276 and Cut

This year was awesome, I'm really looking forward teaching. Even though its several years away i'm happy just to know that im in the right major. Finally.

Conclusion

If there is one thing I've learned from this class, it's that you can't learn it all. Every time I've taught or really anyone has taught there has always been suggestions on things we can do better. I think it's a good thing to really strive for being the best teacher possible. The hardest thing for me usually in any area is taking criticism in a positive manner and then applying it to really make myself better. I think with teaching I have been able to take the comments I've received and the comments others have been given I have been doing a pretty good job of making myself a better teacher.

I like teaching, I love coaching, and most of all I just want the chance to be a positive impact in others lives.

Dont Hate Evaluate

Along with discipline I find it difficult to say exactly how I'll test and evaluate my students. I'd like to make it as one-on-one as possible. Not just a test but a combination of a project and test that can really show if the student understood the material. I think in that way the actual test will show if the student learned the principles but the project will show if they were able to apply them. For me the application is more important. Any one can memorize answers but if they can take the information understand how to use it and find a way to show it in a physical form then I'll know they really got the picture of it.

Wooden paddle

Discipline is kind of a hard thing to determine theoretically how your going to handle it in a given situation. Having an athletes background and wanting to be a teacher makes me think I'll probably incorporate that somehow. Push ups, make them hold their arms out and hold books, I think if you can make discipline into something kids don't want to do but at the same time make it somewhat fun then they will behave better simply because they enjoy the teacher and the class.

techniques

The technique I've seen work the best over my schooling and this year has always been personal attention. Teaching the students as a class the basics then going and working with the students on an individual basis to see where they're at and helping them get as far as they are able to go. I've seen it work this year with me in 125 and me fail when I haven't had that one on one attention. This is something my Drafting teacher was good at. He would teach us the basics of CAD and let us out on our own and we would get help when we needed from him or other students. It was very effective and at the time I felt that i knew Autocad very well, along with every student in the class.

Learning for an immediate purpose I think is important also. Not a test but for something the student will enjoy preparing for. With drafting we participated in TSA very heavily and won state championships in different divisions every year I was in the program. Every student in the class worked together to make sure we had plenty of drawing and other different models or bridges to enter. At the end of the year when we would all get our rewards it was a good feeling to get that state champion patch.

Outside of TSA competitions there are plenty of class competitions that can give that extra motivation to students to work hard. I watch those in shum's 340 class and I know most of them are driven just by the desire to be the best. If the students have a good, fun, effective reason to do their work that itself is a motivator.

which will help them formulate a teaching philosophy that describes their beliefs about teaching and learning. This paper should be 3 pages double spaced (min.) and discuss why they would like to teach, teaching strategies they think would be effective, evaluation techniques, how to deal with behavior issues, etc. This paper needs to be submitted to moodle prior to exit interview.

I'm going to blog about a few of these different things: this blog Why i want to teach.

growing up I usually had at least a teacher a year that I felt made an impact on my life. In some cases it was a mutual feeling where I feel we both respected each other and became better people because of it. 3 of these teachers who I felt had the greatest impact on me and my now chosen profession were my baseball coach, drafting teacher, and media arts teacher. My coach taught me discipline and hard work and these are things I've tried to maintain throughout my life. He led by example and the day he left the coaching and went to pursue a different career was a hard day for me. A man I really respected and worked with everyday wouldn't be around anymore.

The second would be my drafting teacher. A man who couldn't be more of my opposite. He was old, had been at the school so long he taught my uncle and the parents of most of my classmates. He used to make us write sentences for showing up late or doing something wrong in class and that sentence was always the same," hard work and dedication are important in life and drafting." I find it interesting now that he put life before drafting. He was trying to prepare us for the real world and trying to get the message across to us that we needed to focus and do what was right if we wanted to get ahead. When I go home I always make it a priority to go an see him and let him know that I'm doing well.

My media arts teacher was a good guy. I didn't have a super close relationship with him, but what I learned from that class was that I liked design, working with my hands, and being creative to make something look good. I didn't learn all I could have from that class but what I did take from it is one of the reasons I've chose TEE.

I want to teach because I truly believe there is no higher calling. Anyone can succeed in this world if they're willing to work hard and endure. I don't know if I have learned that in any better place than a classroom or out on a field. I know I drew a lot from my teachers and I think some of them were positively affected by me. If I can help a student prepare for a successful life and in turn benefit from their examples and grow myself I can see no greater reward.

LST's???

prepping for the STL's. After watching Megan and Anna give their lessons on their STL's i realized that the lesson plan really needs to be planned out and thought about.

They both did a pretty good job especially for being the first to go but i think if i can really plan the stl around the lesson plan and really think about the Why's and So whats, then the lesson wont be just me up their talking.

Lecture is needed in almost every lesson but i know for my personality type i can only go just a few minutes before a lecture starts to bore me and i lose track and interest.

it definitely has to be broken up and maybe even hid within activities or different medias to get the lesson point across.

Timp High

Went to Timp high to observe a Drafting teacher today and also saw a media arts teacher.

The media arts is more interesting to me and i think i would like that kinda class but i noticed that its very easy for a media arts class to get out of control with kids running around everywhere doing something different. With having to do things like the school news its easy to focus on that with the few elect students and let the rest kinda fall by the way side and do whatever.

The teacher was actually pretty good and we did catch him during a busy period but still a dozen students were working and the rest were just goofing off. Ways have to be created either to involve all the students in the news project or at least rotate them through and have other things the rest of the kids can work on .

The drafting teacher was pretty good. Kids seemed to like the class and to pretty well know how to use Autocad and do basic drafting. He had different projects planned for the kids throughout the year to give them some breaks and give them something fun to do. The only thing missing was a good why. Why the students should do their drawings.

When i was in highschool we always had regional and state competitions to submit our drawings projects too. We came in and worked pretty hard because we had an immediate goal for ourselves.

Payson middle school

Went to Payson and honestly it was a joke. We were there for two class periods and the teacher left his chair for a total of around 10 minutes maybe. Kids were working on 5 or 6 different projects and it was semi organized chaos. Colin and I did more actual teaching than the teacher by walking around and helping the students with their projects.

The thing i did learn was something to be cautious of.

If i dont go into the exact field i want i cant give up and just be complacent with teaching a different field. Also the kids loved the class and im sure he will always be a popular teacher but i cant let having a class that is easily a student favorite convince me that i dont need to teach but simply entertain.

PG Middle School

Went last week to observe a middle school tech teachers class. It was very interesting to see and observe what it'll be like to be in a classroom as a teacher and not a student. Sadly they were just finishing up projects so there wasn't a lot of instruction going on, but there were still some thing both good and bad that we could see in this teacher.

1. this class was in a medium sized room with about 32 students sitting at 5 tables.

2. Students were finishing up a project where they had to build paper Dome homes.

3. The attitude of the students was great. They seemed to enjoy the class and were having fun with this project.

4. The teachers attitude was also good. You could tell he liked his job, maybe not as excited about the beginner class he was teaching as the more advanced ones he told us about, but on a whole he has a good attitude.

5. The teachers strengths were with his student relationships. It was easy to see that they respected him and liked him and he had respect back for them.

6. More Instruction could have been given to help students more fully complete the assignments and understand why they were designing the houses and what needs to be in a house.
7. Not a lot of instruction.
8. I would have had a lot more individual instruction and i would have taught a little more of things that are required for a house with still letting them be creative and fun.
9. The teacher was a good one. He enjoyed his work the kids enjoyed the class and the basics of technology were being taught.

who does number 2 work for

So this week after everyone gave their second presentations i realized that there is no one way or style to teach someone something. Granted there are some ways that definitely work and ways that dont work, but within that spectrum everyone teaches is a different way and someways that i never would have thought of but they work. Basically i need to be open to new ideas and strategies and learn from my peers and bring that into my style of L/T.

So this past week i have learned a lot about teaching. Both from the book and the exercises. First this is that the first day of school can make a huge difference in the rest of the year. Second was a lot of techniques for teaching that i noticed different people use. Some work some don't. I feel like most of my teaching is more from a coaching aspect which i'm not sure how will work in a normal teaching environment. It was good to see how different students present there unique subjects.