1 Interview with a Teaching Professional University of Phoenix 2 Question to teacher s aide is can you give me some examples of typical quick decision ns teachers make on a daily basis Answer from teacher s aide My quick decisions are about where to move next continue on the lesson just as planned or modify as we go based on the feedback I m getting Perhaps we need to spend a little more time in discussion before starting an assignment or maybe I need to come up with something quick a good story related to the topic or some friendly competition to get them a little more motivated or connected into the topic I can honestly say I rarely teach the same lesson the same way to two different classes because every group has its own dynamic and needs Question to teacher s aide what were the 5 most difficult school related decision ns you made this week and what made them difficult Answer from teacher s aide 1 Dealing with a child s anger management issues when his parents won t help us out with his behavior It was made difficult to deal with because his parents say we hate to discipline for something that happened during the day when we don t pick him up until hours after the incident 2 What to do with a developmentally delayed student It was made difficult the student is so sweet but has no friends because she doesn t know how to play with others is gone 1 2 hours out of my room a day 3 How to work with a difficult colleague I did not talk to the director about my co worker because she mentioned she was already made aware of the situation by a parent 4 What to do when one of the special teachers doesn t show up at her scheduled time Anytime a schedule is thrown off by people not being reliable makes things a mess 5 how to keep 25 kids entertained not going crazy indoors because it has rained for 2 days we are confined to our classroom This is difficult since we are confined to our classroom 6 One student threw up in the library Difficult since I had to clean it up and maintain control of the class at the same time 7 I have a young person with Crohn s or colitis their single most difficult problem in school is their need to use the toilet frequently and without warning due to sudden attacks of pain and diarrhea Since I have to decide if the problem is real or faked 3 Question to teacher s aide what was the impact of those decisions on the classroom environment and were the decisions effect Answer from teacher s aide I did not talk to the director about my co worker because she mentioned she was already made aware of the situation by a parent The child s behavior is going to be taken care of so most decisions were effective I haven t decided on any of the rest of them except the one with the difficult colleague I do what I always do Just grin and bear it and be grateful for the other 3 who are so easy to work with Which 2 children get the limited amount of Speech Language support the school has to offer The impact is fairly negligible on the class as a whole but the other children who could benefit from the SLP support might or might not be impacted The 5 most difficult decisions starting with number 1 belongs to classrooms are multidimensional Number 2 belongs to classrooms are unpredictable Number 3 belongs to classrooms are unpredictable Number 4 belongs to classrooms are unpredictable Number 5 belongs to classroom events are simultaneous Number 6 belongs to classrooms are unpredictable Number 7 belongs to classrooms are multidimensional I agreed with decisions the teacher s aide made Most responses would be from a learned or instinctual aspect I have discovered a useful tool that I agree with and will probably use in the future to respond to most situations in the classroom You can use the Six Thinking Hats in almost any problem solving activity that you might encounter in the classroom or in life in general 4 1 White Hat state the facts students are talking when Mrs Dyck is talking there is noise so that others are distracted or can t hear students don t know what to do after Mrs Dyck has given directions many students get silly or off task 2 Red Hat states the emotions Mrs Dyck feels offended Students are frustrated because they can t hear directions Those talking enjoy joking around and being heard 3 Black Hat negative aspects time is wasted learning is compromised those who legitamently have the floor feel that listeners don t care about what they are saying chaos in the classroom 4 Yellow Hat positives of the situation are examined everyone gets to say what is on their mind it can be fun you don t have to wait until you speak and therefore don t forget what you what to say not just the smart kids get to speak 5 Green Hat creative ideas that come with seeing the problem in a new light Mrs Dyck will be more aware of the amount of time that she talks Mrs Dyck will try to include interaction from many different students not just the smart kids students will work on resisting the need to say everything that comes into their mind They will ask themselves if this is on topic and if this needs to be shared at this time There needed to be further discussion on how students would work on this problem students will think about whether their comment will interfer with other people s learning we will keep these charts up so that we can refer back to the learning of this moment and reassess how we are doing 6 Blue Hat Sum up what is learned Mrs Dyck learned that she needs to limit the amount of time she uses Talking as a form of teaching Mrs Dyck needs to involve all students in discussion She needs to look for the one who rarely offers comments or is quietly waiting to be picked to answer Mrs Dyck needs to realize that some students need think time before they are ready to contribute to a discussion Allowing time for these students to think is important part of class discussion so they don t tune out students now realize that when they talk when others are talking it makes the person talking feel like a fool or unappreciated students realize that just to get the laugh of the moment they are jeopardizing other people s learning students learned that speaking whenever you want show a lack of self discipline and that not everything that goes through our minds is worth sharing teacher student needs to revisit this topic and check how we are doing Dyck B 2009 5 References Dyck B 2009 Retrieved May 10 2009 from http www teachnet com how …