Can you think of a time in school when you made a mistake? Was it a learning experience or just humiliating? The title of this blog may make some of you cringe, recalling some of your biggest mistakes in your own classroom experiences. Allowing for mistakes to be made is much different from how many of us were taught growing up.
Teaching is difficult. Excellent teaching is even harder. Building a strong connection with students, along with pedagogy, best practices…and sometimes a magic wand, is the foundation to any lasting teaching. During my first few years teaching, it bothered me that some students just didn’t seem to like me.
A teacher and I were casually talking about how our classes were going and she bravely mentioned that she hadn’t done as much critical thinking as she’d like with her students. It’s this type of honesty that allows teachers to grow.
It’s a good idea to do a goal setting lesson or activity every year. Among the most favorable and effective methods for students usually consist of a graphic organizer. The students write out their immediate and long-term goals, including perceived barriers, and how they plan to overcome these challenges. Students especially enjoy writing in these graphic organizers because of the visual element.
Like most teachers, I have a lot of students. I teach over 120 students every day. Not only do we already have a significant number of students to teach and manage, the numbers seem to be growing. This means heaps of grading and even more feedback for truly effective teaching. The problem is that we are just one person tasked with these individual workloads.
The students in our classrooms are together 187 days a year for multiples hours each day. There will be disagreements, minor conflicts and passive aggression. Unfortunately, sometimes a particular class falls off the deep end and the hostility and negativity starts to overtake the content.
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