Thursday, January 20, 2011

January 20th


            I consider great teaching and learning to be when a classroom works a cohesive unit, in order to better benefit all of its members. I feel that teachers and students should work together as new understandings and meanings are created. I also believe the teacher should be open to learning from the students. To me great teaching and learning is the sharing of knowledge between the teacher and students. My most memorable learning experience is with my 9th grade biology teacher. He presented the course material in fun and charismatic way. He took a subject matter that is intimidating to many students, and made it accessible to everyone. Many of the students laughed with him during his lectures. I admire his ability to lighten the class mood and still keep the students focused and on task. His room was really well decorated and created an open and welcoming environment.
            There are several challenges that teachers are currently facing. School districts and the general public are always pushing to get new technologies in place in classrooms, but many teachers don’t know how use them in their classes. Some teacher even feel that some of the technological devices are just more work for teachers. I feel that if teachers are educated about new technological aids, they will reap many benefits in their classrooms. During one of my field experiences I had the students come up one by one to the SmartBoard, and select answers during a review game. The students really enjoyed interacting with this piece of technology, and it helped them fully engage the material. Current generations of school age students possess a very high level of technological proficiency. Therefore I feel that it is very important for teachers to keep up with their students, to better meet the students’ needs.

3 comments:

  1. I feel that a lot of my teachers felt that they had all of the information and it was their job to just give it to the class. I like how you describe students AND teachers learning in the classroom. It also correlates very well with teachers learning how to use technology in the classroom.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I wrote something very similar as you did when discussing the use of technology in the classroom. Our generation and the generations younger than us that we will be teacher are all very tech-savvy. I can't tell you how many times I've heard my parents say "how did you know to do that?!" when it comes to my blackberry, mac, or ipod. We all need to learn how to use technology because those younger than us will be living in a world where technology dominates more than half of their lives.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I really like the idea of having the students come up one at a time to use the smart board like you had done. This way the students are familiar with the technology in the classroom as well as the teachers and in the future they will be able to use those devices at their disposal.

    ReplyDelete