How Do You Settle Down a Class?- Group 3 FW

Is there a way to grab the attention of a group of students all at the same time? During fieldwork today, group three taught the students today about plant reproduction. The teachers grabbed the students attention by telling them to touch their face, then cheek, and mouth to "shhhh". I really liked this because the students caught on quickly and it made them focus on the teachers. I have learned through this experience that it is important to have different ways to catch the students attention. It is difficult to control twenty-five or more children and have their full attention, so it is important to have some techniques that could settle them down and make them focus throughout the day. I learned that students respond better when different methods are used rather than just one. For example, when my group and I were teaching we tried clapping and having the students repeat. This technique worked the first couple of times, but became less and less powerful as it was used. The teacher of this fourth grade class has a button in the room that begins to play classical music at it is pushed as a way to have the students focus. I was intrigued by this because I've never seen that in a classroom and I thought it was a good idea. I also noticed the teacher assistant in the room had a different way of grabbing the students attention. She would say clap once if you can hear me, clap twice if you can hear me and so on, I thought this was another cool way to quiet down the class because all of the students quickly catch on.  It is so important to have the classroom quiet and on track before the lesson begins because then the students and teacher are all on the same page. I was interested in this aspect of teaching so I found this article about 25 different ways to obtain children's attention in a school setting. I really liked this article because I was able to see the different and unique ways teachers can gain the attention of the students in the classroom. Although it could be tricky getting the attention of a room full of 4th grade students, there is a way to do it! Through this session at fieldwork I have learned some new ways to help the students settle down and have observed what students respond better to.