'm not going to know what works and doesn't work in my classroom until I am actually teaching. It takes the effort of the entire faculty and staff to really bring about a change. It won't work if I'm using the seven structures of best practice in my classroom, but the teacher in the grade level ahead of me is not. Zemelman et al., made me realize just how important it is to work together in a teaching community to create student-centered classrooms at every grade level.