Mckenna Modisher

Dr. McAllister

ED 327

April 3 2024

CM Reflection Paper

I was in two different classrooms this semester. One was math with Mr. McKinley and

the other was a resource room with Mrs. Burkle. The classrooms both looked very similar and

different at the same time. In Mr. McKinley’s classroom, there were about 25 students with 11

boys and 14 girls. The boys in this class can be very loud when sitting near the right people.

These girls tend to be more quiet but when they are sitting next to their friends, sometimes they

can get distracted talking. They have a seating chart but as the semester has gone on the desks

have all changed and moved around so they have been able to choose their own seats. With that

being said, my last lesson I taught was hard because they were all with their friends in groups. In

Mrs. Burkle’s classroom, there are 6 students and they are all female. With it being such a small

class, the students walk in and have the freedom to sit wherever they want. The students are

really well behaved and always walk in knowing what they should be doing.

The first part of culturally responsive teaching that I saw in the classroom was the role as

a “warm demander.” This is Mr. McKinley’s first year teaching in the middle school. He told all

of his parents and students at the beginning of the year that he may not be the best teacher and

use the best teaching method but the biggest thing he wants to do is build that relationship with

his students. You can tell that he really has worked hard to be that teacher his students can go to

if they ever need anything. He has shown that he cares about how his students do and encourages

them to do the best they can. In Mrs. Burkle’s classroom, she has really made her space a space
the students can come to whenever they need. When working in a resource room, you may need

to work extra hard to build that “warm demander” because of the fact that some students may

struggle with talking to their teachers like that. She is very flexible with what her students want

to do, allowing them to sit where they are comfortable and when we are reading, if a student was

struggling with a word, she would encourage them to try again when reading before she stepped

in and helped them with the word.

The second part of culturally responsive teaching for classroom management I want to

talk about is establishing rapport with the students. Mr. McKinley worked really hard to really

get to know the students in his classroom for more than just their grades and names. He got to

know what sports they play, what they enjoy doing and brought that into the classroom. The first

thing I learned about one of the students was this girl that walked in and he immediately asked

her how her wrestling meet went. That really stuck with me because she was the only name I

knew for the longest time because it was hard to learn names with only going once a week but

hers was the only name that I remembered from that first day. Mrs. Burkle built a good rapport

with her students by knowing all these different things about her students and really showing she

cared. Students will just mention names to her about their friends or family and Mrs. Burkle will

know exactly who they are talking about. She also has snacks in her room for her students if they

get hungry in class. She really has a good relationship with her students where she trusts them

when she leaves the room for a minute and trusts them to leave the room if needed.

The third part of culturally responsive teaching for classroom management I want to talk

about is promoting mutual respect. In Mr. McKinley’s class, I felt like some of the students

didn’t have as much respect for him as he did for them. Some of his students would go behind

his desk and just start touching a lot of things and to me that isn’t respecting his privacy. I think
that it is okay to go behind his desk or through his things if he says that it is alright for them to

do that, but going there when he isn’t paying attention isn’t very respectful. Mr. McKinley

respected their things by not going through their stuff when they were at their desk so I think that

mutual respect of personal space and boundaries was not quite there. When it comes to Mrs.

Burkle’s classroom, I think there was so much mutual respect. She had a really good set of

boundaries that I could see. I saw Mrs. Burkle’s interaction with a student that wasn’t in the class

period I was in the classroom with but in another one of her class periods and he had come to tell

her that he was going home. She saw that he looked upset and she said to him it’s ok, I am not

disappointed in you which when he responded I know, I am just disappointed in myself. That

small interaction between them just showed that they really have respect for each other and know

each other well.

The last part of culturally responsive teaching for classroom management I want to talk

about is their slogan “Make Great Choices” that is a community-wide practice. Mr. McKinley

really worked to have his students make great choices. He encouraged them to be responsible

and prepared for class. He encouraged them to be encouraging for each other and to be mindful

of others. He really had a huge impact on his students and the “Make Great Choices” slogan.

Mrs. Burkle also worked for her students to be responsible and respectful. She taught them to be

ready to learn and truthful with things. They both really pushed for their students to follow their

community-wide practice of “Make Great Choices.”

Overall both of the classrooms I was in were very inclusive and worked hard to build a

comfortable learning environment by bringing in pieces of what they know about their students

lives into the classroom. They showed that they really took the time to get to know their students

and wanted to show their support. Classroom management was very easy for their classroom
because of the relationships they had with their students. At times, the kids would act up and Mr.

McKinley would have to say something to them but in reality all of the students knew what he

expected of them and followed the directions.