Hi my name is Justin Sutton.  I am a Sophmore Middle Level Education major at the University of South Carolina.  I want to pursue a career in High School Special Education along with coaching football at the high school where I teach.  I am doing a project for EDPY 401 with Chris Craft.  I chose the video "More Time to Teach" because it shows effective ways to have more time in the classroom to teach without having to be distracted by troubling students.  It provides alternate approaches to deal with the students who seem to be preventing other students from learning.  This video could be applied in showing new teachers some possible ways to effectively manage his or her classroom.  I hope you see this video as insiteful as I did.  Feel free to comment if you feel compelled to do so.

Video Response:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jblon_VouYk

 More Time to Teach: Secondary Version

     Getting through to today's students in the classroom is no easy task to say the least.  As the world and society is changing so are the attitudes and behaviors of the students we teach.  During the when every grade was in one classroom students knew not to misbehave because the teacher really had no law restricting her of what from of punishment she could use on her students.  Now with all the new laws set in place for certain ways you can punish your students and ways that are prohibited the students tend to act out of line more frequently.  Normally it is not too hard to discipline a student but the main problem is it distracts the rest of the class while your trying to punish or reprimand them.  Not only does this distract from other students learning it also takes time of your lesson plan which could further put a strain on the classroom. 

     Resolving these matters without distracting the rest of the class can be a tricky and difficult task.  Sometimes cueing the student when he or she is acting out of line will work and they will get the message to straighten their act up.  The sad fact is most of the time cueing a student when they misbehave just does not "cut it" it may incite them to keep acting out of line.  In the video it shows the woman teacher giving the two problematic girls a ultimatum of either to behave and finish their group work or she was going to split them up.  This technique is very effective because the teacher talks to the two girls on a personal level without distracting her other students.  The key in giving an ultimatum is to always follow through with it no matter how much the student complains or promises to act right.  This will show them you mean business as a teacher and you will not tolerate misbehavior in your classroom.  This is a good example of removal punishment because once the two girls act out again after the ultimatum is given the teacher "removes" their right to work together and this is something they both desire.

     Teaching is a very warm and fulfilling job at times, but other times it can be just the opposite and students can drive you crazy in the classroom with their misbehavior and total disregard of your rules.  You have to develop patience as well as strategies to eliminate or limit the misbehavior that occurs in your classroom.  This is no easy task and many teachers give up their profession because they just cannot handle students acting out while they are trying to teach, this is where patience comes into play and you must be calm while disciplining your troubled students.  The strategy used in the video may not work for all educators because every teacher is unique and certain things may bother one teacher while those things may not bother at all another teacher and vice versa.  This video is just a suggestion to teachers who are having problems in the classroom with students acting up and effecting the way you teach and they way your students learn.

Works Cited

 Ormrod. Jeanne.  "Educational Psychology Developing Learners."  Ohio:  Pearson, 2006.