- If I am feeling the winter blahs, my students are, too. It is up to me to find new energy to infuse into the daily lessons. Expecting students to merely "trudge through" accomplishes nothing for all of us.
- Never make assumptions about what might or might not interest the student body. Create the buzz, and engagement will follow. It must be authentic excitement on the part of the teacher. Students smell a fake miles away.
- Embrace collaboration. Trust the colleagues who have proven themselves to be competent team players, and allow delegating to create the wave of success. Be proud of others' accomplishments - they reflect positively on your abilities as a leader.
- Sometimes when students are frustrated and cannot grasp a concept, the cause is not their inability to learn the content - it is the teacher's inability to explain it in a way that the student can understand. It is okay to admit that the method is not working. This happened recently in one of my classes. I realized, after allowing a reasonable amount of time for "see if you can figure it out" that continued frustration would have been counter-productive. I stopped the lesson, re-directed the students to a different topic, and promised to find a different way to teach the concept. The students were both relieved and grateful. We'll come back to it when I have identified a better approach.
- Give students the opportunity to wow you. Avoid saying, "No." Empowerment breeds exceptional achievement.
- Infuse the curriculum with opportunities for artistic expression. You will engage the learners who typically struggle. The more senses and types of intellect a lesson touches, the stronger the correlation will be with long term memory and understanding.
- Hearing and listening are not the same. Listen, listen, listen. Don't interrupt the student. Listen.
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Thinking Aloud/AllowedI am a thinker, an analyzer, a searcher of meaning. These are my musings as I piece together my understanding of the world I inhabit. Archives
July 2019
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