Friday, February 20, 2009
Week 6
The aspect of this week I found to be most valuable was teaching the first class of the week. It was terrible, the kids were unresponsive, they were talking all the time, and it was first period. I feel in that class I have been focusing too much on getting the content down that I forgot to engage these kids. After a talk with Mrs. Wiscount I feel I understood what she was saying to me. I took a step back that day, looked at all my material and noticed that from the first lesson I taught this year to now I got away from the initial engaging of the students. I don’t know why, maybe due to how busy I was or the fact that I was coaching but it was a good wakeup call for me. From now on my lessons have had a good introduction and I am incorporating my personality into the classroom. I am a goofball sometimes, which the students seem to like when I goof around with them in class and do strange things to them. Today a student wanted to a certain topic that I said someone else already chose for a project, he pleaded with me until in the middle of class I said, “How many pushups can you do?” (This is one of the kids I coach on the wrestling team.) He looked lost, he said, “I don’t know?” I said guess, how many pushups in a row. He replied, “80 I think.” I gave him an option right now in the middle of class if you can do more pushups than me I will let you have your topic. I even offered to go first, the student behind him was laughing historically, he contemplated then said, “No.” I am ok with my topic. One thing I would change about this week again is the first class, I don’t know what happened but it was bad. I would change the whole lesson top to bottom, think harder about getting their attention and have a different review game ready for them.
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I know exactly what you mean with focusing on the content and sliding away from actively engaging the students. I struggle with that as well. Especially when the class is slow to respond when I am asking them a question. I find I have the habit to want to just "do it myself" and "cover" the material, rather than prompting the students to do their part in the learning process. It is certainly a challenge to find ways for the students to engage in learning when it is a topic that they are not naturally inclined to be interested in. However, every time that I do put the extra effort into finding creative ways to engage them, I never regret it. The reward is always more than the work put into it when you find a way to make a connection with your students through unique ways of engaging them.
ReplyDeleteI love the push up tactic! What a way to shut down an ongoing argument between student and teacher. Talk about the intimidation factor in the classroom; but sometimes it does get their attention. I look forward to your future classes Rich. This whole semester is a trial and error process. It is built to be just that!
ReplyDeleteGood luck!