Classroom Management

     I think my cooperating teacher at Newington does extremely well with classroom management.  We observe mostly during large group instruction on the carpet and she has each student sit in an assigned spot on the carpet each time.  The children are supposed to sit criss-cross apple sauce and always face the teacher when she is talking.  If a child is not sitting the way they are supposed to or being very wiggly, she sends them to their desk because they will "learn better" from there without the distractions on the carpet.  She keeps the attention of the kids because she uses interactive games and noises on the smart board and has a very animated and positive attitude when teaching.  Also, every once in a while, she will have the students stand up and sing or dance along with a song or just simply stand to keep from sitting in one area for too long.  I think this is very appropriate, because young children cannot fully learn if they are sitting for long periods of time.  They need physical activity to keep them engaged in the lesson.  If there is a peer conflict, the teacher will encourage the students to work it out themselves.  For example, last week a student kept poking the student sitting next to him.  The student complained to the teacher and she replied with "well why don't you tell him that it hurts you when he pokes you and you would like him to stop doing so."  I think this method is very effective, because it shows the students that some problems should be worked out among themselves instead of just resorting to tattling to the teacher.  
     I would not necessarily change any of her classroom management methods because to me, they seem to work very well with her students.  The teacher concentrates more on reinforcing good behavior instead of calling out bad behavior.  For example, if the teacher sees a student following directions and being good, she will call attention to that particular student and say "I like the way ___ is following my directions", so in that case other students will model that particular student's behavior.  She also does a positive class behavior reinforcement by putting a marble in a jar if a student is exhibiting good behavior and at the end of the day, if there is a certain number of marbles in the jar, the whole class gets a jar.  This motivates the students to follow directions and encourage their classmates to follow directions because their "prize" depends on everybody's behavior.