 | ||
| Today's challenge: Create a beautiful dessert with the mystery ingredients. Looks delicious! |
Cooking, Tennis, Security. These are some of the activities and training we participated in today, the second day of new teacher PD. Of course, before doing all of that, we first worked on beginning of the year unit lesson plans and activities. I was so happy to learn a new tech tool-Camtesia-to help make my flipped and paperless classroom even more exciting and interesting for my students. I have used similar tools in the past but this one is like the Rolls Royce of record and capture tools.
This year I am going to tweak my student centered classroom, continue to be as green as possible (that would be 'environmentally friendly'), and try to empower my students even more. Recently I have heard from several different sources that even the small things, like having students choose their own seats, go a long way to empowering students. I have never thought of allowing students to choose their own seats. It just seemed counter-intuitive to a well-run classroom. Now that I think about it, there really is no reason not to. I can always change my mind later, or just keep tweaking. Now, on to day 3!
Beth,
ReplyDeleteIsn't it amazing how one little idea can open other doors for us? This year I am going to try to teach through the eyes of a student, always asking myself Why does this matter? How/why should they know/do/think about this. At the core of all that is giving up a good deal of control in terms of content, pace, methodology. Seats, too!
Joey, I think it's a great approach, to think or teach through the eyes of the student. I try to do that, but have never considered the seating arrangement. Sometimes, I think it's good to take the pressure off of the student by assigning seats. That way they don't feel weird if they don't have seatmates or have an excuse for not sitting next to their best friends. I'm going to try it though, and see what happens.
DeleteI love your ideas for this year! And I agree about the small things being important to students. I've often thought the same thing about the bathroom policy. I started off having students raise their hand and ask me to go to the bathroom, until I saw how silly I felt being in control of another person's bladder! I thought, if I can give them anything, it should be control over their own bodily functions.
ReplyDeleteHmmm ... you guys are making me think! I don't usually assign seats, but I was actually considering doing it this year for the first time! I wonder if that's my reaction in terms of gaining some control in a new situation that has a lot of new elements?! I'll give this more thought.
ReplyDeleteHarrell, It's an interesting perspective. If you read my comment above to Joey, I always thought I was doing the students a favor by assigning seats. Anyway, we'll see what happens.
DeleteI love how you refer to empowering the learner many times in this post! This actually is my mantra this year. :) Empowering the learner...both little and big learners.
ReplyDeleteA year ago I saw Alfie Kohn...he asked the question why we have students raise their hands when they want to speak. Do we have to raise our hands to speak at Thanksgiving dinner, at meetings,? Made me think...