Work in progress

This past week I have started trying to focus a little more on my 'Documenting Student Learning' table that I created to help me keep track of the things that I notice about each student. I have found myself having somewhat of a difficult time with this. It seems as though when I am observing and trying to make really thoughtful notes about the students, I am less engaged with them. So, then of course once I notice this I try and correct it as soon as possible. The problem is though that once I am completely engaged in the students, I forget to write things down. I am still of course making observations all of the time, I just assume that I will remember the observations later, which of course I do not. Then I feel like I have to make a choice between writing down my observations and being 100% with my students.....and of course the latter always wins out, which is why I still don't have many observations about the students. I think what makes writing down my observations difficult for me is that I am always doing something with the students. Usually I am working with a small group on an activity that requires a lot of attention. I have to continually explain their task, motivate them to continue, remind them of behavior expectations, expand their thinking with questions prompts, and the list goes on and on. As I head into the next week, I am going to try and come up with a better way to do the observations while still being completely engaged with the students.
Any suggestions? Have you had this problem? What do you do to get your observations down on paper?

Signs of Personal Growth

One conviction that I came into the classroom having was the notion that everything must be stated explicitly regarding rules and expectations. The whole school rule at LU is that "No one has the right to interfere with the learning, safety, or well-being of others." Although this rule does not state explicitly all of the rules of the school (what exactly might interfere with someone's learning?), the students understand that their actions do affect others and that they cannot negatively affect the environment of the other individuals of the school. What I have learned from LU and its main overarching rule is that it may not be exactly what the rules are or how explicit each of the rules and expectations are stated, but how you deal with broken rules or strict rule followers. Lately, I have found myself looking around the class and being amazed at how well-behaved these kindergartners are, many of whom never stepped inside a school until one month ago. I think that as long as the students understand that their teacher truly cares about them and wants what is best for them, then you will be on the right track when it comes to classroom management. Clearly the students in my kindergarten class understand that their teacher cares for them, and through some trial and error and testing the limits, the students are turning into pretty well-behaved five and six year olds.