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Name: Necla Kucuk

Date of Submission: October 13, 2021

Course: EAD-510-0501

Topic of Assignment: Clinical Field Experience B: Supporting a Positive Student-Centered

Culture
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Clinical Field Experience B: Supporting a Positive Student-Centered Culture

Strategy # 1:

A description of the strategy and its purpose

I decided to provide two strategies to our third-grade teacher to support her instruction.

The first recommendation will be to work toward creating a student-centered classroom

environment. This strategy aims to shift the instruction from the teacher to the student, so the

learning is placed on the students' hands to increase student participation. According to Jones,

if the classroom is student-centered, students interact, discuss, challenge, and help each other

while the teacher guides, instructs, manages, or directs the conversation (Jones, 2007).

How to implement the strategy

The classroom teacher did almost all the talking during my observation, and students

only answered a few questions. In a student-centered class, the teacher listens and assists

conversation if needed, and students speak for the most part. The second way of implementing

this strategy is to build trust and open communication among the students at the beginning and

throughout the year. Then, to turn the classroom into a positive student-centered classroom, the

teacher needs to find ways to utilize the technology that they have in the classroom by allowing

students to use the technology to research, present, and share information. The teacher must

allow the student to talk, discuss and share among their peers; this can be implemented as

“peer sharing,” “turn and talk,” or it can be named differently depending on the teacher.

Anticipated effects of the strategy

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 These strategies enable students to interact with one another and help them express their

feelings, ideas, agreements, or disagreements. Once the students feel that they can trust their

teacher, they will comfortably share their ideas and feelings in the classroom. Also, allowing

students to utilize technology during class properly will help them to build confidence and strong

self-esteem when they research, present or share. Moreover, these strategies will create mutual

respect among the teacher and students, and among the student population. Especially if the

teacher lets the students be part of the decision making and allowing them to lead, it will turn the

classroom into a productive environment where efficient learning could take place, and soon

enough, students will become more independent and lifelong learners.

How the recommendation aligns to the school's vision

As a school, we want to make sure our students establish a passion for learning, respect

experience and skills, contribute to the world with their compassion, honesty, integrity, and

respect throughout their lives. Therefore, we want them to learn to lead and speak their minds

and share their ideas openly starting from now and on. They could establish these skills in their

life if they have given a change in the classroom when they are shaping their personality at a

young age.

Strategy # 2:

A description of the strategy and its purpose

The second recommendation is to break down the lesson into smaller segments and

allowing students to interact. According to Chaney, teamwork improves students’ academic

outcomes, approaches, and performances (Chaney, 2005). The purpose of this strategy is to

engage all students.

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How to implement the strategy

Breaking up the lesson into smaller chunks will help the children comprehend and

refresh their thoughts and ideas to complete their task. So, each part should be given

separately; when the students complete one part, the instruction for the next part should be

given to the students.

Anticipated effects of the strategy

This strategy will help reduce behavioral problems because students misbehave when

they do not understand the concept, cannot read, or get bored during class. This strategy can

also help students to focus on the entire lesson and improve their academic success. Then

providing stretching and jumping jacks between the lesson can also support this strategy.

How the recommendation aligns to the school's vision

We want to make sure our students always love and appreciate learning with our school

vision in their hearts and mind. As we stated in our vision, this simple recommendation can

help our students with self-confidence and creativity.

Reflection

For this clinical field experience, I observed two teachers, one of them teaches third

grade Language Arts and the other one teaches Art class in our building. Before I went to

observe their classes, I informed them that this is not an official observation but to give them

some suggestions to support their instruction.

My first observation took place in third grade Language Art class, and they were

working on writing a continuation story to a narrative. The classroom environment was

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welcoming and engaging. She has many anchor charts, word walls, student procedures, class

rules posted in the classroom. She also has books and other resources such as iPads and

Chromebooks to help students in their Language Art class. However, there were very little

student participation and interaction during the lesson. The teacher did most of the talking,

while some students were putting their heads down, and some were playing with little toys in

their hands. Also, the teacher used a video to support the lesson, but the video was too long,

hard to understand, and had bad quality. What caught my attention was that the teacher did not

stop the video and check for understanding or to see if everyone was listening or watching.

After the first observation, I went to the art class and observed a kindergarten class.

The class was well organized; all materials were labelled, the lesson was interactive, the

classroom environment was student-centered and welcoming. They were learning about Gustav

Klimt and his artwork from a golden phase. The classroom procedures, rules and expectations

were posted where students can see. The attention catcher was, “Mona (Teacher) -Lisa

(students),” which I liked. During my observation, only one area of improvement that took my

attention was the differentiation of the lesson to meet the needs of all students.

Recommendations

The two suggestions that I could give to our third grade ELA teacher were to transfer

her class to a positive student-centered environment instead of a teacher focused environment.

The other suggestion would be to improve planning to engage students until the end of the

lesson, and to be able to encourage student participation. My only suggestion to the art teacher

would be to differentiate the lesson, and maybe provide extra tools to empower the students
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who need extra support. During my observation, some students were trying to create their

artwork, but they needed a little help or the use of different tools or utensils to help them.

Feedback Received from the Principal Mentor

My mentor principal said all my suggestions were targeted, and he would suggest the

same if he did the observations. He supported the idea of providing one or two suggestions

because he did not want to overwhelm the teachers; he wanted them to focus on specific, and

targeted areas to improve their instructions.

Sharing Strategies with the Teacher

My mentor principal suggested that I only share two areas of improvement with the

teachers to be positively encouraged without overwhelming them. He also suggested that we

need to recognize the effort, challenges, and hard work of our teachers, so to do that, I should

point out procedures and activities that are working well. Professional Standards of

Educational Leaders state that influential leaders establish an environment where each school

community member feels respected, cared for, and trusted, and where learning and positive

nurturing emotional growth is happening (NPBEA, 2015). As leaders, we are responsible to

support and guide our teachers as much as we can without discouraging them from providing

their full support to our students.

Reference:
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National Policy Board for Educational Administration (2015). Professional Standards for
Educational Leaders [White paper]. National Policy Board for Educational
Administration. https://www.npbea.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Professional-Standards-for-
Educational-Leaders_2015.pdf

Jones, L. (2007). The student-centered classroom.

Chaney, W. R. (2005). Top-of-hour break renews attention span. Teaching Professor, 19(6), 1-5.