Reflection 5

This week I went and observed at my former high school, Springville High School. We were supposed visit Mr. Boss but he didn't have a class first period so we went over to Mr. Bell's class. Mr. Bell was actually my Multimedia teacher in high school and was not a very good teacher. He got along with most of the kids, particularly the ones he could make fun of, but he didn't really teach. He just gave assignments and let us go to work. He was never organized and frequently lost the assignments that we would turn in. it was interesting to revisit his class and see that he still did everything the same even if it hadn't been effective years before. This made Mr. Boss seem very professional and very on top of things. Mr. Boss had brand new equipment and had a vision of where he wanted to be. What he's teaching is actually exactly what I want to teach when I graduate. He teaches video production, Tv, and photography. He told us of how he planned to get the students involved in student film festivals and other activities, as well as broadcast the various sporting events and activities happening in the school. I think those are some really good ways to get students involved in what they're learning because they would actually be doing projects that mattered to them, their peers, and to their entire community. I personally feel like that is what learning is about. We need to learn things in order to give back to and thus better the source that are learning comes from whether that's the community, family, friends, the world, or anything else. High School students should be learning to improve their personal future, while using their knowledge to give back to their community and school.

Reflection 4

Because of what we learned in class this week (theorists and taxonomies of teaching) I've been thinking a lot about my high school psychology teacher Mrs. Leek. She was my favorite teacher and I never really could figure out why when I was in High School. Normally my favorite teacher would have been one that was super fun and really laid back. Mrs. Leek definitely wasn't that way and yet I still enjoyed learning everything that she taught us. Now that I know a little bit more about teaching I can see why she was so effective. As students, we always knew exactly what she expected from us. she had very high expectations and followed through with us to make sure we reached her expectations. any work that may have been busy work for other classes didn't feel like busy work for her class because we knew that she would build upon that basic information. Because we knew that the information was important to her we knew it should be important to us. The best thing I think she did though was constantly tell us how much she loved her job. Because she made that clear, it was easy to ask her questions in class and out of class. Teachers who didn't show that they liked their job or who simply didn't like their job were hard to talk to because I always felt like I was getting in thier way or that they didn't really care to help me. Because I knew Mrs. Leek cared, I had more motivation to do better.

That's the kind of teacher I want to be.

The teacher that I went and observed this week at the Provo Junior high was really soft spoken. I think that it's really important to make sure all your students can hear you because even if they look like they're paying attention they're not getting anything out of it. The students were engaged in the activity they were doing but it seemed that if they began to get out of control he wouldn't be able to stop them.

Reflection 3

"You touch a rock, you touch the past. you touch a flower, you touch the present. you touch a child, you touch the future."

Cool quote.

One thing I'd really like to learn to do better is teaching for multiple learning styles. I feel like I teach the way that I learn which is very visual, but I don't think I do a very good job teaching to the other types of learners. I especially feel my weakest area is in teaching the auditory group. I am not an auditory learner and so I may not teach in a way that helps those types of learners. I need to understand the way that they learn so that I can teach in a way that they will benefit from. I need to make sure that my learners participate in discussions, can always hear me, get one on one explanations whether from me or their peers, get asked questions during a lecture, and participate in activities such as role plays. This will help them stay attentive.

Reflection 2

"All 0ur dreams can come true --- if we have the courage to persue them." --Walt Disney

One thing that Wong talked about that I think I really need to implement in my teaching is how important it is to give the student an objective. He says that "the basis for every test is the objective of the assignments." When the student or even the teacher has an objective then you have measurement, and when you have measurement you have performance. This is like Shum's lab assignment system with "Shum's challenge". we go through the worksheet and we really have to learn what we're doing because we know at the end we'll have to do "Shum's Challange" and have the teacher sign off on it. We have measurement and so we have to perform. I could easily implement this in my guitar teaching. Instead of just giving my students a treat for practicing five days I could give them a treat for reaching a certain point in a song or being able to play with the metronome at a certain pace. Then they would have a specific goal to practice for rather than just practicing to mark off that they did. That would hopefully boost their performance.

Reflection 1

One thing I didn't realize until I took this class and started reading "the First Day of School" was that it is okay for teachers to think of themselves as people whose profession's purpose is to change lives. There's no doubt that I remember my teachers as people who greatly influenced and directed my life, but I never really related that to the nature of their profession. Instead I related it more to them as people, even though changing lives is one of the main reasons I want to become a teacher. I guess I just thought that changing lives through teaching was a secret only I knew, not the common goal of all teachers. Now that I know that wanting to change lives is an okay goal to have, I will hopefully become a more effective teacher so that I can actually do it.