April 20th, 2015
- "We teach people, not lessons." -Brother Magleby
- How can we make learning better in the church?
- Look at the big picture; take off the blinders when lesson planning.
- To become, you have to make mistakes.
- If your students have no questions, you're doing something wrong.
"How to Change Education" Ken Robinson Video
- Kids are born with desire to learn
- Desire to learn dissipates when we begin to educate them
- education SHOULD NOT just be a "delivery" system
- Teaching=art form
- Be able to excite your students--create passion
- Get them actively involved in teaching each other
- People teach themselves if you can create the right environment
- WE are the education system
April 22nd, 2015
- As teacher, be a wonderer not an "answerer"
- Help students to find their own problems to solve
- Create environment where students understand that questions=welcome
April 27th, 2015
- The realization that someone sees you sends a powerful message--greet students personally every day
- Gathering creates atmosphere for the day
May 6th, 2015: Shumway Academy Day
Shumway Academy is a school that teaches a lot of lessons outdoors, and the kids learn about things in nature. The lesson I was assigned was about bears and hibernation, and I was REALLY nervous to teach! Long story short things didn't go as I expected they would--I taught 5-14 year olds instead of just the 1st-3rd graders like I'd been expecting, and I honestly hardly taught at all. My partner and I were paired with one of the lead teachers, and he took over almost everything. So while it wasn't much teaching experience, it was still neat to see how the school worked and be outside for a change.
- Everything we do in the classroom should have a very specific purpose
May 8th, 2015: Team Teaching Fort Sumter with Haden
My partner Haden and I taught our first lesson in our classrooms at the middle school here in Rexburg. At the beginning of the semester we were told that we probably wouldn't be working in a classroom that taught the same subject as our major, which freaked me out. I was so worried I'd have to teach about math or science! However, I lucked out and all the teachers we work with teach 5th grade Social Studies. So while it's definitely not the age group or subject I'm planning on teaching, at least I'm not having to teach a subject that I hate!
The lesson Haden and I were assigned for Friday was about Fort Sumter, and we had lots of activities and discussions planned for the kids to help make things less boring. We taught our lesson twice: once being observed by one of the teacher assistants in our ED361 class, and then we received feedback. Then we would teach again, hopefully implementing the tips we'd received. Our first time through the lesson was a bit rough, and it was especially hard trying to get the attention of all the kids. There were about 25 of them, and when there are 10-15 kids all yelling and talking and jumping around at once, it can get pretty...exciting haha. So one of the things both my partner and I wanted to work on for our second time around was being more authoritative, and trying things out with the kids in terms of getting them to listen better or more quickly.
When we taught a second time, our class was slightly smaller and they had just had a talk the day before about respecting others with their "main" teacher, Mrs. Pixton, so they were a bit more well-behaved. However, they still got a bit out of hand a few times. Near the beginning of that period I decided to try something really random to get the kids' attention and see if it worked. When they started getting restless and acting out, I'd say "Alright, guys! Are we ready? Show me your chicken wing if you're ready! Chicken wing if you're ready, guys!" Along with yelling this, I took one of my arms and made a chicken wing against my body. And you know what? IT TOTALLY WORKED! It worked BEAUTIFULLY! First of all, they thought it was hysterical. Secondly this was an awesome way to get their attention because if they weren't looking at me, hearing the words "show me your chicken wing" would be a really confusing statement, and hard to copy. So they had to look at me to mimic the action I was making! I'm brilliant! I used it the rest of the class period and it still worked really well, so I'm definitely going to be adding it to my list of things to use. I'm not sure how well it would work on high school kids...but hey, you never know!
May 11th, 2015
- Book: Alfie Kohn "Punished by Rewards"
Betsy Geddes: "Empowering Students Through Choice" Video
- need for sense of community=extremely powerful
- we can't change our students, so we have to change ourselves as teachers
- if the routine we're using on kids would bring out a negative response if used on us, we need to rethink things
- our thoughts as teachers should be on what our students will be like when they graduate high school. (Learning self control)
- whether they comply or not, still a learning experience for teacher
- discipline=process, not a product
- don't reprimand kids in front of entire class; one-on-one instruction
- what kind of teacher do you want to be?
- suspension: do you want them coming back mad at you, or ready to learn/change?
Discussion
- Drawing boundaries for behavior isn't mean, it's necessary
- To be clear with our language and direct isn't unkind
- Christ sends clear messages; we should strive to do the same.
- Kids need certainty/concrete ideas in their lives. Need questions, when appropriate
May 13th, 2015
Grouping Techniques
- Barnyard Babble: animal noises to find group members
- Huddles: groups of 2, 4, etc. and asking each other questions until you have them in desired group #
- Occupations: one=electrician, another says "the lights are out!" Have to find each other.
- If you're grouping, you should be using groups to accomplish something that wouldn't be as beneficial when learned alone.
May 15th, 2015
- Am I reprimanding a child because what they're doing is annoying me, or they're actually being disruptive/harmful?
- We fight battles either in our minds personally, or in front of the class
- Agency is an eternal principle
TED talk: "Power of Vulnerability"
May 18th, 2015: Asking Questions
May 18th, 2015: Asking Questions
- ask questions that are personal to the students' way of life/way of thinking
- questions that get them thinking
Close-ended Questions
Advantages: comprehension
Disadvantages: usually only one right answer, doesn't require a lot of thought
Open-ended Questions
Advantages: creates discussion, no right/wrong
Disadvantages: no right/wrong answer, takes more time to talk about, less people can participate
- Christ: answers a question with more questions
- when students discover "why?" it makes answer more valuable/understandable
- moral dilemmas create powerful discussions/questions
- are the students learning what they need to from your lesson?
- prepare students to experience the real world
June 22nd-July 3rd: Crime Scene Investigation Unit at Rigby Summer School
We weren't given a ton of information on what kind of students we would have or how many, but we were told that this year the summer classes hadn't been advertised as well as previous years, so they weren't expecting very many students. However, I found out when I arrived on Monday that our class was one of the extremely popular ones. We had 26 kids that had signed up! I was super excited until the class started filling up...and I discovered that we had 23 boys, and 3 girls. Between the ages of 12-14. And there were five teachers, all students at BYU-Idaho, as well as our lead teacher from Rigby Middle School who isn't really supposed to get involved in the lessons or classroom management. It was definitely a challenge trying to rangle that many kids, and helped confirm to me yet again that I'm making the right choice in teaching high school kids, not rambunctious little pre-teens!
June 16th Seminar
Questions to ask when we're planning our lessons:
- Are our students learning, or are we just preaching to them?
- What are students able to do after today's lesson that they couldn't do before?
- Is what we're doing helping our students to understand the content?
- Have you accomplished what you planned to accomplish today?
- Did you create an emotional impact on your students? Did they leave feeling something?
- Did you make your content matter to their real world experiences?
- Did you teach your students why this matters?
- How successfukky did you interact with your students?
- Are my efforts as a teacher resulting in learning?
- How did your students feel when they left today?
- Did your teaching today provide your students with what they needed today?
- Do you want students to feel conflicted in your class?
- What are your students curious about?
- Is there a better way to teach what was just taught?
- Are you willing to invest the time and effort to create curiosity about your lesson?
- Is this learning, or is this busywork?
- What are our students experiencing? Look at the lesson from their perspective
- Is tere a better way to teach what was just taught?
- How can I prompt you to get better?
Observations:
- It's our job to see the problems and guide them through the break down of the process
- Stop looking at failing as not trying!
- Are we stopping and thinking about why we're doing a certain thing?
June 26th Seminar
"Feed My Sheep"
by Elder Jeffrey R. Holland
Replace "missionary/missionaries" with "teachers" and "investigators" with "students"
- Does what I do line up with what I believe?
- If I'm a converted learner, I can convert others
- Everything is more fun if you know what's going on
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