Edubloggers!

One of the Edubloggers I decided to respond to was Elena Aguila (http://www.edutopia.org/blog/what-i-wish-id-known-new-teacher-elena-aguilar ). Elena blogs as part of Edutopia’s collaborative blogging. She wrote a wonderful piece on a list of things she wished she knew as a new teacher (ding ding that’s most of us hehe.) The blog quickly caught my attention because if this was something that she would have liked to know then it must be important for me to know. As aquick summary here is the list of what she wished she knew:

1. This will get better

2. Always work from the heart

3. They will remember this about you

4. Be open to surprises

5. Find a coach

6. If you can’t find a coach …move.

She talked about how even though it might seem that things are at their worst, they will get better. She encourages new teachers not to be deterred by how complicated it might seem at first. She also emphasizes that teaching should come from the heart, students can see right through someone whose heart is not there while teaching. You make an impact on students, positive or negative. This is important to keep in mind as you build rapport with the students. IT is a lot better if students remember you as someone who positively affected their lives. Students are full of surprises and that’s one of the beauties of teaching, you get surprised by students in the most unexpected ways. Finally, she also emphasizes on the importance of finding a mentor, someone you can go to when you have questions or concerns, someone that can show you the ropes. She suggests that if you can’t find a good mentor, move! How can you develop in an environment with little to no support? I truly enjoyed reading her blog especially as an upcoming first year teacher!

The second edublogger I responded to was Christ Lehmann (http://practicaltheory.org/blog/2014/11/18/dont-make-presentation-day-the-worst-day/#comment-2515 ) Chris talked about one of my favorite topics, making presentation day not the worst day! With each group going up to present it might take the entire class period. Most students will be giving similar style presentations and I don’t know about the rest of you but I have a difficult time sitting still through long lectures. Instead, Chris offers other options with similar benefits to a presentation. HE suggest using Read-arounds. In Read-arounds studnets have to read at least 2 pieces of work form their peers and write a response.  He emphasizes the importance of classroom management while doing this. The secont option is Tech in Stations, this is where students at each station give a poster presentation and students can fill out exit tickets to assess them on what they learned from the poster session. The other alternative that caught my eye was the gallery walk. This is something we did in our SEL class when presenting our curriculum we had to come up with. It was a good way to not only display work but also engage learning.