In my 2 1/2 years of teaching, one important concept that I've discovered is that students are ALMOST ALWAYS more focused, better behaved, and more respectful in the morning. As I would expect then, my strongest relationships are with those students who I have in the morning. I am more alert, relaxed, and energetic; they, too, are more compassionate, respectful, and focused. In the afternoon, however, both the students and I are drained of our motivation, anxious to get out of school, and overly energetic after playground and lunch time. My afternoon relationships really suffer because of this physical time line of the day.
On the same note, I am very aware of the imbalance in these relationships and I try to go above and beyond to build relationships with my afternoon classes. I spend more one on one time with those students, provide specific praise more frequently, and encourage appropriate decision making. Each day is still a struggle with my afternoon kids, but because I am more aware of their needs, I can appropriately respond to them.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
October Blog: Lesson Planning
One of the lesson planning issues that I struggle with is setting a day's objectives. As a Language Arts teacher, I often feel like I have 6 objectives within a day's lesson. Since Language Arts encompasses reading, writing, grammar, spelling, vocabulary, listening, etc, I often plan my days with a 20 minute chunk of each of those categories. Consequently, this causes my objectives to be numerous.
More recently, I have been studying "inquiry-based learning," which promotes instruction based on essential questions. In my efforts to follow this teaching pedagogy, I have worked hard to base my "objectives" for that day around answering that essential question. So instead of an objective geared toward the students' specific skills like "Students will read and respond to a literary non-fiction text," my objective for the day is focused more on our collective learning and looks like "Are all people capable of achieving the American Dream?"
With this focus, I can tell if students have completed a skill (reading, writing, grammar, etc) based on whether or not they can answer the essential question of the day. I will know that a student successfully comprehended the day's reading if they can answer the essential question related to it. I will know that a student understands the word "injustice" if they can answer the essential question related to it.
My instructional techniques and lesson planning methods have certainly evolved over my 2 1/2 years of teaching. I don't know if my current focus on essential questions is the best method, but I will continue to refine until I'm satisfied (which will likely be never!)
More recently, I have been studying "inquiry-based learning," which promotes instruction based on essential questions. In my efforts to follow this teaching pedagogy, I have worked hard to base my "objectives" for that day around answering that essential question. So instead of an objective geared toward the students' specific skills like "Students will read and respond to a literary non-fiction text," my objective for the day is focused more on our collective learning and looks like "Are all people capable of achieving the American Dream?"
With this focus, I can tell if students have completed a skill (reading, writing, grammar, etc) based on whether or not they can answer the essential question of the day. I will know that a student successfully comprehended the day's reading if they can answer the essential question related to it. I will know that a student understands the word "injustice" if they can answer the essential question related to it.
My instructional techniques and lesson planning methods have certainly evolved over my 2 1/2 years of teaching. I don't know if my current focus on essential questions is the best method, but I will continue to refine until I'm satisfied (which will likely be never!)
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