Classroom centered instruction, including sheltered instruction, must be connected to the communities within the classroom and the school; a teacher must have the knowledge and skills for working with multiple stakeholders within the classroom community.
After observing my mentor teacher for the past several years, I have developed an approach to classroom management that is aligned with my own teaching philosophy and comes from the best practices I have observed in my mentor teachers.
The classroom is home to many individuals; every individual is expected to perform at the same basic level. However, each individual approaches the classroom with a different set of skills, diverse backgrounds, and a wide range of attitudes to any given subject matter or class. The teacher must navigate these differences and provide fair treatment to each student. Fay and Funk (1995), promote the idea that fair is not always equal. Different students need different approaches to the content in the classroom. This concept can be integrated into the general classroom management that the teacher implements in the classroom.
One example of fair treatment is through sheltered instruction. In my classroom, there are a few students that are English Language Learners (ELL). These students require additional support within and outside of the classroom environment so that they can continue to perform at grade level expectations (GLE). Sheltered English instruction engages English Language Learners with grade level content and academic skills that are aligned with the mainstream classroom and aim to increase English proficiency. Continue reading “FAIR INSTRUCTION: (Classroom Management)”
David Orace Kelly 