My Best Learning Environment and How it Can Affect My Case Study

Learning Environment

The learning environment that you provide of your students is crucial in order to enhance their learning abilities. I would have a vibrant classroom with student artwork and contributions on the walls and ceiling. I would also have a very trusting and inviting classroom. To do this I will have a quick welcome session with each student as they enter the class. Asking the how they are doing today and how their night or weekend was. If a student gives me news of a bad morning or such I will make it an effort to discuss it further with the student, to promote a trusting relationship.
Also, I will have a learning environment that acknowledges that all children are different, i will teach from different methods and theories and in different classroom settings. We may even go outside for a lesson if needed.

Case Study

"It has been one month since the school year began and most of your 25 kindergarten students know class procedures, such as the schedule of learning activities, where they are supposed to be for each learning activity, where they are supposed to keep their personal items, and how they are expected to move about the room and the school building in order to ensure a productive learning environment.  Then there is Willard.  He must ask 20 or more times a day, “Teacher, when can we go outside to play?”  In addition, he often does not stay where he should to work on a given learning activity.  Instead, you find him wandering around the room and getting into other children’s personal things.  Three times this past week you looked up just in time to see Willard walking out of the classroom without permission.  Some of the other children in your classroom community have started making fun of Willard.  Others are beginning to become less engaged in their learning. "

Affect on Case Study

For this case study I would first take note of anything in Willard's life that may make it hard for him to retain rules, such as, little to no food at home, fighting parents, an unsafe environment, or a disability. If any of these things ware present they must first be addressed before the misbehavior in the classroom can be fixed.
Next I would do a visual schedule that is on the board and has an arrow that slides to the event that is current That way Willard and his other classmates can know the schedule verbally and visually.
After putting this schedule in affect, I would discreetly pull Willard aside after a disruptance and talk to him about why he is not understanding the rules and reiterate what the rules are. We will also set up a reward system for when he follows the rules.
Lastly, we will have a class discussion on sharing and how it makes each kid feel when their favorite toy is taken away. Each Student will be asked to report their favorite toy, how that toy makes them feel, and how they would feel if it was taken away from them. They will also be asked to relate that back to their classmates.

Theories of motivation and how they can shape a classroom

There are many theories of motivation. I think that classroom management and the sociocultural theories are the most helpful and instructive for my classroom. I tend to look at the behavior of my students as well as the environment  that the child learns and lives in. While looking at these two factors and thinking about motivation, I can't help but be partial to these two theories.

Classroom management can make or break a learning environment. having a set of rules that the students agree upon and know how to follow will assist in better behaviors coming from your students. Also, having a classroom that is visual set up as a learning environment also helps with classroom management. The classroom can not be too visually noisy or too blank either.  If a students learning environment is at the best level and their behavior is not an issue they are more likely to be motivated to learn. 

Sociocultural theories can also help shape each student and the classroom as a whole. Each student has a different home environment  different outlook at school, different beliefs, and different cultural learning experience. In order to truly motivate your student you must be able to understand these different things about your student. 

Assessments

 There are many ways to assess our children in order to determine their strengths, weakness, improvements, and declines in education. Each one is equally as important and should be used for different reasons. Here are a few examples.

Informal Assessment: Involves Spontaneous, Unsystematic observations

such as - watching the body language of a particular child as he struggles with a math worksheet.

Formal Assessment: Involves preplanned, systematic data gathering

such as - Giving a test that has been planned out according to what the students have been learning

Paper-Pencil Assessment: Involves written responses 

such as - Giving a student a worksheet or homework assignment to assess what they understand thus far

Performance Assessment: Involves non-written behaviors 

such as -A class presentation

Criteria Referenced Assessment: Indicates mastery or non-mastery of certain topics

such as - A test based solely on what was learned in chapter 2

Norm-referenced Assessment: Compares performance of that of peers 

 such as - comparing each kindergarten's ability to hold a pencil properly

Authentic Assessment: Assesses abilitly to apply learning to real-world tasks

such as - Giving students a Lima bean to plant and grow when talking about plant life and photosynthesis

Traditional Assessment: Assesses ability seperete from real world tasks

such as -  Having students memorize and cite the water cycle without seeing how it works in the real world