Still Teachable

I'm back! I feel like it has been an extremely long time since I last blogged and it kind of has. Here's an update on my life: I continue have an extremely busy life and I struggle to balance everything and some things slip between the cracks but luckily there are many gracious people in my life. Currently I devote my time to my many hours of working and volunteering at my second home: my wonderful church. I also work 2 or three days a week at the candy store and I am a full time student. Most people would say I am crazy for taking on all of that and I'm about to blow your mind! I am also assistant director of a musical of 5th graders at the local elementary school that opens mid-May.

I am so excited about my future teaching career and I am currently taking a class to help me investigate how to practice good teaching skills. I've learned a lot already and wanted to share some of the highlights not only for my own record but to hopefully influence the teaching skills of my friends who are teachers or maybe those going to school to be teachers. :)

Here's what I've learned recently:

No Opt Out:

• This is a useful tool for helping earnest, striving students who are trying hard to find an answer but genuinely don't know it and it helps eliminate the possibility of some students opting out and muttering "I don't know" in the hopes that the teacher will leave them alone and not call on them.
• The core belief: the sequence should should begin with the student unable to answer the question and then end with the same student giving the right answer even if they only repeat the correct answer from another student. This helps the students realize that ou aren't going to let them fail and that you want o see them succeed.

Right is Right:

• The job of the teacher is to set a high standard for correctness: 100%
• Do not sign off and tell a student she is right if she gets the answer wrong or only partially right, she must not be betrayed into thinking she can do something she cannot.
• Don't "round up" your student's answers. Do not give their answers fluff to make them more correct. Have them elaborate until the answer is completely correct.
• Tell your students that they are almost there-
• Hold out for all the way.
• Have them answer the full question.
• Right answer, right time- make sure they answer the question you are asking and not another.
• Have them use technical vocabulary and help prompt them if they can't remember the vocab.

Stretch It:

• Learning can and should continue after a correct answer has been given.
• Reward right answers with questions.
• Reward right answers with follow-up questions that extend knowledge and test for reliability. Asking frequent, targeted, rigorous questions of students as they demonstrate mastery is a powerful and much simpler tool for differentiating.
• Ask how or why.
• Ask for another way to answer.
• Ask for a better word.
• Ask for evidence.
• Ask students to integrate a related skill.
• Ask students to apply the same skill in a new setting.
• Stretch it keeps students on their toes: to explain their thinking or apply teaching in new ways.

Last but not least,
Begin with the End:

• Start your lesson plans with the objective.
• Framing your objective forces you to ask what your students will get out of the material.
• Why are you teaching the material you are teaching?
• What is the outcome you desire?
• How does this outcome relate to what you'll teach?
• Think of your lessons as part of a larger unit that developed ideas intentionally and incrementally towards mastery of larger concepts.

This is just the tip of the iceburg. I can't wait to be a teacher! :D