In the first video, it seems like there is a lot of side conversations going on. When the teacher is standing up at the front of the classroom, then she is the one that is in charge/controlling the students. By asking questions and prompting the students, it’s another example of how she is controlling the classroom. She asks a lot of open ended questions and cause/effect questions to encourage higher order thinking. She calls on individual students to answer the questions, encouraging the students to participate, while also making sure that each student understands what is happening in the lesson. I feel like she does not have complete control over the students though, because they seem (as I mentioned before) to be distracted by other things and not fully focused on answering her questions. In this classroom, the students aren’t necessarily praised for their correct answers; however, with their correct response, then the class can move on to another question/topic that the teacher has. Their classroom is shaped more around a discussion rather than a lecture. This sort of environment could be more engaging for the students, who will answer the questions because they are involved in the discussion and they want to demonstrate their knowledge. There is a lot of communication going on between the students and the teacher (but it’s more of a discussion and question/response communication). This teacher sort of encourages intrinsic motivation by providing the students feedback on their answers. Sometimes the students don’t know the answer when called upon or they guess the wrong answer, but they are comfortable enough in the environment to not feel failure and humiliation by being incorrect.
In the second classroom, the teacher has organized the classroom into groups. She points out the good things the students are doing. She clearly has all the control over the students. She has established a lot of rules. It’s interesting that she only selected a few students and the rest of the students are staying at their seats to finish their other assignments. I feel like the students at the desk are distracted by the activity going on in the front of the classroom. When a student does something well, such as raising his/her hand, she congratulates them for following the rules. When students at the desk aren’t paying attention, she attempts to keep them back on track. Students in this classroom are motivated because they will get praised or rewarded by their teacher for doing work well. On the other hand, when they are not following directions, the teacher will call them out and they will be (potentially) embarrassed in front of the entire classroom. Students in this video are motivated based on the system of rewards/punishments. I believe that because of the age of these students, it may be more difficult to give them control. When they are not guided by the teacher, they easily become distracted (by talking or listening to what’s happening and not doing their assignment). The teacher has separated the students into clusters by their desks, and they are also separated based on which small group they belong to.
I agree with your analysis of these two classrooms. The first video shows the teacher doing a good job of giving control to the students in such a way that encourages the students to learn. They are encouraged to learn and feel more positively about themselves because the teacher is not bearing down on them in a controlling manner. This works very well in this classroom. In the second classroom, I agree that it would be quite difficult to give over control to students of this age in that situation. The teacher made a good decision of keeping control of what is going on in the learning for this classroom.
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