Second Week Reflections
Good evening ladies and gentlemen,
I thought I would share with you a few reflections from my second week of teaching. I love teaching... that is all
Actually there's much more. My whole week was awesome! Monday and Tuesday were good lessons, there was a test on Wednesday and I decided to try something new for Thursday and Friday, which I will briefly explain to you.
Far to often teachers get stuck in the mindset that the only way to teach is to by lecturing and giving out worksheets, especially in the Social Studies classes. Sadly, I got stuck/comfortable in that routine. My block A grade 9 students started complaining that there were just far too many notes, so something had to change. I decided I would teach the kids how to take their own note. How did I do this? Let me tell you how. I chose volunteers from the class to read from the section of the textbook we were studying. When we finished I told them to flip back to the beginning and I taught them a neat way to take notes. On Friday I did a similar thing and had the kids get into groups and summarize the section of the text and write it on poster paper. They then circulated around the room and copied down the notes their classmates took. The kids loved it, and more importantly, they actually learned something from it!
Block D on Friday surprised me. It was the Friday before Halloween, last block of the day and I expected nothing to get accomplished - things did get done. I did some brief notes on the Causes of World War II, then handed out a graphic organizer and had the kids chart out what were the 6 main causes and the effects of them. In other words - how did each of the causes lead to war. The kids loved it and came up with insightful questions. On top of that, my cooperating teacher was observing me in that class and had nothing but positive things to say... he said it was a flawless lesson and great way to end Friday!
I love teaching plain and simple! That is all for now,
AR
I thought I would share with you a few reflections from my second week of teaching. I love teaching... that is all
Actually there's much more. My whole week was awesome! Monday and Tuesday were good lessons, there was a test on Wednesday and I decided to try something new for Thursday and Friday, which I will briefly explain to you.
Far to often teachers get stuck in the mindset that the only way to teach is to by lecturing and giving out worksheets, especially in the Social Studies classes. Sadly, I got stuck/comfortable in that routine. My block A grade 9 students started complaining that there were just far too many notes, so something had to change. I decided I would teach the kids how to take their own note. How did I do this? Let me tell you how. I chose volunteers from the class to read from the section of the textbook we were studying. When we finished I told them to flip back to the beginning and I taught them a neat way to take notes. On Friday I did a similar thing and had the kids get into groups and summarize the section of the text and write it on poster paper. They then circulated around the room and copied down the notes their classmates took. The kids loved it, and more importantly, they actually learned something from it!
Block D on Friday surprised me. It was the Friday before Halloween, last block of the day and I expected nothing to get accomplished - things did get done. I did some brief notes on the Causes of World War II, then handed out a graphic organizer and had the kids chart out what were the 6 main causes and the effects of them. In other words - how did each of the causes lead to war. The kids loved it and came up with insightful questions. On top of that, my cooperating teacher was observing me in that class and had nothing but positive things to say... he said it was a flawless lesson and great way to end Friday!
I love teaching plain and simple! That is all for now,
AR
posted by Rosser at 9:32 PM
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