I am fortunate enough to teach at the Middle School at Parkside in Jackson, Michigan where I teach sixth grade Social Studies. Parkside has around one thousand students and they are in grades six through eight. Of the six class periods that I teach, they are all the same, which is Individuals & Societies 6. That is essentially another name for sixth grade Social Studies except it is the International Baccalaureate (IB) term as we are an IB school.
Throughout my six class periods, I have 160 students in my classroom. I have as much as thirty and as low as twenty-three in a class period. The students I see in my classroom have very different backgrounds. It is a very diverse school. I also see a large range in terms of learning and where students are. There are no honors sections of my class, so in one class period I could have students who are reading at a high school level and some that are reading at a third grade level.
As you can see below, my classroom is set up in the shape of a “U”. There is a small “U” inside a larger one. I have tables and chairs for the most parts, but there are also a few desks. There are a few reasons that I really like this setup for my classroom. The first is that I can easily walk in between the tables and make one round and see every student. It is very efficient for me in that regard. Also, students are sitting directly next to someone. In my classroom, I like them to work with their table partner or get help from them if needed. Additionally, if I want them in larger groups, for the most part, students on the inside can just flip their chairs around and work with the table behind them to create a group of four. There are still some adjustments that need to be made because there is not the same amount of students on the inside as there is the outside, but it works out pretty well.
I believe that every classroom should have a learning target and I can statement. To me a learning target is essentially the topic that students will be learning about that day. The I can statement is telling them what they should be able to see or do by the end of the hour to be successful. If the class period comes to an end, and they are nowhere close to being able to say the I can statement truthfully, then there needs to be some reteaching done. It is also something that can be referred back to throughout the hour. In my classroom, after our bell work, we go over the learning target and I can statement for the day so everyone knows what they will be learning about. I keep these up for the entire week so students have the ability to go back and look at previous days to refresh their memory on what we did.
There is a data wall in my room. As you can see, it is broken down by class period. The data wall is always changing. I try to update it with the most current test or quiz that we do in class. It is not always the same data. Sometimes it is class percentage or sometimes it is percent of students who get a certain grade or higher. The students become very interested in where their class finishes in regards to others. Sometimes I make it a competition to see which class does the best and the winning class will get something like a piece of candy. It also helps students take ownership of their learning. They see if they helped their class out on the data wall, and if they didn’t, some decide to retake the assessment to improve.
One thing that is always changing or being updated in my classroom is my word wall. With so much new vocabulary being brought to the students, it is important to put these words up to constantly remind them what some of our key vocabulary words are for the unit. The students know that at some point they will be tested on these words, and in order for them to fully understand the material we are learning, they need to know what these words mean. They are useful for the current unit, and ones in the future as well.
A couple of projects that I have my students do include a map project and population pyramid project. For the map project, students have to create a map of their own country. Students can name it and make it look like whatever they want. Included on the map needs to be everything from the checklist. They also have to write a report that goes along with their map. It basically describes their rationale for the decisions they made on their map. For the population pyramid project, students have to create three population pyramids as well as a write a report. Students pick a country and are given a sheet with the data needed to make a population pyramid. The three pyramids created are for the current year and two future years. This is done so the population growth of that country can be analyzed. That is where the report comes in. Students have different questions or parts to answer and they all revolve around analyzing the population growth of their country.