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.