Blog Post #9

What I Learned This Year , by Mr. McClung (2009)

     These are some of the points that Mr. McClung made in his post following his first year of teaching.How to Read the Crowd

• Don't lose touch with the audience. 

• Check for student comprehension.

• In order to be effective you have to be able to let your audience drive your instruction.

Be Flexible

• No lesson is perfect.

• The one you teach may be different from what you have planned.

Communicate

• Communicating is the best way to resolve any issue in the workplace.

Be Reasonable

•  Often we build our expectations too high for students, and become upset when they do not meet the expectation.

We should never forget that we are dealing with children.

•  Our job as teachers is to simply pick them up after they fail, dust them off, and encourage them to try again.

Don't be Afraid of TechnologyGrown adults everywhere are afraid of computers like it's a bad horror film and computers are trying to take over the world. Technology is our friend and is essential to living in our microwave society of today. We should not become overwhelmed by technology and simply give up before we start. We cannot expect to master computer skills the first time we attempt them, so jump in head first....the water feels fine :)
Listen to Your Students

• You may be the only person that does.

Lastly....Never Stop LearningIt's never too late to change your way of thinking, learning, or style. We do everything short of beg students to learn on a daily basis, but sadly some of us refuse to learn and grow as professional educators. We work in a learning environment, so why not soak up as much as you can? We owe it to our students.
     As future educators, these are things that we could all learn from. If you think about it, all of the things that Mr. McClung mentions are things that could happen to anyone, and that he has actually experienced, in a real classroom setting. I tink my favorite part is the last paragraph where he talks about being in a learning environment and continuing to learn, even as the teacher. He is yet another blogger that I will be adding to my PLN.
What I have Learned This Year (2011)     I wanted to skip to 2011 to see what new experiences Mr. McClung had during his third year, and to see if taking his own advice made for a better year. This is what he had to say...
Know Who Your Boss Is

• Don't get wrapped up in trying to please the adults and forget who you are really there for... The Students!!

Don't Expect Others To Be As Excited About Change As You Are

• Always give new ideas a chance.

Don't Touch The Keyboard

• Let the students learn by actually doing.

• Don't take over and do the work for them.

Don't Get Comfortable

• Dont be to passive

• If you get into to much of a routine, you are just going through the motions.

     Once again, Mr. McClung has written an extremely educational post that is sure to help any teacher, or teacher to be. What stands out to me the most is where he says that "often times when we are teaching a task to a student and they are having difficulties completing the particular task, it is very easy to take over and basically do the work for them...because we can always do it better. However, the major issue with this is that if we do the work for the students then they will never fully master the skills. No matter how difficult it may be we must resist the urge to take control of the keyboard." This is so true. I have not had this experience as a teacher obviously, but I have had it as a student. I have found that learning by doing is the best way to learn. That will definitely be the teaching method that I will use in my classroom.