The program standard 5.2 falls under the category of learning environment . The standard states, “managing classroom procedures through transitions occur smoothly, with little loss of instructional time.” To me this standard means that expected routines and behaviors have been put into place that facilitate smooth calm transitions that do not distract from students success.
During my internship thus far I have witnessed some of the smoothest transitions that I have seen within the educational realm. My mentor teacher has found a way in which her and I can both facilitate transitions without skipping a beat. The key to these morning and afternoon transitions revolve around predictability and consistency. Every morning and afternoon our students enter and depart with a song. In our classroom during the morning and afternoon transitions we play a strategically picked song that guides students to calmly and quietly make their transition. The song is positive and upbeat, doesn’t have many words so students don’t get distracted singing, and is just long enough for them to get their jobs done. When the song is over the students know that they should be seated and working,
The song title is Send me on my way and is posted below.
This is a great strategy to utilize during transitions because it builds another element of stability and doesn’t add anymore time. This strategy has shown me one way to cut out chatter and reemphasize to students what is expected during transition time. This is just one tool that I have learned and can put into my classroom management tool kit. Not only am I learning from this strategy, but the students are profiting as well. They are learning about routines and expected behavior during transitions, which is a skill that will stick with them for the rest of their schooling. Unfortunately this tool is one that can only be used in certain transition times because if we played a song during every transition we would have no time to teach; but under these lengthy transitions it works perfectly. It would be cool to implement some kind of beat or sound transition that could be implemented in quick transitions. This would provide the same idea of consistency and predictability but in a shorter time span.
Sydney Clark 