Class Management Plan
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Course
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21st, January 2013
Introduction
A classroom management plan is core to all educational settings. By creating an appropriate learning environment, students will have an opportunity to learn well. A conducive environment for learning goes beyond punishing students for wrongdoings, rather, it involves setting the best tone in a specific class, managing student behaviours, making and using interesting and engaging curriculum, and ensuring the participation of all students in the learning process. This is a sure way of ensuring that the learning needs of all students are equally met. The goal of implementing this class management plan is to therefore, ensure that students have a balanced performance in their learning, including good performance in written work as well as tests. This is a problem facing the learning process presently due to the adoption of the whole language program, which this classroom management plan seeks to solve.
Addressing Parents’ Complaints
The drop in students’ scores in tests has worried most parents, who have launched their complaints to the institution. To address this effectively, the parents need to be convinced that this will change, and that they will no longer use their money on extra tutorship. A conference between teachers, parents and students will be necessary to discuss the factors that resulted in the situation, as well as the steps in place to be undertaken to change this situation. Teachers have a role to play in handling parents’ complaints. First, they should receive the complaints positively. After all, they influenced the predicament in one way or another. Admitting to the complaints and assuring parents that steps are underway to address the situation, is the best way the teachers can handle the complaints. Teachers will therefore, need to adopt good planning and teaching practices and objectives in order to ensure balanced results of the learners. Most importantly, learners should be taught to understand concepts, but not to memorize them, as this has an adverse effect on their test performance (Hoy & Hoy, 2009).
Need for Changes
Beyond doubt, the learning process will need a couple of changes. Although the previous learning approach embraced was new, it led to an imbalance in the performance of students. Therefore, the whole language approach will have to be altered and not fully relied on to bring a positive effect on the learning process. The altering of the approach is meant to make it better and effective in ensuring that students have a good and balanced performance in both their written work and tests. The fact that the newly introduced learning approach did not deliver wholly is a reason enough to initiate changes.
Before deciding on the new changes to be adopted, it is crucial that different information be used to help in the decision-making about the most appropriate changes that could be adopted. First, it is important to learn from mistakes, therefore, the teachers have to re-examine their teaching plans, and how they approached the new program. They should do this with the aim of identifying loopholes in their teaching strategies, which could have possibly contributed to the poor scores. Identification of these loopholes will form a basis for the new changes that need to be implemented. In addition, it is beneficial to research about some institutions that have in the past adopted a similar approach, and learn how they went about it, and if it proved effective for them or not. By doing this, a few points may be borrowed from institutions that used the program successfully, to be integrated into the institution’s program (Hoy & Hoy, 2009).
In order to decide on the needed changes, different parties have to participate in the process of decision-making, since a single party cannot make decisions. Teachers are the greatest players in this kind of decision-making as they have a big influence on the learning process. On the other hand, the parents will also be involved in decision-making as they also influence the life of the students. Curriculum experts may come in handy to offer professional advice on the overall situation. Therefore, collaboration between curriculum experts, teachers and parents will most likely result in changes that will see better performance in students, since parents and teachers interact with students, therefore, are better placed to understand student needs, and curriculum experts are knowledgeable in curriculum matters (Hoy & Hoy, 2009).
Stance on Phonics versus Whole Language
These two types of reading instruction continue to generate much debate among educators, including the public. The phonics method pays more attention to dissecting of unfamiliar words into parts, and then joining up these parts to develop words. This learning process begins with the students’ mastery of alphabets and sounds. This provides students with a form of decoding that enables them decode new words they encounter. On the other hand, the whole language method pays more attention on reading, especially from children literature. This method does not have wide restrictions in language use as the case of phonics method. Much attention is paid to reading and language meaning as it applies to students’ cultures and lives (Hoy & Hoy, 2009).
Both methods have been criticized on various grounds. Whole language is criticized because it does not allow the new learners to acquaint themselves with words; instead, learners start out with learning. On the other hand, phonics is mainly criticized because it limits learners’ creativity and discovery, since they are taught a formula to decode words. This therefore, limits the learners’ natural development as readers. These two approaches have their own strengths and weaknesses, therefore none can be said to be better than the other (Kaura, R, n.d).
Choosing between the two approaches can be a hard task, because they all have strengths and weaknesses. Therefore, a mixed approach is better than adopting only one approach. This is because in a class, there are two types of learners, the visual learners and the auditory learners. Visual learners will benefit much from the phonetic approach, while the auditory learners will benefit from the whole language approach. In order to meet the needs of both groups, both phonics and whole language approach should be adopted. Besides, these two approaches have strengths that if combined, can lead to great outcomes in the learning process.
References
Hoy, W. A. & Hoy, W.K. (2009). Instructional Leadership: A Research-Based Guide to Learning
in School. New York: Pearson Education.
Kaura, R. (n.d). Phonics vs. Whole Language. Retrieved 21 January 2013
http://buckhoff.topcities.com/phonics_vs_whole_language.htm
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