Teacher
Jamie Dreyling is a fourth grade teacher at Normandale Hills Elementary School. Jamie has set up her classroom environment to welcome and recognize each student. The connections that Jamie fosters with and between students result in optimal learning and engagement.Instructional Strategy
If you tour Jamie’s classroom (video below), you will hear music gently playing in the background. Lamps are placed throughout the room lighting various spaces including desks, tables, pillows, wobble stools, bean bags, and a couch. Students celebrate each other’s progress through photos and works that are framed and hung around the room. One corner of the room highlights a quote of the week; students select quotes and vote on a classmate who exemplifies that quote.Jamie has designed her learning environment to set students up for success as they move into different academic areas. During her math block, Jamie uses a station rotation model that allows students to practice the learning target for the day in multiple ways. One station allows for small group learning with the teacher, while other stations encourage hands-on learning with partners and practice on the Chromebook. Procedures and routines are clearly established as students quietly select a learning space and get right to work on their station objective. Jamie sounds a bell between stations and students know to quietly and quickly progress to their next station.
If students finish their station objective early, they can move into a choice menu that allows for practice around multiple standards covered in the current unit. This geometry menu highlights some of the choices students can make including creating a poster in Google Slides, going on a quadrilateral hunt, creating lines of symmetry with pattern blocks, utilizing Quizlet to practice vocabulary and more. Menus allow students to represent their mathematical thinking using the concrete, representational, abstract learning progression. Menus further meet student needs by including learning options which are tailored to multiple intelligences (musical, interpersonal, bodily-kinesthetic, etc.).
Jamie believes in giving her students choice and finding ways for them to build connections with each other within the classroom. This provides students with daily opportunities to grow academically, socially and emotionally.
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