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EDUC 304

Classroom Challenge 1 Scenario – Room Arrangement

Consider you are a fall semester student teacher who will be graduating in December. The lingering thought in your mind is: What will the job market be like after graduation? Will there even be any openings at this time of year? Employment options seem limited for a mid-year assignment, so you are thrilled when you are invited to interview at a local elementary school for a long-term substitute position.

Before your interview, you decide to review your university’s conceptual framework regarding disposition of teaching. Your instructors look for certain dispositions in each student as outlined by the acronym SCRIP: Social Responsibility, Commitment, Reflective Practice, Integrity, and Professionalism; you want to demonstrate SCRIP in your teaching as well. Since your goal as a teacher is to model Christ-centered behavior for your students, you wonder how you might be able to apply SCRIP in this new position.

When you meet, the principal suggests you visit the 4th grade classroom to which you may be assigned. You can hardly wait. Real students and real activities! You make your way through the halls, peer through the doors of other classrooms, and you see captivated students with engaging teachers. Can this be real? Can I really be this blessed with such a great environment? Your legs move faster as you make your way down to “your” room.

You pull open the door on the verge of announcing “I’m here!” but are quickly taken aback when you scan the room. Where are the captivated students? Where is the engaging teacher? This room does not belong in this school; surely, there has been a mistake.

You slowly step inside and begin to take note. You immediately notice 2 boys in the back playing basketball with the trash can? You also notice 2 girls in the corner braiding their hair behind the bookshelf. You make a mental note that this corner needs to be reconfigured because it is hidden by the bookshelf.

You make your way over to the teacher, Mrs. Rushton, to introduce yourself. After exchanging pleasantries, she tells you that she will visit with you shortly and invites you to explore the room. You are eager to do that because you want to assess this classroom that soon could be yours.

You decide to make your way around the room clockwise. When you ask the girls in the corner about their assignment they say that they have been working together on their Civil War timeline but finished the portion that was due at the end of class. As you pass the first row of desks you notice that the desk in the back is a swing-bar desk. You learned about those in school but have not seen one, so you lean down to investigate. Oh, it’s broken; you wonder which student needs it and how he or she is managing without it.

As you look out over the room you are encouraged to see that academic activity is taking place! About half the class is still working on the timeline assignment, and most of these students are engaged. The students sitting in this cluster are working individually, and you notice that one of the students is using a speech recognition device to help compensate for dyslexia. There is one group of four students in the second cluster of desks excitedly sharing Civil War facts as they seem to diligently work on their timeline with each other.

In the last cluster of desks there are five students. Two of them are standing at the side of the two end desks, swaying back and forth as they lean over their work, and the other three students are working individually. One of these students, a girl, has her hands over her ears and a privacy screen on her desk; the agonized look on her face tells you that she is struggling to concentrate. You notice that periodically she gets up to visit with the two students standing at the end of the cluster. During one of her visits you ask her name; it is Leila. You make note that Leila likes to visit with her friends.

As you make your way to the last section of the room you cannot help but feel uncomfortable; it is very crowded! In addition to the backrow basketball game taking place, two students are playing civil war computer games, and two other students are playing math games. One of the students appears to be the runner for the group because he keeps going across the room to switch out games from the bookshelf, and there are bunches of cords sprawled on the floor. You silently pray for patience as you step over the clutter and make your way to the group table.

All the seats at the group table are either bouncy seats or swivel chairs. You note that this table is large but that there is plenty of room to accommodate these chairs. Students here are working next to each other but not necessarily together. They are on task, and the noise level is appropriate. Occasionally, one of the students picks up the hand pointer laying on the table and uses it to point out things on other students’ timelines and “teach” them.

After the classroom teacher finishes her task, she pulls something out of her desk and hands it to the student sitting next to her desk. When she walks over to you, she explains that it is a fidget cube; sometimes this student taps his pencil vigorously, and she keeps it handy for him so that he will be less distracting to others.

Mrs. Rushton shares with you that Leila’s level of concentration has fallen considerably since the start of the year. She is easily distracted now when she’s required to complete assignments, and her self-control to refrain from visiting at inappropriate times is all but lacking. Mrs. Rushton is considering that Leila’s off-task behavior may be a factor of her seating location in the current arrangement of the room and thinks she needs to come up with a supportive room arrangement to help Leila be more productive. She’s curious how you would rearrange the classroom if you were offered the position. Leila needs a supportive environment to encourage her to spend more time on her schoolwork and to produce more completed assignments.

As you listen to Mrs. Rushton your mind races back through your education classes. You know there are strategies that will help Leila reach the goals her teacher has for her. After some thought you consider three ideas. You know that the distractions surrounding Leila must be removed; you already have some mental notes about those from your walkabout. You also know that instructional materials and the teacher must be accessible to her; she will fare better if she knows that she and her teacher can get to each other more easily than they currently do. And finally, you know that the desks are not in the best configuration; the arrangement must fit the purpose of instruction.

As you mentally revisit your conceptual framework and SCRIP, you tell Mrs. Rushton that you do have some ideas. You think back to your walkabout and consider what your proposed room arrangement will look like. Why is the current arrangement not working for Leila? In consideration of Christ-centered teaching, how can you arrange this room to demonstrate SCRIP in support of Leila?

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