Like some of the others have already stated, the two videos were for the entertaining and reminded me that there will be days in which I want to just give up and there will be days and ways that I make a difference. But the question that pop in my head, especially as I listened to Mali's video...."What will I make?". I know the answer is not money, but will I make difference? That is what I am striving for, but will it happen? Or will there be more days that I feel like Seinfield and I cannot get anything out of my students. Will I have connection and be able to draw them in? Its a scary thought. A thought that I hope to face and triumph more than face and fail. If not, I can always fall back to reading quietly and watching Raiders of the Lost Ark...ohh...thats a very scary thought.
On to other things...
I have to say, that there was one particular key idea in the reading this week that struck me. In Chapter 3, there were a few key points outlined for us and point 2, kind of goes back to something I thought about last week during class, as well as after I left. The point was this..."How a person feels about a learning situation determines the amount of attention devoted to it". I can say that the less I feel connected to a subject, the less I care to put any effort into it. We have to make connections with our students and them show them connections they can find with the reading. I think they have to not only feel connection to the lesson at hand, but also with our teaching methods, or else I am afraid I will get SNL skit-like responses. There was one activity that was mentioned to help with this that I hadn't seen previously...Anticipation Guides. What a great way to find out what our students are interested in terms of the ideas and themes that are in the lesson or unit we are getting reading to start. I think that incorporating this into my classroom, could help me in finding out which way might be the best in approaching the lesson so that the students can find the most connection and therefore get the most out of what we are teaching. It also, in my opinion, can be used as a way for the students to feel like they are having a impact, even if it is minimal, on what we are learning.
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3 comments:
I love the idea of anticipation guides as well. I'm finding as I'm working on my I-Search paper (which is not even close to be being done....sigh) is that so many high school students are falling "out of love" with reading b/c of the way English classes are conducted. What a failure I would be as an English teacher if my students leave my class hating to read....or disliking it more....b/c I made them read things that they could have cared less about. And that was soooo much of my high school experience. So how do we balance meeting the demands of a less-than-engaging curriculum AND cause our students to love reading??
One of the EDC 350 teachers told one of my friends that high school teachers need to do away with English teachers because ENglish can just be taught in all the other classes...?? Does anyone else think this is complete crap?? Like Kendra mentions, it is hard to include all of the curriculum standards by the district and state, as well as keep lesson intriguing to students, so how do we do this? Valerie, you are right. We need to incorporate very helpful anticipation guides that get students involved. THis will make our job more interesting and make them like school. So, I just want to say whatever to that teacher because English is too important to get rid of!
I think you put in to something /learning that is, also depending on what's going on in your private life. Peers and parents share a big part of it, though sometimes teachers can't change the influence on a student. We can only do our best in gaining their attention.
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