Oh That Word Classroom Management..

Classroom management is a word when brought up in discussion that can make your body cringe or rub it off because it is just another word used in the educational field.  Either way it is something that takes time and something one will not master in a school year or two.  From our reading and my recent microteaching experience what I experienced lined right up with what was written.  I encountered many of the challenges a teacher faces on a daily basis.  I also, not knowingly incorporated some teacher tactics to properly manage a classroom full of rambunctious teenagers.  Here are some key points that I picked up from our reading and experiences that lined right up with our reading.

To begin with clarity and organization is vital.  I have struggled with clarity this semester during my weekly teaching labs.  I have seen the importance in being clear in concise when speaking to my students.  I have gotten better at this and my student teaching experience will be a good time for me to really hone in on clarity.  As for organization that is a no brainer.  Being organized will make things go ten times smoother.  I witnessed this first hand during my microteaching experience.  Having all my materials and plans set up in the order I planned to use them allowed for me to go right from one activity to the next.  This consistency throughout my three days teaching proved to me the power of organization.

Start out firm you can always loosen up later.  I have heard this statement numerous times and hey… guess what it is so true!  During my microteaching experience I never really had any big problems, but I did not start out as firm as I should have the first day.  Setting precedence is very important!  I learned this and it is something I will file away come student teaching time. 

Meaningful work is what you must provide to your students.  When students view the assignments you are presenting to them only as busy work students will begin to misbehave, cut class, and become disengaged in the material you are presenting.

Routines are the way it is meant to be.  We are creatures of habit.  When you start every day greeting your students at the door, have bell work on the board for students to complete when they come in, and possibly pick up their folder or notebook for the class in a bin marked for their class it makes starting class that much easier.  If every day was different you would have to tackle the situations that arise most likely in a different manner.  Having that routine greatly reduces the chances of misbehavior amongst your students.

Praise praise praise and praise some more.  Who doesn’t like to be praised when they do a job well done?  Let your students know how much you appreciate their interaction in your class.  When students are acknowledged for their good behavior and hard work they are more likely to continue to do so.  I noticed this first hand during my microteaching experience.  When I acknowledged students by their name and thanked them for their participation I noticed the power of doing those two simple things.  However, it is very important not to have favorites.  Students will pick up on this fast and become disconnected and begin causing issues. 

      We all know that there are going to be times when classroom management problems will arise in our classroom.  When they do, it is important to hit them head on and be straight, be blunt, be short, and move on.

      One final note about classroom management would be setting a good example.  Be a positive role model.  Typing this I think back to my high school career.  There were a few teachers I became to know very well in school and also out of.  These men stuck to the beliefs they believe in and have never led me astray.  Their perspectives, advice, and way they live life make me strive to be the best that I can be. 

      There you have it classroom management in a nutshell. 

Inquiry- the dynamic process of being open to wonder and puzzlements and coming to know and understand the world

When you combine curiosity, the scientific method, and critical thinking skills into your classroom what do you have?  What you have is inquiry-based teaching.  With this method of teaching students encounter problems they do not yet fully grasp or have no prior knowledge on.  This type of instruction allows for students to formulate questions, explore the problem by digging deeper into the root of it, observing, and applying new information to find meaning to what they are questioning. 

Students partake in five activities while engaging in inquiry learning.  These activities have no set order and they can go back and forth from one to another.  Also, applying new information they learn upon their journey or pull out previous knowledge and skills they already have to assist them in solving the root of their problem or question.

1.      Question

Students ask what it is they are trying to solve.

2.      Investigate

Students begin to examine and explore what it is they are questioning. 

3.      Use evidence to describe, explain, and predict;

Students formulate what they gathered from step two.

4.      Connect evidence to knowledge; and

Students find meaning between what they observed and already know.

5.      Share findings

Students explain what they witnessed.

However, inquiry instruction does not end there.  True, great inquiry instruction incorporates the 5-E Model.  This model emphases engagement, exploration, explanation, elaboration, and evaluation to complete classroom objectives and focus in on specific concepts the teacher has set forth.

·         Engagement

Have a solid interest approach.  Grab your students!  Make them use their brains, but also give them that desire to want to.  During this stage as well questioning and investigating begin.  Students draw on prior knowledge they have. 

·         Exploration

Immediately following engagement students transition into exploration.  During this time students cross reference materials, make discoveries, and possibly share their findings with their peers or teacher. 

·         Explanation

During this stage the teacher has his/her students share out what they discovered and explain it to the class.  The teacher will also possibly introduce relevant concepts, principles, or theories as the need arises.

·         Elaboration

Students apply real world experiences to the situation they were studying more about.  They also go beyond memorization and use their critical thinking skills to answer the problem or question being set forth for them. 

·         Evaluation

The teacher assesses how the student performed.

In conclusion inquiry based instruction allows for students to take control of their learning experience.  Done right it is a great way to add another teaching technique to your tool box of instruction.

National #TeachAgChat Career Prepartion in Agriculture

Wow that was insane!  So many tweets, retweets, and favorites going on in one hour.  We just completed the first ever #TeachAgChat hosted by 2016 pre-service ag. teachers!  Leading up to the chat it was a bit overwhelming at first.  There were so many platforms to promote our chat on and preparation to have a successful chat.  Now reflecting on it there was so much good leading up to our chat and the anxiety and fear of the unknown is over.  So here are a few things from our national #TeachAgChat I took away.

1.      Preparation is more than half the battle.  Doing this assignment with a group made completing tasks ten times easier.  Having a google doc. and meeting regularly to talk about logistics benefited greatly to the success of our chat.

2.      Promote heavily!  Promoting your chat will pay great dividends.  We actually used Hootsuite and it automatically pushed out tweets promoting our chat daily.  I noticed that this was a very successful means of enticing people to engage in our chat.

3.      Having multiple devices is beneficial.  If you can use a laptop and your phone while facilitating the chat it can make things easier.  Along with that use tweetdeck to follow what people are tweeting about and use twitter only to send out tweets.

4.      Make sure your questions are clear and fit the character requirement.  Twitter is a powerful tool with a character limit you can only share what you find truly fascinating about something.

5.      HAVE FUN WITH IT!  With our preparation the night of the chat was a piece of cake.  A little music, some snacks, and great company for a meaningful chat made for all the difference.

I hope you were able to take away something that was successful from my #TeachAgChat.  If you were unable to attend ours for the next couple of weeks every Thursday at 8pm EST there will be a new #TeachAgChat topic. 

Let's Acheive Our Goals!

Evaluating learning is much more than handing out an exam and expecting your students to answer 75 questions by the end of the class period.  We as educators have come to realize that all our students are different and that the one mold fits all approach does not work in a progressive, functional, 21^st century classroom.  Our students all come with strengths and weaknesses.  We must be able to observe and understand these to better adapt and provide for our students.  Here are five bits of information I picked up on that are crucial to fully grasp and incorportate when evaluating students.

1.      Accommodations vs. modification- These two terms have very different meanings.  Not every student will have an IEP, but they may need to be accommodated.  Accommodating a student does not mean you create a different assignment for them to complete.  It simply means you may provide a list of terms, definitions, or tangible handout for them to have.  Modification however, is altering the assignment or test.  In this case maybe the student only has two instead of four choices to choose from.  Or they will be given a time extension or not be expected to write a six page paper instead only four pages.

 

2.      Rubrics are a tool to help access student performance in an objective, reliable, and consistent manner.  Rubrics also make things 100% transparent and students can clearly see what is expected of them.

 

3.      Accountability & Reliability- Rubrics allow for teachers and students to be accountable.  What is expected of both is clearly specified.  Rubrics are also reliable.  Once you implement them into your class and use them regularly students know what is expected from you.  From an educator standpoint you show no favoritism.

 

4.      There are three types of learning criteria when evaluating students. 

·         Product criteria- addresses what students know and are able to do at a particular time

·         Process criteria- A student’s classroom behavior relating to effort, behavior, class participation, how well they follow directions and turn assignments in, and their work habits.

·         Progress criteria- how much students improve or gain from their learning experiences.

 

5.      Why do we use peer assessment in our classrooms?  It empowers students and teaches them how to manage their learning.  It enhancing student learning through the exchange of ideas with their classmates and motivates students to dig deeper into material.

 

In conclusion educators must be mindful in the way they educate their students.  Rubrics allow for transparency, student ownership, and reliability.  Accommodating and modifying assignments for students will lead to greater student success for those who need it.  Constantly accessing student knowledge through the three criterions previously mentioned will make things easier when it is time to do report cards.

Problem Solving with a Purpose

The demand for students that can successfully problem solve is a skill that the workforce is looking for in prospective employees.  Many teachers are revising their curricula to encourage higher orders of thinking on their students.  When problem solving students go through three cognitive activities to find a solution to the problem. 

1.      Represent Problem- Students find appropriate context knowledge, and seek the end goal and starting conditions of the problem.

2.      Solution Search- During this stage students refine the goal they are seeking and develop a plan of action to reach their end goal

3.      Implement Solution- Students execute their plan of action and then evaluate the results.

When implementing problem solving through the use of projects there are eight important steps to consider making the assignment purposeful and meaningful for your students.

1.      Identify the significant content you want your students to fully understand.  Outline the basis of the important knowledge you would like students to become familiar with.  This should reflect what you as an educator believes are essential for their learning process on the topic.  In turn students will find material and terms they believe are significant in their own lives.

2.      Grab students attention from the get go!  Provide an “entry event” that gets the students interested and engaged.  Some examples are video clips, group discussion, guest speaker, and a field trip.  Sparking students’ interest rather than passing out a handout and telling them they need to know this because it is on the test is a poor way to get students to fully use their problem solving skills. 

3.      Be sure to have a driving question.  A clear driving question provides a sense of reasoning for the assignment and also a challenge presented to them.

4.      Allow for student input.  Provide multiple outlets for completing the project.  Allow for a written paper, oral presentation, and media technology.  Students articulate and solve problems in many ways don’t constrict your students learning and thought process.

5.      Create a project replicated to the workforce.  Allow for collaboration, communication, critical thinking, and the use of technology.  Incorporating these facets into your assignment create purpose and allow for reflection.

6.      Dig deeper.  Have students ask questions and stem off of topics already being examined.  Students find more meaning in work when they can relate it to real life issues.

7.      Feedback & Revision.  In doing this students realize the importance of creating high quality products and that their first attempt at something is usually not their last.  It explicitly relates to the workforce and that revisions are an integral part of creating high quality products.

8.      Present your product!  Show off your work.  Present how you arrived to your final solution.

In conclusion when creating an assignment centered on problem solving make it meaningful!  Do not create it just for the sake of completing the assigned material and moving on to take the test.  Upon completion of the project have students present their findings or creation to an audience.  Students care more about the quality of their research and problem solving strategies when they know they have to present it.  Doing this students acquire a taste of what professionals in the workforce are looking for, after all isn’t that what we as educators are preparing our students for?  Real world experiences in an atmosphere where they can succeed and fail without any repercussions.

Check out this short interesting read about problem solving.

 

 

Fall Leadership Conference facilitator reflection

The anticipation and anxiety could finally be put to rest.  The numerous hours of teacher preparation, planning an engaging content filled lesson could be put to the test.  The countless dry runs were no more.  Today was game day!  As student teacher candidates each October Penn State TeachAG is asked to facilitate FFA officer workshops at the Fall Leadership Conference held in Altoona.  FFA chapters from all across the state attend this workshop to better prepare their chapter officers to take on a new year and the challenges they may encounter with the correct tools in their toolbox to make their officer candidacy the best it can be. 

Two others and I facilitated the president’s workshop.  To begin with I can’t say how fortunate I am to have worked with such talented individuals.  The experience we provided to the students was second to none and we each brought a different personality and viewpoint to the workshop.  In the beginning we were all still getting a feel for how this whole facilitating thing was going to go.  I mean it was our first time teaching to a group of 27 students for an hour and a half. 

Our first activity we had for the students was either going to be successfully executed or blow up in our faces.  We had seven students come up to the front of the room and assume officer rolls within a chapter.  The other students were the “members” of the chapter.  They were to conduct new business on their upcoming banquet and sooner rather than later they were to come to the conclusion there was no president.  They realized this quite fast, but luckily they played along with our interest approach and made things get a little wild with no chairman.  At that point I as able to scope out students in the class who I knew did not have a problem speaking in front of a group which would come in handy at a later activity.

As the workshop progressed our students became more engaged and they began to give into our silly ques to inform us that they were done with an activity we assigned to them.  As we approached an hour into our workshop we realized time was going to be an issue.  Thankfully, we had more than enough content to teach them rather than the other way around.  As facilitators we decided to continue teaching at the rate we had been and not rush through things just for the sake of getting them done.  We carried some very good discussion in our parliamentary procedure activity and the students really walked away with a better knowledge about the importance of Robert’s Rules and its use in chapter meetings.  For that reason we wanted to keep beneficial discussion throughout our workshop and not freight train through things. 

My favorite part of the lesson was when we did our public speaking activity.  The students really enjoyed this activity and the laughter filled the room as students came in and recited a paragraph of the FFA creed using good and/or bad public speaking characteristics.  After each speaker the students in the audience were split into two groups to focus in on either the good or bad traits of that speaker and write their observations down on a big post it note.  I greatly enjoyed facilitating this part of the workshop. While it seemed like what we were doing was silly many students were able to relate to past experiences or observations.   And hone in on what makes a good public speaker and relate to why it is important as a leader like the president to possess these skills. 

An area for improvement on my part would be transitions.  At times it seemed like one activity did not transition well into the next.  Making that connection and segueing better into our next activity is a point of improvement for me.  I spoke briefly about our time crunch earlier.  While it would have been nice to have presented all portions of our lesson I think that cutting one activity out rather than rushing was the right call.  With experience and becoming more accustomed to how long activities are going to take will fix this kink. 

Overall I greatly enjoyed my day facilitating with twenty seven awesome FFA presidents and working alongside great cohort members.  I am glad that our preparation paid off and I got to see the end result of our FLC lesson plan succeed.   

How Are You Asking Your Questions?

There is no wrong question, but as an educator you can wrongly ask a question.  This week’s weekly writing focused on effective questioning.  Questioning is a crucial part of the learning process.  After material has been taught questions are asked to make sure what was conveyed by the teacher has been absorbed by the students.  As well as to interest and motivate students and create higher orders of thinking and reasoning. 

The realization of differentiated instruction in the classroom helps ease the burden of how to ask questions.  However, before you can ask questions you as an educator must understand what differentiated instruction is and how to implement it into your classroom. 

First, students must feel comfortable in your classroom for any of this to work.  Once students feel comfortable in your classroom the fear of asking a dumb question will subside.  Next no matter how off the wall a question may be at times you as an instructor must be prepared to answer it.  This may require rephrasing the question in a way that makes more sense so the whole class understands. 

Secondly, as an educator you must recognize that your students learn a multiple realm of modalities.  To reach all your students learning styles, you as an educator must have variability in your day to day lessons to connect to everyone. 

Looking ahead towards my student teaching experience there are a few things I want to hone in on and become proficient in by the end of my experience.

1.      Thoroughly articulate my questions.  After teaching material I want my students to give clear meaning to me the connection they made from today’s lesson with yesterdays and what the importance is of what we learned today for what is in store for the day ahead.

2.      Don’t jump the gun!  Allow for enough wait time for students to formulate a response.

3.      Reach for the sky!   Throughout the day to day lessons that I will be teaching I want to make sure my lessons have meaning and challenge my students just a little bit more than anticipated.  If I can do that.  My students will stay engaged and therefore ask deeper thinking questions when they arise.

4.      Create debate.  I loved it when we got to debate in high school.  Being assigned a topic and a stance or taking a side made me think outside the box and not just skim the surface.  At the same time I got to listen to other students’ perspectives and thought about why what they were saying made sense or why I took a different side.  I think debate can be a great way to further questioning.  To make it successful like stated earlier students must feel safe in the environment you provide to them.

 

Questioning is almost like the keystone of ones learning process.  As an educator you must lay the blocks so students can sufficiently question and grow their learning mindset.  And students must understand the importance of questioning and ask out when they do not understand or want to learn more.

Reflection of my First Unit Plan!

Unit Information

Unit: Introduction to Shop Safety for Welding

Class Sessions: 15

Length of Sessions: 90 minutes

 

This past week I received my first unit plan back with peer reviewed feedback.  It felt so good to complete my first unit plan.  But there is no time for celebration because there are roughly eighteen more to go.  After reviewing my unit plan there were both areas where I excelled at and areas of improvement to make my unit plans a sound foundation for my lessons.  I have come to realize creating a good unit plan makes creating day to day lesson plans that much easier.    

First I will start with the positives of my unit plan.  The objectives I had stated were very clear and concise.  It is well understood what is planned to be taught each day and how it will be measured.  Setting my unit plan up into charts was very beneficial.  It makes my entire unit plan that much more accessible and organized when someone is looking for something specific.  Within my unit plan I also clearly had my unit goals stated.  Hoping that out of all the material I would be teaching on my introduction to shop safety for welding these are the things I desire my students retain. 

With every positive there is always a negative.  I myself had quite a few negatives for my first unit plan.  But that is okay it was my first unit plan!  I didn’t expect to create a perfect document.  It was very helpful having two of my peers’ review my unit plan and give me their feedback.  Anytime you can get multiple eyes to examine something the quality of the work to be submitted will be astronomically better.  Anyways things to take into consideration when I create more unit plans.

The first is to check over my grammar and spelling.  Proofreading and spell checking my work is important.  Sometimes what I envision my students doing in my head isn’t exactly what I have written down.  This can be eliminated with proofreading.  During assessments I need to set a timeline as to when they will be given.  Most of all I need to add objectives to some lessons.  I have to keep in mind that I have 90 minutes of instruction with my students.  Having too much material prepared is better than having too little.  I will have to go back through my unit plan and address concerns where I do not have enough objectives labeled for the lesson.

All in all the ball is rolling and those baby steps will have to be picked up into strides before the end of the semester.  The planning is on!

You're Gonna Go Far Kid!

It has been said before it doesn’t matter what you say, but how you say it.  When you say nothing at all you are doing no one a service.  Listening is just as important as speaking and vice versa.  Living in a world that is now so connected we interact with multiple people on a daily basis.  Having the ability to articulate thoughts and speak constructively with others is largely important for success.  However, along the way from disconnect to connect in the 21^st century world we have begun to ignore people who don’t think quite like us, dress differently, listen to music not of our liking, or come from a different cultural background.  The list goes on and on.  Adults are more prone to this than adolescents, but never do adults get reprimanded for the way they think or speak. 

I’ll get off of my soap box now and jump into what I took from the videos and readings for our AEE 412 reading reflection this week.  Angela Maiers talked about how YOU MATTER as an individual.  Students today do not get the positive reinforcement they so critically need.  This does not just relate to little Johnny in third grade who spelled a word right on his spelling bee exam, but to Sarah who is a high school junior who struggles with her biology assignments.  She always turns her work in and whether it is right or wrong she deserves the praise and positive reinforcement to keep her motivated.  So that she keeps trying and does not spiral into this whirl wind of failure and not caring. 

While listening to that video I kept thinking about past experiences I have had.  One thing that stuck out to me was the dairy farmer at home I work for.  I have admired the man ever since I started working for him several years ago.  My admiration towards him has built ever since.  My reasoning for that is he makes me feel like I am truly important and needed in the success of his operation.  While I know he can certainly get by without me he does truly mean it when he says “I couldn’t have done this without you, I’d still be in the barn doing chores if you hadn’t shown up, thank you.” Or in speaking to his wife right in front of me “Mason did a great job today filling silo.”  I have to tell you hearing praise like that makes you feel like YOU MATTER.  This is something I hope to incorporate into my classroom when I become an agricultural educator.  There have been days when the two of us have been up in the silo sweating to death leveling it off with pitch forks and the unloader just won’t set properly.  After an unanticipated time up there he will say “PERFECT!”  There is no sense in being a negative Nancy and our public school systems and students we will one day teach do not need another negative Nancy on their butts.  Students need recognition and positive reinforcement even if things do not go as planned. 

Also, coming up as an assignment in our AEE 412 class is a genius hour.  Before I read the assignment I thought it dealt with technology and how we will incorporate digital devices into our classroom.  Oh how I was wrong.  A genius hour is when I take the time to study and become more knowledgeable in anything I choose fit.  I gave it some thought this morning and what I would like to study is music.  Now that is a very generic statement so I am calling upon you my viewers to give me advice on where to take this.  I have a love for music.  I listen to all sorts of genres.  I listen to certain music when I am in a certain mood.  There’s specific music I listen to when I’m doing homework and other types when I want to just lose my mind.  Maybe I will set up some sort of graph and survey people with a list of questions you the audience and I come up with?  I’m excited to see where this goes.    

So You Want to be an Agricultural Educator?

For our second weekly reading within The Agricultural Education Magazine there was an article that strongly related to me.  Looking back and drawing on personal experiences I now see the benefit of effective planning, having strong organizational skills, managing a program, and incorporating community involvement into a program. 

Planning and Preparation > Planning on the go

When planning and preparation is put into constructing an effective lesson plan student understanding and knowledge of the material being presented to them is exponential!  Looking back on my own experiences throughout high school in my agriculture program my instructor always had clear objectives stated on the board that he planned to get through before our time together was up.  He also took the time to figure out what was the best way to convey theories and information.  When we were learning about electricity he would use the white board and multiple colored markers to show us different types of circuits.  Plumbing for instance he would bring in the actual pieces commonly used and have them taped to the board with their name while we were going over a worksheet on how to properly set up a drain or water line.  Bottom line it is crucial to put the time in ahead of the teaching lesson so the time spent on that lesson is most effective.

Whenever in doubt organize it out!

One skill in the teaching profession that will make your life much easier is having strong organizational skills.  If you have all your materials and a focus with a clear end objective in mind your already well on your way to succeeding and providing the best learning experience to your students.  I noticed this too in my agricultural educator.  He always had links uploaded prior to class.  His lesson plans were laid out on his desk to glance at or if there was a sub for a particular day.  Most of all it was noticeable in the shop.  For the most part it was clutter free.  We all know no agricultural mechanics shop is 100% clear of clutter.  Having tools and materials in their designated area made working in the shop that much easier.

Oh you have a managerial position?  But you’re a teacher.

Being an ag. teacher doesn’t just mean you teach the reproductive system of a cow or how small gas engines function.  You wear many hats and one of them is being a program manager.  There are many functions and activities outside of the ag. classroom.  Being well organized and managing these things properly makes your job more fun and allows your students to get the most out of being in your class or the FFA.  When I think about this and relating it back to my high school experiences.  I vividly remember my ag. instructor always having a list of important dates on the whiteboard.  Around banquet time we the members coordinated it for the most part, but our advisor was there to keep us on track.  In the shop I remember working on hay wagons and while we all couldn’t be welding on the sides he would have some of us cutting metal out, others welding the sides on, and a few cutting the boards out for the floor.

Get the community involved!

Community involvement and support makes just a good ag. program a great ag. program.  I could go on and on about why an ag. program needs community involvement, but it’s quite simple it helps you as an educator get supplies and resources for your program and offer opportunities for your students to get hands on experiences.  This topic relates the most to me and is what made my experiences in the ag. program leave a lasting impression on me.  I joined the dairy judging team my ninth grade year.  My teammates and I decided to take it serious so local farmers who had invested time and money into the program graciously decided to coach us.  Looking back on it now my ag. teacher making those relationships and finding the people who could enhance our skill set really means a lot to me.  My tenth grade year of school I wanted to show a market steer so my ag. instructor hooked me up with a local farmer who raised beef cattle.  It turned out to be one of the greatest experiences of my life.  I showed market steers all through high school and still work on their dairy/beef cattle operation.

So being an ag educator means so much more than discussing the differences between conventional tillage and no-till.  We have a lot resting on our shoulders to make our students and program successful.  With careful preparation, organization, good management, and community involvement our path to success can be a whole lot easier.

How to make your class hall talk

Creating a learning environment that students want to come back to is a challenge that educators face.  It is not so much that the content being taught is boring and not worthwhile, but the way it is being conveyed to students is not intriguing to them.  Like the worm a fisherman puts on his/her hook to catch a fish.  A teacher must find that type of worm or bait to lure students into the information and end up learning something from it.  Teachers must always be accessing what is working for them and what is not.  After our second weekly reading here are some key points I picked up from it…

To start things off with there are three domains of learning Cognitive, psychomotor, and affective.

·         Cognitive behavior deals with facts, knowledge, and concepts.

 

·         Psychomotor behavior deals with using your mind and motor skills ex. Hands on experiences.  However, this cannot be accomplished without cognitive understanding.

 

·         Affective behavior relates to attitudes, values, and aesthetic.

 

How do you have that awesome class?

 

·         Instructional objectives have to be sound, clear, and concise.  Like concrete for a building or sidewalk.  Much planning and preparation must go into it before anyone can think about using the building as a working space or walking on that sidewalk.

 

 

·         Setting objectives help define and limit the scope of the problem area.  It greatly assists teachers in what is needed to know and what would just be nice to know.

 

·         Objectives help lay the sequence out in which the way content will be taught.  By choosing to do this, students can build off of skills previously comprehended.

 

·         Teachers must know where they are going and how they plan on getting there.  Kind of like a trip across nation.

·         The major focus of writing instructional objectives includes specifying observable (measurable) behaviors.

·         By using action verbs this can successfully be done.

·         Having an interest approach is vital!

·         This creates a desire for students to want to learn more about the specified topic.

·         Use interest approaches that relate to students you have in your classes.

·         Engaging lessons make for an enjoyable teaching and learning experience.

·         To actually be engaging it requires planning, preparation, and presentation.

 

You must bring enthusiasm to every lesson you teach!

Dave Burgess says “It doesn’t matter how much material you teach, it only matters how much is received.”  I strongly agree with this statement.

Transitions are highly important when conveying content and ideas some examples are…

Having the projector already on

Video clips already uploaded

Finally, Success relies on your attitude!