Reflection 3

I believe this is from last week's reading, but I have yet to write about it and i think it had and will have great impact to my approach on teaching. The story (from The First Days of School) goes like this:

"In 1993, a group of 23 doctors in Maine and New Hampshire made an agreement to observe each others' operating room procedures and share insights.
In the two years after their nine months of observation and sharing, they reduced the death rate among their patients by an astonishing 25 percent."

This was an incredible story to me! One in four lives saved. This 4-line narrative has changed my whole look on teaching. It's all about feedback. Or maybe humility. There must be something to asking a friend, spouse, teacher, or our Heavenly Father just what we need to hear to be better teachers. It will make all the difference in the world - that humility - I believe. j

We've moved on to Gong's book now. He teaches first the Framework of Knowledge - the most effective way to organize and process information. The four parts to internalizing information are:

1. Look for purpose.
2. Determine the central message/theme.
3. Look for validations/applications (examples that illustrate central message).
4. Give it value/meaning by forming an opinion about it.

These parts build on each other and expand through each step in the process. You can add more understanding to the theme when you understand the true purpose behind it, for example.

In class, we role-played another message in Gong's book highlighting four more steps to learn. The examples I'll talk about refer to the conversation I had with Allen, a classmate who outside of the classroom DJs. Brother Wright had us listen to the experience of another and really try to understand and practice these four virtues.

1. Capture. < Denotes responsibility in student, not the teacher. "When you expect to teach, your mind is prepared to learn." Just a good quote in that section. Anyway, it is my responsibility as the listener to engage in what the teacher is saying. I am trying to capture his feelings, his words, his actions and emotions to connect the elements of what the teacher is saying.

2. Expand. < "Shifting the role from focusing on the teacher's purposes, ideas, and values to focusing on the student's own purposes. ideas, and values. Expanding the subject already taught involves much more than going over again in your mind the things that were taught. It involves creating connections in your mind with your own experiences, visiting relatable places, asking opinions, anything to take the learning to the next level and connect is to something within you.

3. Teach. < The is is the most important transformation, according to Gong. While expanding is helping connect material to YOUR emotions, teaching is helping now to connect that very understood material to benefit others in the form of teaching.

4. Evaluate. < This is where you see if you've grown or not. All experiences can be strengthened, Gong says. Asking feedback is part of it. Make sure learning is correct, complete, connected, and concise.

Reflection 2

The First Days of School has become such a fascinating read to me. Guidelines are simply told in such a straight-forward manner that it's relaxing. Hearing story after story of students following procedures seems not that hard to follow, until I imagine setting up my own classroom like that and it seems pretty incredible. However, these rules seem great. Have a routine. I've heard somewhere that it takes two weeks to fully dive into a routine. I wonder how much longer it would be if that consistency didn't start on the first day! That must be such an important thing.

I remember the classes in which I had a Bellwork assignment and I loved doing those. I had a sheet for every week with every day listed on it, and I was so excited when I could finish one because I could see just how much further to go until the weekend. Even if it was only Monday, I got to mark something off! I was that much closer. So that procedure makes a lot of sense to me.

Something I did notice in this book was the fact that these suggestions are great for elementary and maybe middle school classes. I understand the principles are the same, but maybe some techniques listed are a little too youthful. So, I will have to take my own time and determine how I can adapt these principles (which I recognize as important) and transform them to be mature and appropriate enough for high-schoolers, which seems like a very daunting task. Any suggestions?

Effective Assignments:
1. What to accomplish
2. Write each accomplishment as single sentence.
3. Give students the sentences.
4. Send sentences to parents.

Verb + Words

Tests are wriiten before the lesson begins, because that is what we will base the assessment on.

Reflection 1

Today is our first day to teach. Luckily, it's not for high school students or judges, it's for our peers. However, as I was preparing I realized first that there are not many things I'm an expert on. Second, it's hard to get those things I do know out in a way people I understand. I attempted to do a quick runthrough with my husband, who quickly told me none of it made sense (just to let me know). I've pitched advertising campaigns and given lots of talks, but for some reason, teaching is different. You want the people to not only get excited, but really understand what you're teaching and as the teacher figure out how to do that most effectively.
We've been reading in the "First Days of School" book and that has been really interesting. Seems like every teacher in America claims these methods as their key to success. The real key must be to remember them, so I'll write some notes about them here:

- Plan and use a script at least for the first day you teach. Kids know when you're winging it.

- Positive expectations (Case with "special" students and "special" teachers.

- Extremely good classroom management

- District Induction Classes? If so - do it!

- Ineffective teachers look for busywork.

- Effective teacher steal from the best and learn from the rest.

- Coming to school is a celebration! The feeling should be one of invitation.

- Learn names! Pronounce them correctly.

- Kindness begins with the word "please".

Senior!... Really?

2009 is here, and with it comes the avoided realization that I will be graduating far too soon. While in pre-marital stages I believed BYU to be a never-ending party where I could take all the classes I want, post-marital self tells me there is work to be done. Matt graduates in April, and thus, Kim, you must graduate too. Which will entail 16.5 credits this semester, 17 credits next semester and still falling 1 credit short. Nonetheless, I hope to student teach next fall. And with that comes anxiety. And with the anxiety comes the need to prepare. So via TEE 276, I will prepare. And to make sure I remember this preparation, I will blog. So here, billions of readers who could read this, but won't except Professor Wright, are my reflections of being a Technology Teacher (in training).