Teacher Impact in New School Year

Posted by Thadra Petkus Aug 24, 2008

Put simply, I hope that my impact as a teacher can best be described as positive. In as many ways as possible I like to create a positive environment for my students.

Student-Friendly Space Encourages Ownership

I continuously maintain and decorate my classroom according to the units we are exploring. I want my students to walk into my classroom and feel that it is as much their space, if not more, than it is mine. I have decorated it with plants and posters and bookshelves filled with a library exchange of over 200 books. As we progress through various units, students hang posters and display projects they have worked on for that unit. During lunch, students can earn extra credit to help me decorate, clean desks or alphabetize papers. I think this helps them claim ownership over what goes on in class as well as improve our student-teacher repoire.

Student Work Table Develops Responsibility

In the back of the room, we maintain a table for make up work which contains a daily calendar detailing what we complete in class each day in addition to homework assignments. A make-up binder contains all handouts throughout the semester. This way, if a student is absent they can look at the calendar and obtain any handouts they missed that day. This procedure establishes a tone of student responsibility as well as helps improve classroom organization as it prevents students from walking up to me and asking me what they missed. We do not lose valuable instructional time and students are responsible for following a specific procedure.

I have had positive feedback about these procedures which proves that it works well for them and me.