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.