Through the assigned readings for this week, I learned that teachers typically ask 300-400 questions per day. If we are asking that many questions, doesn't it make sense that we put a lot of thought into how we are asking these questions? If we are taking that much time out of day in the classroom, we should make sure that our questions are effective.
I found a video that sums up perfectly the ABC's of Effective Teaching.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=vboA-n0b7ls
As future educators, we need to continue to think about how we will use questions in our classroom. It is my hope that I can take the pointers from this video as well as from the reading and learn to pose questions that will not only make sure the students are paying attention, but also to make sure that they are taking what the are learning it and applying it in a way that makes sense to them.
Sunday, September 29, 2013
Thursday, September 26, 2013
What's so Interesting about an Interest Approach?
This week I also taught a brief section of a lab out of my Poultry Unit for my Animal Science class that I will be teaching in the Spring. We were to teach our Interest Approach section of the lesson plan. I honestly never would have guessed I would spend the amount of time I did preparing for this lab. The Interest Approach really does make or break the whole lesson. I quickly realized that if I did not develop something that would really catch every students attention, I would risk wasting an entire class period for some of my students.
When I finally stepped up in front of the class to teach, I was confident in my material and my plan of action. However, I made a mistake from the very beginning. My activity was to give each student an egg to examine on their own. In hindsight, I should have given clear directions before I placed eggs in front of the students. I also should have been more strict on time. Instead, I gave each student an egg then began to give them the directions for the entire activity. I had classmates who wanted to start and egg fight, had questions about the activity, and a few other things. Most of these situations could have been avoided if I gave direction first, then gave strict time to complete the task. When I use this to teach my students, I plan to give the eggs, then tell the students they have 15 seconds to observe the outside of the egg and write down what they see. After that I will have everyone crack their eggs open at the same time, and then continue with the observations of the inside of the egg.
I did conduct both my First Day of Teaching Lab and my Interest Approach Lab on the same day, so I only had a short amount of time to reflect on my first experience before I jumped into my second. As a result, I still feel that I need to work on engaging the students more and vamping up my own energy. However, I do believe I got better at cutting out filler words such as "okay!"
I am really looking forward to continuing this learning process!
When I finally stepped up in front of the class to teach, I was confident in my material and my plan of action. However, I made a mistake from the very beginning. My activity was to give each student an egg to examine on their own. In hindsight, I should have given clear directions before I placed eggs in front of the students. I also should have been more strict on time. Instead, I gave each student an egg then began to give them the directions for the entire activity. I had classmates who wanted to start and egg fight, had questions about the activity, and a few other things. Most of these situations could have been avoided if I gave direction first, then gave strict time to complete the task. When I use this to teach my students, I plan to give the eggs, then tell the students they have 15 seconds to observe the outside of the egg and write down what they see. After that I will have everyone crack their eggs open at the same time, and then continue with the observations of the inside of the egg.
I did conduct both my First Day of Teaching Lab and my Interest Approach Lab on the same day, so I only had a short amount of time to reflect on my first experience before I jumped into my second. As a result, I still feel that I need to work on engaging the students more and vamping up my own energy. However, I do believe I got better at cutting out filler words such as "okay!"
I am really looking forward to continuing this learning process!
First Day of School
While I was originally planning for my First Day of School lab, I thought that it really wasn't going to be a really challenging task. I knew that I had to go over my Classroom Expectations, Procedures, and Consequences, as well as get to know the students. However, as the time began to get closer, I found myself getting more and more nervous. I had ran through my little lesson in my head over a dozen times, but I still felt inadequately prepared when I stepped in front of my peers to give the lesson.
The very first thing I noticed was that I said "okay" about a million times.
"okay, so today we are going to...," "Okay, good, now we are going to...," "So those are my expectations for you, Okay?"
I was horrified that it kept coming out of my mouth, but it just seemed to be my go to word of the day! I learned that I need to be more cognitively focused on what I want to say next, so that I don't start using filler words such as okay. If I had developed better transition questions to ask, I would have eased into my different topics much smoother.
As I stammered my way through my lesson, I also found myself stuck in the same place for a large majority of the time. I believe that the best way to keep the students engaged is to stay engaged with them, and that is something that cannot always be done from the front of the classroom. In the future I plan to try to be more actively aware of where I am and what I am doing while teaching.
While I was designing my lesson I wanted to do something to get the students up and moving. I didn't want to have a normal first day of class where the students sat in their seats while I read my expectations to a wall of blank stares. To try to add variety I asked the students to design a skit to act out one of my classroom expectations. I think that the idea was great, however, I do not feel I executed it properly. I wanted the kids to have a lot of energy and enthusiasm for this activity to really be fun, however, I didn't start the class with bursting enthusiasm on my end. I see now that I cannot expect anything from my students that I am not willing to do either. Why should they be excited about something that I obviously am not that excited about? I could have changed the whole dynamic of my lesson if I had picked up my energy level from the very start. I will challenge myself to remember that as I move forward both in this lab setting and then as I transition into my classroom!
Overall I learned a lot from this first experience teaching in front of my peers. I was unsure of how life like this experience would be, but I am grateful that I am able to test the waters first with my peers before being thrown into the high school classroom!
The very first thing I noticed was that I said "okay" about a million times.
"okay, so today we are going to...," "Okay, good, now we are going to...," "So those are my expectations for you, Okay?"
I was horrified that it kept coming out of my mouth, but it just seemed to be my go to word of the day! I learned that I need to be more cognitively focused on what I want to say next, so that I don't start using filler words such as okay. If I had developed better transition questions to ask, I would have eased into my different topics much smoother.
As I stammered my way through my lesson, I also found myself stuck in the same place for a large majority of the time. I believe that the best way to keep the students engaged is to stay engaged with them, and that is something that cannot always be done from the front of the classroom. In the future I plan to try to be more actively aware of where I am and what I am doing while teaching.
While I was designing my lesson I wanted to do something to get the students up and moving. I didn't want to have a normal first day of class where the students sat in their seats while I read my expectations to a wall of blank stares. To try to add variety I asked the students to design a skit to act out one of my classroom expectations. I think that the idea was great, however, I do not feel I executed it properly. I wanted the kids to have a lot of energy and enthusiasm for this activity to really be fun, however, I didn't start the class with bursting enthusiasm on my end. I see now that I cannot expect anything from my students that I am not willing to do either. Why should they be excited about something that I obviously am not that excited about? I could have changed the whole dynamic of my lesson if I had picked up my energy level from the very start. I will challenge myself to remember that as I move forward both in this lab setting and then as I transition into my classroom!
Overall I learned a lot from this first experience teaching in front of my peers. I was unsure of how life like this experience would be, but I am grateful that I am able to test the waters first with my peers before being thrown into the high school classroom!
Sunday, September 15, 2013
Defining Student Objectives
As I go through my journey to work to prepare myself for my quickly approaching student teaching experience, I believe that the task of clearly stating objectives should not be taken lightly. How can we truly assess our students if we never have a set goal for them to reach? Starting a unit of instruction with no plan of action and no end goal would be like setting out to solve world hunger with no plan at all. If I were to walk into my classroom in January and begin teaching my students without stating any sort of objectives, I would end up frustrating myself as well as my students.
"Objectives...help teachers decide what is truly relevant and worthy of students' learningn versus taht which is "nice to know." (Newcomb et.al). It is all too easy for a teacher to get excited about a topic and go off on a tyrant that may in fact be a waste of the students educational time. We only have a very limited amount of time with our students in the classroom, and I do not want to waste even a minute of it. By clearly establishing objectives from the beginning, I will better be able to lay out my lessons to ensure that I am covering the most important information.
On the other side, having objectives clearly stated for the students at the beginning of each class allows them to see up front what is going to be expected of them. According to Whittington, clarity at the beginning of the class gives students a "raod map" to follow. This road map relieves anxiety and frustration that students may experience without that missing piece that helps make sense of their educational journey.
As I take this information and put it into practice I cannot help but remember my days in the classroom. It seemed that all too often I would sit in a class, unsure of what was expected of me, and stress about it. Often time the stress and frustration lead to me "checking out" in the middle of the lesson, then trying to teach myself the material while working through my homework. As a future educator, it is my hope to truly capture my students interest and keep that interest by providing them with the "road map" they will need to make it through my class. Education should not be a stressful thing. I do not want my classroom to be the cause of my students stress. I believe that working to develop clearly stated objectives each and every class period will help to accomplish this goal.
"Objectives...help teachers decide what is truly relevant and worthy of students' learningn versus taht which is "nice to know." (Newcomb et.al). It is all too easy for a teacher to get excited about a topic and go off on a tyrant that may in fact be a waste of the students educational time. We only have a very limited amount of time with our students in the classroom, and I do not want to waste even a minute of it. By clearly establishing objectives from the beginning, I will better be able to lay out my lessons to ensure that I am covering the most important information.
On the other side, having objectives clearly stated for the students at the beginning of each class allows them to see up front what is going to be expected of them. According to Whittington, clarity at the beginning of the class gives students a "raod map" to follow. This road map relieves anxiety and frustration that students may experience without that missing piece that helps make sense of their educational journey.
As I take this information and put it into practice I cannot help but remember my days in the classroom. It seemed that all too often I would sit in a class, unsure of what was expected of me, and stress about it. Often time the stress and frustration lead to me "checking out" in the middle of the lesson, then trying to teach myself the material while working through my homework. As a future educator, it is my hope to truly capture my students interest and keep that interest by providing them with the "road map" they will need to make it through my class. Education should not be a stressful thing. I do not want my classroom to be the cause of my students stress. I believe that working to develop clearly stated objectives each and every class period will help to accomplish this goal.
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