Week 6

Classroom interruptions unfortunately occur. Do these affect your instruction? How do you get students back on track? (prompt)

Unfortunately, classroom interruptions occur often. I have found that the most disruptive, and also the hardest to refocus the students afterwards, has to be the fire drill. These fire drill interruptions force students to leave the classroom for an extended amount of time, and it is very hard, if you get to go back to the classroom, to get the students refocused on the lesson. Another interruption that I ran into not too long ago was the student picture days. During English class, students were to go to the gymnasium to get their pictures taken for the yearbook. By the time the students went to the gymnasium, waited, got their pictures taken, and returned to the classroom, the class time was significantly diminished to almost half of the normal time. To counteract this loss of time, I rescheduled their activities, for the classes that this affected, so that they were in the computer lab working on an assignment that would only require the allotted time left in class. This seemed to work well, as the students worked diligently on their project, and almost all of the students finished and turned in their work before class ended. Hopefully, you (as a teacher) know when these kinds of interruptions are going to happen, so that you can plan your lessons accordingly. If not, adapt-it’s what being a teacher is all about.

Other more common interruptions that I have dealt with include announcements and student behavior. Announcements seem to happen at least once per class period. The most aggravating factor of this particular interruption is that they happen at the most random times, and often distract you and your students from the current train of thought; this often leads to getting off task, or having to retrace your steps to get your lesson back on track. Student behavior is perhaps the most destructive interruption; mostly, because this often affects other students and can be very detrimental to student-student and student-teacher relationships. Students often act-out to receive attention, and how a teacher handles the situation can often determine the outcome of the situation. The best intervention in student behavior problems is prevention; I believe it is best to have a pre-determined set of rules and policies that are introduced from the beginning and enforced throughout the semester(s). If this procedure is followed, I have found that students are well aware of the consequences to their actions and are therefore less willing to act up/challenge the rules.