A Teacher's Role In The Classroom

A teacher’s role in the classroom is to provide the students with the best education possible. All teachers vary in their teaching styles, their classroom community, and educational framework. In this essay, I will discuss my philosophical beliefs on teaching and learning language, the components needed to create a positive classroom community and how the balanced literacy framework can be used to teach and learn language arts in a grade three classroom.

Philosophical Beliefs

A major component of a child life is learning a language. Through language, students are able to communicate their thoughts, feeling, and experiences (the program of studies). Language learning is continuous throughout a child’s life by always building on to previous

Each of these conditions (immersion, (demonstration, engagement, expectations, responsibility, employment, approximation, and response) support the teacher and student in learning and provide a context within which to learn (Rushton, Eitelgeorge & Zickafoose 2003).

In relation to Brian Cambourne's conditions, I believe that establishing a positive classroom community is essential for creating a successful classroom. Students should always have a safe environment in which they belong and are actively engaged in their learning. The classroom should be a place where students are immersed in literacy and are provided with many opportunities to discover different forms of text in ways that apply to their world. Within my classroom community, I will model the skills required for language and the students will be active participants in their learning. Students should be given the opportunity to share their opinions and discuss any issues that may arise. As a teacher, I will contribute to the classroom community by providing differentiated instruction and choices for individual differences. I will have students practice the skills they have learned to become more efficient (Tompkins, Bright, & Winsor 2015). I will make sure that my students always feel important, encouraged daily and are supported. In my classroom community, the students

For the purpose of this essay and in preparation for my future classroom I will be combining aspects of different frameworks to create my own. I will be using components from the Balanced Literacy Model and add aspects from Lucy Calkins reading and writing frameworks. The balanced literacy model is composed of three major components: Reading Workshop, Writing Workshop, and Word Work. Reading Workshops include opportunities for independent reading, guided reading, and shared reading. In a scheduled week, The Reading Workshop is exercised for 60 - 90 minutes daily through one or more opportunities. Within the classroom routine, students will read to self for fifteen minutes every day after lunch. This allows students to have downtime and settle back into the classroom environment. On Tuesdays and Thursdays students will be encouraged to read to someone or listen someone read (we would read to our grade one buddies once a week). Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays would be the days where shared reading would occur. Through shared reading, we will be looking at many ways of instruction such as whole group activities, mini-lessons, mentor text, comprehension, small group activities, and guided reading. The last component Readers Workshop is word work. Word work can be done during shared reading or whole group instruction. Writing Workshops are practiced less often, but for a longer period