Planning for Instruction and Teacher Controlled vs Student Centered Classrooms Blog Prompt 2

I think that the statement "Teaching with a lot of control is easy. Handing control over to the students, and planning for every possible outcome, adapting instruction where they take it, is extremely difficult, but worth it"shows that there can be a balance of challenges and simple tasks in the classroom, which includes having control as the teacher but also allowing children to have control as well. Children benefit from taking control in the classroom because it allows the teacher and student to build a positive relationship. The teacher is showing that he/she has a high level of trust in his/her students and cares about the students as individuals. Also, the teacher is helping create a supportive learning environment in which students feel comfortable taking risks, and help students feel that they belong and are accepted. Giving control to students also helps students form good relationships with one another by giving them opportunities to work together and to get to know one another better. Giving control to students, planning for every possible outcome, and adapting instruction where they can actually take control is difficult yet creates a positive environment within the classroom. Classrooms do not need to be perfect and mistakes must be made by both teachers and students in order to learn and grow. In order to productively hand over control to students while still support learning, teachers can manage the classroom with how the children sit and the cues that are given which means "everyone is silent" or "talking is aloud," but at the same time allowing the children to choose their activities and lead group lessons as well, but still enforcing the classroom rules.

In my fieldwork experience, since the students were so young in first grade a lot of the control was the teachers. However, during silent reading time the students were allowed to choose their spot if they chose appropriately and would not be distracted by their peers. The teacher would lead the main math and reading comprehension lesson, but when it came to the calendar time, the children were in control and led the class in group discussion about what the day and date was and how many days of school there have been counting by tens and ones with groups of sticks.

Most of the time the children were more motivated during calendar time because their peer was the one leading the group. Math was always a duller lesson because the students did not enjoy being lectured about math, but when it came to answering questions they would race to raise their hands first to answer it and be noticed in the classroom. I think that the balance was good in this classroom because motivation was kept constant as the control was being switched from teacher to student and back to teacher.