WRONG..don't chew at all! (well potato chips anyways!)

just a funny

Almost there : )

I'm about half way through my observation hours and I've realized it is very important to learn as much as you can about specific strategies for teaching your particular subject matter. "In addition to knowing general teaching strategies, it is also helpful to develop strategies specific to the topic you are teaching (or the game in my case) - strategies are collectively known as pedagogical content knowledge" (Ormrod, 14). You can tell an effective teacher by how flexible they are in their approach to their instruction. Realizing half way through a lesson that you have too many rules for a game - to be able to adapt and change the game to fit the students is important. Kill or adapt the game before it kills you and makes you totally crazy trying to explain it over and over again. This will help the students get a better understanding of the material. Another important thing is to know names! It's hard to keep your class in order if you can't call the specific names that need to be reprimanded, or that need to be congratulated.

One crazy monday

Today I went to observe, the Monday after thanksgiving break, let me tell you..it was hectic! The kids were so chatty and energetic. Energetic - good, chatty - not so good. They started a new lesson which was capture the flag. As the teacher explained the game, multiple hands went up. They had question after question for him. After awhile I realized there were too many rules for the age group in which we were working with. With a younger group you want to keep the games as simple as possible; you can start to add rules as you go along but starting them off with too much information is a no-no. I also realized as you explain the game don't just use words, use examples. Pick a few students to do a "run-through" of the game, to give the students a visual. This provides students with a different way to learn. Some may be visual learners whereas others are better just listening, in a verbal sense. Widening your options in which to teach the information will help your students learn.

Rarely ever do you get a younger child that doesn't want to participate in gym class. They usually love this time and this is when they become the most interactive with the class at hand. One student misbehaves and is sent to the principals office (negative reinforcement - something is taken away to create a positive behavior). They don't want to misbehave knowing that, in consequence, they will miss gym time. This negative reinforcement may not work for a math or social studies class because the bad behaviors brings them to the principals office and out of the classroom which is where they want to be, so the behavior will reoccur.

The other day during observation we were playing floor hockey on scooters and one kid didn't understand how to play so instead of the teacher explaining how to play, he asked the class. This not only checked the classes understanding but it got the whole class involved. Creating a community atmosphere in which peer collaboration and mutual support are integral parts of classroom learning and achievement. This allows students to actively participate and also allows them to learn and communicate with one another. The students learn to work together, as a whole, and as a team.

busy beeees = )

"Piaget believed that children are naturally curious about the world and actively seek out information to help them understand and make sense of it. They continually experiment with the objects they encounter, manipulating them and observing the effects of their actions" (Ormrod, 29). This is especially true with disabled children. They have an attention span worth about 2 minutes, maybe. It is important to have many activities prepared for these groups. When attempting to teach a class full of children with different trouble areas, it is extremely hard to get each student to do the same activity. The teacher I observe said if you can get half the class to do the same thing you can call that a successful day and trust me I believe every word!

adapt, adapt, adapt!

I noticed that the students get bored, quickly. Being a good teacher knows when to "kill the drill before it kills you." For students with high energy levels need less down time, or they will start to act up. Not only do my teachers adhere to the misbehaved parts and are stern when they need to be but they also adapt to the different personalities. One must be especially warm and attentive to the more shy students. You can tell this if the student seems to come to class everyday with no friends or doesn't join in conversation with others, they tend to isolate themselves. Again, you need to adapt to the different personalities to get the most out of your students.

and it continues :)

"Children's inherited temperaments influence the learning opportunities they have and so also influence the environmental factors that come into play in shaping their personal and social development" (Ormrod, 65) Teachers must be able to identify the way students behave in the classroom to be able to adapt and shape their instruction and classroom management. The teachers that I observe do this well; I can tell they have put a lot of thought into how to be able to control each and every student, what works for them and how to make their class a place for learning. I noticed as different students misbehaved the teacher had a different way to approach each problem, and it seemed to work quite well.

First day!

Today was my first day of observation and let me tell you I learned quite a bit. I got to work with grades k-5 including a special education class. There were two teachers present and you could definitely tell which teacher had the upper hand by the way the children listened and acted towards them. We’ll call him teacher A. He came off really stern but still had room to joke around and make the children laugh; which is very important. They listened when he demanded to be quiet but still ran up to him and wanted to hug him when leaving the classroom.

The special ed. class included children with aspergers, which I have never worked with and the instructors were very good at adapting their instruction. Although they don’t necessarily need to modify the academic curriculum they still need to make accommodations. For example, today in class a child had an accident. I mean most of them wear diapers but the point is to know what to do in emergencies, and these teachers did.