We wrapped up our last class period discussing and debating what is good and effective teaching. By the end of our discussion I had a clear understanding of what I think good and effective teaching is. To me it is having the ability to consistently have an impact on students, no matter how big or small, and to strive to offer many different learning strategies to allow the students go grow and expand their knowledge of content materials. Over the course of this semester if you asked me what I thought good and effective teaching was, I would have never made a statement similar to that. When we first talked about this idea at the beginning of the semester in my class all I thought good and effective teaching was is being nice to the students and showing them the information.
Along with this discusstion we had in class, I would like to touch on the teacher standards that we talked over in the beginning of the year. I want to take a closer look at Standard 2 as it states, the teacher understands how children with broad ranges of ability learn and provides instruction that supports their intellectual, social, and personal development. I think that this course has prepared me well for this standard because of how much we have discussed about knowing your students. Knowing when a student has learning issues and how to help facilitate learning for that student so it is manageable for them. We as teachers should be able to reach and teach every student in our classrooms at all levels of learning.
Over the course of this semester we have talked and learned about a lot of great things, but two topics that really stuck out to me were technology in the classrooms, and knowing the learning styles of your students. I think that both of these are important to teaching and my future as a teacher. Every student is going to learn differently from one another, but it is finding out how to be able to teach all of them and make the material meaningful for all of them. It’s important to be able to use different methods of teaching to keep all students engaged while in the classroom. Along with that I think that the use of technology is only growing and will continue to be a huge contributor to the classroom environment. Along with that I think as a future teacher I will understand how to integrate technology into my classroom to help facilitate learning, but not to lean on technology for everything. Technology is a great resource to use, but content material shouldn’t have to rely on using technology.
Lastly I would like to be able to prepare my online digital identity by continuing to keep up on by blog post and adding more information and great stuff to this site. I would also like to start to gear the post more towards physical education as that will be my focus, but keeping in mind that all education and teaching has the same models and strategies. I think by keeping up on these blog post and adding more great information it will allow me to be more marketable upon graduation.
Hey Drew, Really nice post! I agree with how you thought it was really important to have an impact on students, no matter how big or small- and I think that the next thing you said which was offering many different kinds of teaching and learning strategies would really help accomplish this. We all learn different, and sometimes it takes just the right way something is taught or said to make the light bulb turn on- and all of a sudden you’re really engaged into the activity! But this light switch isn’t the same for everyone-and having a variety of teaching styles can help the students find which makes that switch go. I also agree with how you thought that technology was important to teaching. I totally agree! When we played that “Kahoot!” game this semester in class, I was completely zoned into the lesson because I wanted to win the game at the end! Nice post!
When looking at different methods to reach and teach all students, I think it’s easy for educators to fall into two different problems- becoming overwhelmed with the vast variety we can utilize, or getting into a rut of the same thing each day.
I think it’s definitely important for us to stagger our methods but not get too bogged down with the material. We don’t necessarily need to have X amount of options for one lesson, but rather observing what works for students and adapting our lessons to better serve our classes is imperative.