Blog 4- Morning meeting

My CT never enacted a morning meeting, although I have been in other classrooms where morning meetings were enacted. The biggest takeaway I have noticed observing other classrooms is that morning meeting times vary as well as styles vary. In some classes I have observed, morning meetings were less than 5 minutes, the students stood up, got on the carpet, said good morning class, and had about a minute's worth of announcements before returning to their seats. I have never been in a classroom where the morning meetings had four components: greeting, sharing, group activity, and morning message. Although from observing other classrooms as well as our peers' morning meetings, I have quickly seen how fun and useful these meetings can be in the classroom, even if it’s only for 5 minutes.

In a classroom I was in two weeks ago, the teacher got to the front of the classroom and said, “Okay Owls, it's time for our morning meeting, I will dismiss you by table group and you will sit on the carpet.” She then said a greeting to the class, “Good morning, Owls!” to which the students responded, “Good morning (teacher)!” She then went over some basic announcements for the day and what was going to happen. This helped the students remember important aspects of the day and understand the schedule that was going to come for the day. She then dismissed the students by table group and the students went back to their seats to work on their bell work. I noticed that before the meeting, students were asking many questions about what to do, what the day was going to be like, and the ice cream party they were having at the end of the day. After the meeting, the students showed clear signs of calmness and there were no more questions about the day since the teacher gave the students the schedule for the day. Students then were working more on tasks since they were back into their routine. These students were first graders, so setting out the schedule for the day was a very beneficial thing for them to stay on task.

When we enacted this routine student engagement was well. It was obvious that the students were ready and excited for summer and since this was a summer theme morning meeting, the theme itself was able to get the students excited and ready to participate. I found that having an engaging theme and getting the students excited right away improves participation throughout the whole lesson. We started this lesson by going over the noise levels and the attention-getter. Then I dismissed the students by grade level, kindergarten through 5th grade, the students got up in a circle, and we began the greeting. The greeting started with the student saying, “Hi my name is..” with the class responding, “Hi..!” Then the student shared something they are excited about coming up this summer. Then I dismissed the students by grade level so the students could sit by peers who were in the same internship level as them. Once the students were seated, we started the group activity. The students were to talk about something they struggled with over internship and how they overcame that, they had three minutes to discuss with the morning meeting leaders walking around and listening to the group’s conversation. The students then

shared their struggles and how they overcame them and I wrote it on a poster paper. When done with the poster paper, we discussed the common theme, building relationships and communication is so important! We then went on to our sharing activity, students scanned the QR code and wrote down their biggest takeaway from EDU 4504 or internship, we then discussed the hierarchy of interventions which was a common theme that students put down. We then closed with our morning message and handed out muffins to the students to thank them for a great semester! From sharing activity- problem solution chart.

Morning meeting slides from our presentation.

The most important thing I have learned throughout this process is the importance of consistency. Although this routine was implemented on college students, elementary students need consistency and a good routine in the morning. School can be scary and there may not be consistency in other aspects of a student's life. There are many more benefits to having a morning routine, including building connections with teachers and students as well as students and students. One of my biggest takeaways from this semester is the importance of relationships, “Teachers who engage in more positive interactions with students are generally more effective teachers and create emotionally positive classroom climates in which students show more respect to the teacher and to peers” (Levin & Nolan, 99) Morning meetings are a great way for teachers to build a personal relationship with their students. Greeting the students by name each day and asking them what they did over the weekend is a great way to begin to build relationships with students. Doing this also helps classroom management, “students feel safe and are continually brought into making judgments, expressing their opinions, and working cooperatively” (Kohn) Even when we began doing this at the beginning of the semester in EDC 4504, it helped me build relationships with my peers and helped us get to know one and other.

Personally, I think we made this meeting too complicated. My group and I had a hard time trying to come up with activities and ways of doing things that had not been done before. Being the last group to go, we struggled with this and tried not to copy other groups' ideas. We ended up coming up with the idea of grouping students by grade level, although there are not the same number of students in each grade, so some students were working with peers in the grade above and below them. Also, since we did not start right away, we did not let everyone know to sit with their grade level. I think this would have made the transition time way smoother if we had already gotten into our groups for the grade level. Next time I would not make it as complicated and have the students sit in specific seats at the beginning of class instead of moving around in the middle. We also had to move back to our seats since we forgot to mention to grab your phone went, we moved around. Next time, just remembering the little things would make the routine smoother.

FEAPs that connected with the morning meeting include 2A, 2B, 2C, 2E, and 2F.

2a- Organizes, allocates, and manages the resources of time, space, and attention. We did this by walking around the room while the students were discussing the prompt (space), setting time limits for how long we get for each activity, and having an attention-getter that we practiced at the beginning of the routine.

2b- Manages individual and class behaviors through a well-planned management system. We did this by setting a plan of what we wanted from our students when we wanted them to talk, what voice levels they should be on, and our expectations for them. We also used attention-getters and proximity interventions when students were not on task.

2c- Conveys high expectations to all students. We did this by clearly communicating our expectations to each student. We made sure there were no questions about what they were supposed to be talking about and where they were supposed to be.

2e- Models clear, acceptable oral and written communication skills. We did this by explaining our expectations and directions orally as well as on our slides.

2f- Maintains a climate of openness, inquiry, fairness, and support. We did this by giving all students a chance to share and express their thoughts and feelings about the internship and this semester in a judgment-free zone.

Kohn, Alfie. Beyond Discipline: From Compliance to Community. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 2008.

LEVIN, JAMES. Principles of Classroom Management: A Professional Decision-Making Model. PRENTICE HALL, 202