Anyone else have exciting ways that they are contributing?
Monday, November 28, 2011
Exciting
I'm excited to see that I am contributing something to my classroom. My co-op told me the other day that he really thinks my presence in the room is working out because it has helped him to be rejuvenated about teaching. There are things that he has wanted to do or used to do and just hasn't gotten around to fulfilling for his class. However, he said that I have helped him to get some of those things started in his class. For instance, we now have a stocked in-class library that the students can use for pleasure reading. They can also (with approval) use the library books for their upcoming research project. I also suggested that we have the students do freewrites a couple times a week to get the students more comfortable with writing creatively. My co-op suggested that we use it as a lead-in to a short story unit later in the Spring semester, that way the students see that it is going somewhere. We also asked the students how we could improve the freewrite experience and they gave us a ton of ideas for prompts or inspiration for their writing. It was exciting to see something that I suggested become a major part of the classroom. I mentioned it to my co-op during 2nd period and we started it the same day because he was that excited about it.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
In the actual process of teaching lessons, I don't necessarily know if I have contributed a ton.. other than the fact that I think I have gotten my co-op to start thinking more outside of the box. We were reading a story that had ties with Blues music. He was looking for a way to better connect the idea to the kids, and I told him that he should look up some Robert Johnson-type stuff and play it for the kids. He did, and then ended up having the students write a blue poem. Pretty cool stuff, although getting the students to actually DO HOMEWORK is another story. But at least he is trying different avenues.
ReplyDeleteI also used the classroom feedback idea that you and your co-op did for writing prompts. My co-op was slightly doing this before I got there and I feel like he is slowly warming up to the idea.
The only problem is that my co-op is a pretty cool and open-minded guy, so I can't really say that I have brought it anything earth-shattering, as he had already been open to so many different techniques.
The one MAJOR change I brought was the advisory class stuff, but I have talked so much about this that I'd rather not beat you over the head with it anymore.