PART in my classroom

The defination of enviornment is that of any external conditions, resources, stimuli etc. with which an organism interacts. My goal as a teacher is to develope a classroom management plan through routines and organization to help shape the community which my students will be encouraged by positive and productive stimuli. Seems nearly impossible right? If you take each category from our chapter P.A.R.T it helps break it down to very simple ways.
In class I chose to put time as my first priority in developing my eviornment as the most important but after re-reading the chapter and researching the websites I changed my mind. Now I feel the first way to shape your community’s enviornment is by showing this group of children from all different cultures, backgrounds, society, etc… that you care. I will pass on Kohn’s central ideas connectedness, value and respect from the first day of school. It is very important to me as the teacher to show (through actions, tone, and words) that I can recognize their feelings and that I am willing to comminicate and listen to all students. Ambience as said in the book refers to the mood or atmosphere of a classroom. My goal to develop an appropriate sense of ambience is to start off being a good role model, listen and commicate appropriately, convey that school is pleasant, and provide intellectual stimulation. Some things that will help me accomplish this task is putting up some inspirational quotes, playing some soft music during quiet time, knowing each childs name when they walk through the door during week 1, letting the students have a say in what the classroom might look like and providing a safe place where they can come and grow intellectually and socially.
Physical arrangement, time schedule, routines and instructional activites help build and communicate my stance on education and what I want to accomplish. I will be sure to take in concideration my goals and use wall space, windows, ceilings, desk arrangement to my advantage. I will set up my classroom physical appearance with some things to keep on my mind. I will want to be able to monitor the classroom, keep a balance of power, and keep it productive and effective. Allowing children to see other children, keep their attention on me as the teacher, being able to get to a child that needs assistance, and that materials are kept as close as possible to make activities run smoother. In my classroom I will have a place to do seat work and whole class instruction but I also want to encourage my students to explore other interests in the centers I will have in my classroom. For example, an art center or music center where when they are done with their class work they can go quietly without interupting the other students and continue to learn something that interests them on their own.
We have all known some pretty messy teachers in our lives. But I can’t blame them. They have all this “stuff” to keep organized but keeping new ideas and lessons coming as well. Well all that stuff is the resources that I will use in my classroom. Resources range from homework papers, computers, books, and even children. Keeping all of these resources organized is my main goal in my classroom. You can do this by having calendars, folders, computer time, and routine for collecting homework, etc.
Finally, Time “Use your classroom time as gold: wasting a single minute costs everyone in the class, and those costs can never be recouped” Time is golden in a classroom. My main goal in my classroom is to maximize the time with my students and minimize the time they spend in inappropriate ways. The division of time in our books explains it perfectly. Give yourself as the teacher time to study or subject (allocated) but also give time to spend on a specific insturction that will address the specific subject (engaged) and finally give time where the students can engage themselves in mastery of the subject (academic learning.) Poor insturuction is at the very least a waste of time. My goal is to have prepared lessons before hand and to help teach my students the importance of time and time management.
All of these basic ways of building an appropriate enviornment may or may not work, but we have to be on our toes and ready to reconstruct our enviornment to apply it to our always changing society.