Critical incident reflection

for EDFX315
Critical incident date:10/06/2015

Description
On Wednesday of my first week of block placement I led a lesson on 3D shapes. This lesson
involved students choosing a 3D shape from the middle and looking at the vertices, edges and
faces. As this lesson was in the afternoon and after a house meeting the students were quite
excited. During the lesson some students were throwing their shapes in the air and to each
other in my peripheral vision. This meant that my AT who did see what happened stepped in
to settle the class when I could not.
Interpretation
This event was critical to me because it allowed me to think about and reflect on my
behaviour management strategies as well as the strategies that I had seen my AT use. I
realised that the students were pushing my limits and testing me to see what I would allow
and what I would not. I discussed this event with my AT and we talked about the types of
strategies that I was comfortable using within my lessons to ensure the students full attention
during a lesson. It allowed me to think about what kind of teacher I want to be and how I
would prefer to use positivity as a tool rather than negativity. However sometimes positivity
may not always work, it is a matter of trial and error in terms of what works for me and the
class.

Outcome
I decided that positivity- highlighting the positive behaviours of students so that others will
seek out this positive attention rather than the negative attention. I used videos and research
to look at multiple strategies that I could use. Things such as:
Stopping until the whole class is looking
Praising those doing the right thing
Being clear on the rules before we begin a lesson
Using smilies
Using the sad face if needed
Using body language
Are all strategies that I will attempt to implement within my future lessons to continue to
develop my classroom management skills so I can use them in my future practice.
This incident has taught me about how to be a more effective teacher and allowed me to think
actively about the kinds of behavioural management strategies that work best for not only me
but the students in 2/3K.