ATL Tyrone OConnor 3797803

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Teaching Philosophy / Classroom Management Plan

As a pre-service teacher, my aim is to learn the skills and knowledge needed to be an effective
teacher in the classroom and practical environments. I believe that as a teacher you need to be
authoritative and respectful in order to be seen as approachable to your students. You need to be firm
and stand your ground when you expect your students to follow instructions. However it is critical
that children also enjoy their learning experience, therefore classrooms also need an element of fun. I
have found that I am going to have to take the ideals from several different learning theories in order
to run my classes effectively in turn allowing for all the students to learn more efficiently. Some
educational theories that I will rely on as a physical education teacher are Piagets constructivism and
Watsons behavioural theory. In the classic classroom, I also believe that Rote learning and Gardners
multiple intelligences theory could be vital models to base a class curriculum around.
Thirteen: Ed Online affirm that Piagets constructivism theory states that students learn things on
their own merits with a teacher guiding them to achieve the desired learning criteria. Constructivism
is an important part of teaching because it allows students to take responsibility of their own learning
and become knowledgeable in an area of particular interest. This is a great way to construct a
physical education class as it provides students with the opportunity to try new activities using their
own skill set whilst simultaneously developing others. Constructivism enables the students with the
chance to ad onto the pre-existing knowledge, using their own problem solving techniques and desire.
This is not the only learning theory I will use to run my classroom (2004).
During a physical education class I also intend to draw upon elements of Watsons behaviourism
theory. Physical education can be very trying on the teachers vocal chords.(Burton 2009)
Behaviourism incorporates operant conditioning which includes positive and negative reinforcements
and punishments.(Burton 2009) I intend to delve into the ideals of the behaviourism model when
students do not follow rules or guidelines that are clearly stated at the start of a lesson i.e. Only
addressing the issues as the arise and not creating them, hence limiting excessive amounts a unneeded
vocal communication and information that is challenging for the students to process. It will also be a
skill I will use to get students out of any bad habits they have when performing certain tasks e.g. If a
student was to use their hands during the course of play in soccer match. I would address the student
who touched it with their hands and ask them to perform a reinforcement task such as star jumps. This
is designed not to punish but just to reinforce actions.
During a classroom setting I will try to incorporate several different mediums of teaching so that
each different student and different learner will be able to gain something from the lesson. When
teaching a health class as my second method, I would like to use a combination of visual and verbal
techniques such as a PowerPoint presentation to summarise for the students what the learning
intentions are for that day. To allow for a break up of information, I will incorporate some activities
throughout the class and also include videos relevant to the subject to allow for an improved
understanding. As Thirteen: Ed Online explain the educational theory of Gardners multiple
intelligences theory. Gardner suggested that everyone is a different kind of learner and I believe by
having different media types and activities throughout the class there is a better chance that student
engagement levels will be on average higher than that of a single structured learning environment. I
would also try to make the content as relevant to the students life as possible. Students understand
real life situations more than theory, so if they are able to relate to a real life example their own
understanding will be more easily linked to content.(2004)
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As a teacher, you are responsible for the wellbeing of every student in your care. You need to make
sure they are safe at all times and also gaining something from the class that you are delivering to
them. As a physical education teacher you need to think of all safety considerations throughout the
class and make sure that everyone is involved. To be expected, there will be students who will not
want to participate and for these students, I would provide them with a worksheet to do while
everyone else in the class is participating. As you are responsible for every student in your care, it is
important to never be afraid to ask for help from your fellow teachers. These include, staff that are in
student management roles or school management roles i.e. The Principle, coordinators, office staff,
etc. It is your responsibility to ensure that every student benefits from the lesson, at times it is a hard
task for a teacher to achieve. It is a good idea to seek help from others when you are unsure of what to
do in a situation.
If a student misbehaved in a class that I was taking I would firstly warn them to not behave
inappropriately again or incur a consequence. If they misbehaved again, in the classroom I would
move them away from their friends in the hope that their behaviour would improve. In the gym I
would send them to sit out of the activity so they were unable to distract other students. If they
continue to misbehave I would send them out of the class and continue with the class. Once the rest of
the students were completing the activity, I would talk to the misbehaving student about their
behaviour in order for them to recognise what they had done and understand why it is inappropriate
behaviour. If they continue to misbehave after that I would then have to resort to either a lunch time
or after school detention. After that, if they still are misbehaving in future classes, I would then talk to
student management and the Principle about the next step or possible other reasons for this behaviour
and if it was consistent in other classes too. I would follow these steps because it is important to give
the students the benefit of the doubt and give them a chance to change.














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References
Thirteen: Ed Online. 2004. Constructivism as a Paradigm for Teaching and Learning. [ONLINE]
Available at: http://www.thirteen.org/edonline/concept2class/constructivism/. [Accessed
15/04/2014].
Thirteen: Ed Online. 2004. Concept to Classroom: Tapping into multiple intelligences - Explanation.
[ONLINE] Available at: http://www.thirteen.org/edonline/concept2class/mi/index.html.
[Accessed 15/04/2014].
Burton, L., Westen, D. & Kowalski, R. 2009. Psychology. 2nd ed. Australia & New Zealand: John
Wiley & Sons.