Design-A-Classroom Paper
Due via D2L by 11:00am on Thursday, Nov. 19
Teachers, School Psychologists, and Educational Psychologists spend a lot of time designing and evaluating classrooms. In this paper, you will design your own classroom and classroom activities based on the course material you have learned. You are free to be creative with this paper within the following parameters:
You must back up your decisions about your classroom using the theories and research findings we have discussed in class. Failure to do so will result in a poor grade.
You should address the following elements of your classroom: How you will address diversity; How your knowledge of development (cognitive, social, and/or moral) will influence the decisions you make about your classroom; How your knowledge of theories of learning will influence the decisions you make about your classroom; and how your knowledge of theories of motivation will influence the decisions you make in your classroom.
You must write using proper grammar, punctuation, and spelling. No matter how good of a writer you are, you should proofread your paper yourself and have another person proofread your paper.  There are tutors in the Academic Enhancement Center who can help you with this as well as e-tutoring available on D2L.
Plagiarism will not be tolerated. If you intend to use the exact wording from a source, you must quote and properly cite it; paraphrasing must also be cited. Please talk with me if you have questions about this. Plagiarism will result in a grade of zero for the assignment. You may not turn in a paper that you have written previously for this or any other classes.
Your paper should be between 4 and 5 pages long, double-spaced, and is due no later than the beginning of our classs final exam period, as scheduled by GGC, which is Thursday November 19 at 11:00am. Feel free to turn your paper in early.
Write in proper APA style:  cite your sources properly, both in-text and in a reference page. It is fine for our textbook to be your only reference. A title page and abstract are not required for this paper.
**I am happy to look at a draft of your paper up to 1 week before it is due. Email me your draft before 11:00am on Thursday November 12 so that I will have enough time to return feedback to you and you have time to turn that feedback into a final draft. Please use email for this instead of D2L, as it is easy for drafts that require feedback to get mixed up in the dropbox with drafts that have been turned in for a grade.**

Example Design-A-Classroom Outline
I.    Introduction: tell your reader whats coming. You can write this paper as an academic paper or you can be creative. Students in the past have written as if they were an elementary school teacher introducing the classroom to parents at the beginning of the year, or taking the role of a school counselor introducing his/her role within the school to students and parents.
II.    How I will address diversity: write approximately one page about ways that you will address diversity in your classroom.  Be sure to relate your decisions about your classroom to concepts and theories that we discussed in class.
III.    How my knowledge of theories of development will influence decisions I make: write approximately one page about how you will base class activities, structure, etc. on what you know about cognitive, social, and/or moral development.  Back up your decisions for your class with the theories discussed in class.  You do not have to discuss every theory from class; pick two or three to incorporate into your paper.
IV.    How my knowledge of theories of learning will influence decisions I make: same pattern as above- about a page, draw on theories.
V.    How my knowledge of theories of motivation will influence decisions I make: you get the picture ?
VI.    Conclusion: bring it all together!