respond to non-academic challenges facing individual students? 16 work with English language learners (ELL/LEP/ESL)?

Classroom Management

Directions: For each statement below, please mark the response that best describes what you do or would plan to do in the classroom. There are no right or wrong answers, so please respond as honestly as possible.

Scale: 1=Strongly disagree 2= Disagree 3=Slightly disagree 4=Slightly agree 5= Agree 6=Strongly agree

1. I nearly always intervene when students talk at inappropriate times during class. (BM1) 3. I strongly limit student chatter in the classroom. (BM2)

4. I nearly always use collaborative learning to explore questions in the classroom. (IM2) 6. I engage students in active discussion about issues related to real world applications. (IM3) 10. I nearly always use group work in my classroom. (IM5)

12. I use student input when creating student projects. (IM6)

15. I firmly redirect students back to the topic when they get off task. (BM8) 17. I insist that students in my classroom follow the rules at all times. (BM9) 18. I nearly always adjust instruction in response to individual student needs. (IM9) 21. I strictly enforce classroom rules to control student behavior. (BM11)

23. If a student's behavior is defiant, I will demand that they comply with my classroom rules. (BM12)

24. I nearly always use a teaching approach that encourages interaction among students. (IM12) Please answer these open-ended questions completely. There is no right or wrong answer. 1. What is classroom management? Why is it/is it not important?

2. What more do you feel like you need to learn about classroom management to be more effective? Please be as specific as possible.

3. Describe (or imagine) a time when you used an effective classroom management skill and how that impacted the classroom.

4. From where/who did you learn your most effective classroom management strategies?

5. Does classroom context (e.g., student demographic, school structure, community) play a role in classroom management? Why or why not?

Consider your current teaching context (e.g., grade level, subject, students). You prepared two main activities for one class period. The first half of the class is primarily lecture-based on a new concept, with students taking notes on the material. The second half of the class, you will have the students

154 work in small group stations, between 3-4 students per group.

1. In the middle of the lecture, you notice two students in the back of the room throwing a ball of paper at each other every time you turn you back. No other students in the class notice. List two different strategies that would help to resolve this situation.

2. After explaining what each station is about, you release the students to go to their designated station. Only a handful of students get up from their desks, with a large contingent of students chatting with one another and discussing non-academic related items. List two strategies that you could attempt to manage the class.

Beliefs About Urban Student

This section asks you to reflect on your expectations and skills. Please indicate your personal opinion about each statement by marking the appropriate response at the right of each statement. Scale: 1=Strongly disagree 2= Disagree 3=Slightly disagree 4=Slightly agree 5= Agree 6=Strongly agree

1. The amount a student can learn is primarily related to family background.

2. If students aren't disciplined at home, they aren’t likely to accept any discipline at school. 3. When I really try, I will be able to get through to most difficult students.

4. A teacher is very limited in what he/she can achieve because a student's home environment is a

large influence on his/her achievement.

5. If parents would do more for their children, I could do more. 6. If a student did not remember information I gave in a previous lesson, I would know how to

increase his/her retention in the next lesson. 7. If a student in my class becomes disruptive and noisy, I feel assured that I know some

techniques to redirect him/her quickly.

8. If one of my students couldn't do a class assignment, I would be able to accurately assess

whether the assignment was at the correct level of difficulty. 9. If I really try hard, I will be able to get through to even the most difficult or unmotivated

students.

10. When it comes right down to it, a teacher really can’t do much because most of a student’s motivation and performance depends on his or her home environment. Please answer these open-ended questions completely. There is no right or wrong answer.

1. Urban students generally score lower on achievement tests in comparison to their suburban counterparts (National Center for Education Statistics, 1996). List two reasons why you believe this gap in educational achievement exists.

2. The per pupil expenditure in Michigan urban public schools is nearly double that of any other Michigan public school districts (MDE, 2012). Given additional funds, how could urban schools best allocate money to improve student achievement?

3. Should teachers adapt to how students are used to learning or should students adapt to teachers to best improve achievement? Explain and consider how to address teachers/students who are not willingly to adapt.

Consider your current teaching context (e.g., grade level, subject, students). You are teaching a new concept and wanted to assess the information that they have learned. You create a new activity that has students move to different areas of the room according to their answers. You explain the

155 directions to the students, in which one student complains, “Why don’t we just tell you our answers instead of moving around?” Other students agree. What are different ways you could respond to the students and to the lesson?

Subject Specific Knowledge

In this section, we ask you to rate statements that indicate what you believe and know about reading, writing, teaching, and learning in your content area (e.g., science, mathematics, social studies). You should think of each question in relation to classes and content area you are currently teaching. Scale: 1=Strongly disagree 2= Disagree 3=Slightly disagree 4=Slightly agree 5= Agree 6=Strongly agree

1. A teacher is obliged to help students improve their reading abilities.

2. Teachers should teach content and leave reading instruction to reading teachers.

3. Knowing how to teach reading in your content area should be required for teaching certification. 4. Teachers should be familiar with the theoretical concepts of the reading process.

5. Only teachers of English should be responsible for teaching reading comprehension. 6. Every teacher should teach students how to read material in their content area.

7. The primary responsibility of a content teacher should be to impart subject matter knowledge. 8. A teacher should be responsible for helping students comprehend at an interpretive level as well

as a literal level when they read both symbols and print.

9. Teachers should help students learn to set purposes for reading and how to monitor their own success.

10. Teachers should feel a greater responsibility to the content they teach than to any reading instruction they may be able to provide.

11. Teachers who want to improve students’ interest in content area reading should model their own use of reading to obtain information or to solve problems in that content area.

12. How clearly a content text is written matters most in how a reader comprehends a content passage.

13. Text reading in a content area requires a special understanding of how language is used in that specific content area.

14. Content teachers are responsible for teaching technical content vocabulary.

15. Content teachers are responsible for teaching students to learn words of many different types to