Chapter 7: Teaching Difficult Academic Material

Chapter 7 was a good chapter for me to read because breaking down material that is difficult to students will be a challenge to new teachers. It is going to be hard to overcome the fact that people do not always understand what is going through my head. I will need to practice what I am saying and how I am saying it in order to make it as easy to understand as possible. "Try different ways to approach things" (125) this is exactly what I am talking about, using different techniques and seeing what works the best. I might think that I am explaining it greatly and then the test scores come back and everyone has failed, I will conclude that I failed at teaching the material and go about it a different way so that the students will be able to understand better. While at Mt. Blue I was asked to make a test over Africa, I did as I was told and the test was given. After talking with Beth she told me new and fun things to do before taking the test like looking up youtube videos from Africa.

Chapter 6: Motivation and Boredom

Motivation is a hard thing to do when dealing with a classroom filled with twenty or so hormonal teenagers. The last thing most of them want to do it listen to lecture and take notes for an entire period, and to be honest, neither do I! We need to be able to connect things with the real world, like page 105 talks about. This should be easy for my major because when dealing with history it is easy to show how we got to where we are as humans now by looking at the past. Currant issues are so important for students to know and understand even if it is something comical like a TV show the class should cover stuff that is going on today and then lead it into what the subject is covering and how closely they may or may not relate. Having students choose what they do their project on but using the teachers guide lines might make it more enjoyable for students and more worth while for everyone, this would throw a little twist on each project to make them individual and tie the past with the young future.

Chapter 5: Teaching to the Individual, Working with the Group

"Or without intending it, teachers might be sending messages that students' questions are not opportunities foe learning but rather annoying interruptions to the business of the class"(88) Not only is this awful, but it is awfully common. When I was doing the observation part of practicum I was in with mostly freshmen and sophomores and inquired many things. I would try to go out of my way to answer the questions because as a teacher I thought that was our job. The book gives a great example of how a student asked a question about a book they read outside of class and how it tied into what they were covering in class, the teacher abruptly answered back and seemingly did not care, this lead to the student placing his head back down on his desk. WOW! That is so sad, that a teacher would find a question annoying? Why are you a teacher then??? I saw this a lot at Mt. Blue in some of the applied classes because my mentor felt that they did not care or did not have the capacity to care so their questions were pointless. SOO BAD

Chapter 4: Creating a Culture of Success

This is such a great chapter, it points out so many different perspectives of the treatment of students that teachers do and most likely do not mean to. "Don't compare us to other students" (67) I can not agree with this more. Not only do students strive to be known in high school, but it would be a huge put down if a teacher were to compare your work to another students, after he or she put all of their effort into it. When I was in high school I did not see this as a huge problem, but I can foresee this being a huge and hurtful problem if students were always being held to standards of their peers. Going along with message was a little excerpt for teachers to "stick with the kids" and not give up on them, we can not go by face value when it comes to dealing with high school students. They will do whatever it takes to be liked or be the person that they feel will make them cool and if we as teachers give up on them then we are to blame. We need to encourage and reach out to kids so that each and everyone of them feels that they have their teachers backing them up with education.

Chapter 3: Classroom Behavior

Chapter three covers a lot of topics, one that I strongly agree with is "Practice the habits that create a good classroom tone"(39) It is a teachers responsibility to practice what they preach in order to have the students following them, all students and teachers must follow the same classroom rules. Taking care of issues before they disrupt the classroom is another way that teachers can practice good habits in the classroom, if small things such as kids leaving trash in the classroom, can be stopped immediately it will hopefully take care of the issue so that students in the future will know to throw all trash away when they are finished with it. Kids do not want to feel like they are being babysat, and it is so important for teachers to follow up with what they say in order to gain respect from the students.

Web 2.0 Educator

The Web 2.0 Educator I choose is Cool Cat Teacher Vicki Davis. First I choose her for her awesome name but then as I read through some of her blogs I found her to be so intelligent and funny! I love the lay out of her blog and I can not believe how many adds she has! Go her! She post poems and quotes and funny but knowledgeable things, and seems to be a huge advocate for technology in the classroom and a Mac lover like myself. I think that I will enjoy her blog a lot!