Learning Journal Review

SUMMARY IN THEMES

The first theme I identified in the learning journal is classroom

management. This is the most-mentioned theme in teachers learning

journals, almost all teachers talked about this theme.

Teacher A has learned how to use check sheet correctly to make

her consequence system work more effectively: to give time limitation

between the different levels of punishments, which makes students take

action more timely; also teacher should always follow the procedure strictly

so that students would always take the teacher’s words seriously. She also

mentioned treasure box in her observation to be the reward to students who

did a good job is also a good way of classroom management.

Teacher B’s conclusion is Talking to the right ear of your student

also helps him/her more likely perform a task since the right ear would

send the message directly to the language processing part of the

brain.

Teacher C found that caring about and trying to understand

students, also encouraging students for trying their best, are the

essential factors for a teacher to gain trust and build up harmonic

relationship with students, thus minimize students’ behavior issues.

 From her conference with Qiu Laoshi, she found out that classDojo is a

very effective way of classroom management.

Teacher D learned that always make sure that each student has

something to work on and give students small gift to reward their

effort is an effective way.

Teacher E learned to solve problems from students’ point of

view, let students know the consequence if they did something

inappropriate. Also teacher needs to show his/her care about students.

Teacher F decided to make changes on her behavior plan using

Bao Laoshi’s “Fun Friday” activity and daily reward and weekly reward

to encourage students to make progress and being consistent.

The second theme I would like to discuss is Working with students with

special needs (ADHD, ELLs, etc.).

According to teacher A, spend appropriate extra time and offer

special help and guide to ELL students.

Teacher B’s conclusion is: 1. Keep the students’ hands busy with

some small squeezable toys in the classroom for students to channel

their anxiety would be a simple solution to the antsy or ADHD

students. 2. Alternative is to have a soft cushion for students who

 can’t sit still might help them feel more comfortable when sitting

down.

Teacher D learned that teacher firstly needs to learn and know

what special education the student needs and provide special education

accordingly.

Teacher E learned that keep ADHD students on task or busy,

also work with parents to reward the students both at school and home

when they did a good job.

The third theme is Innovative and specific teaching

activities/methods/techniques/strategies.

Teacher A: Treasure box to reward students who get the right

answer of a difficult questions.

Teacher C got the idea from Qiu Laoshi that make most use of all

resources in life would help teacher come up with a lot of creative

ideas in teaching. She also learned from Gu Laoshi that thinking in

children’s way and design simple activities would be a better way to

teach young kids like preschool student. Using more developmental

appropriate ways such as visual display and body language are also

important to develop their interest and learn in a natural process.

Teacher F learned from the Spanish teacher that making good

use of body language, changing tones for different tasks, connect ing
 words with special gesture helps create very effective language

learning environment.

CONCLUSION OF MY REVIEW.

Highlights: What impressed me most is that almost all novice

teachers encountered various classroom management issues. Knowing the

issues and solutions to them would definitely help my future teaching in

terms of dealing with similar situations.

Remaining questions: Regarding Teacher B’s question of

Classroom organization, I would have the same question as her since I’ll also

be a Language & Culture teacher and I won’t be able to have my own

classroom either. I'm not sure if a carry-on suitcase or cart with easily-

distributed learning materials would help make an efficient and well-

organized classroom.

How I want to use: I found the special chair with soft cushion

and squeezable toys are quite useful dealing with ADHD students. In my

future teaching, it’s most likely that I would have some ADHD students and I

plan to ask the school to have a special chair available in the classroom if

needed.

Difference between what I learned from the journals and my

previous expectation of teaching Chinese in the U.S. k-12 classroom. Actuall

y, at the current stage, there’s not much difference between what teachers d
escribed in their journals and my previous expectation since we were told m

any times how different it is teaching Chinese in the US k-12 classroom. But

I assume I will find out the difference when I'm teaching in the real classroo

m.