PE Forum post: 4

Maggie I like your choice of quote.   I remember a few teachers in the past that fit this ”non-effective” teacher description very well – resorting to coercive, negative or punitive classroom techniques.  What I remember more clearly is how I gave these teachers a hard time and very little about what we were learning.  After our visit to Frank Hobbs today for our first lesson with a grade three class I can appreciate the time and effort that is required to plan an effective lesson.

In regards to your questions Maggie:

For me a very important aspect to teaching an effective lesson would be to have a solid understanding and grasp of the observing-responding sequence.  By getting into a habit of sequencing our teaching we will hopefully be able to deliver more effective lessons.  I pay particular attention to the steps involving responding.   As the reading suggests, many less experienced teachers tend towards public feedback over the use of individual feedback.  Being cognizant of this fact I will be sure to include goals in my planning to include both group and individual feedback appropriately, but recognize too that this is tough as there are many other things to remember too.    I also believe that a good combination of open and closed activities provide for a more effective lesson.  The text tends to frame the use of closed activities as a tool of the less-experienced, reserving open activities for veteran teachers.   I do believe that closed activities are great for new teachers, however we have to break out of the shell at some point and head towards the more open activities, creating a more student focused learning environment.  It’s our career to make sure we know the content inside and out so using closed activities as an excuse I think is detrimental to our student’s development.  I do think that when students are allowed to share or provide their input/interpretations, they feel socially satisfied and in turn comfortable with who they are and what they are doing.

Today at Frank Hobbs, while we were broken into four smaller groups I found myself slipping and modeling what I wanted to see.  I stopped myself though.  When we were working on galloping, the boys didn’t know what I meant by it.  I initially thought to myself that I should model this, and I just about did.  Instead I called on the two girls in our group who seemed more than keen to demonstrate their interpretations of the gallop.  The boys then mimicked with their own twists!

One last thing I must add to my answer Maggie, is that fact that in order to become an effective teacher –as right now I know I don’t feel that effective yet – we must engage in a system of reflective and reflexive practice to continually grow WITH our students; especially important as we are so new to this field.

Stephanie, I like that you mentioned the relationship between Ed. Psychology and this reading.  I too found many relationships.  In fact, I think all of our classes this semester have been very cohesive in multiple ways, unlike last semester where nothing seemed to really jive – or at least as seemingly.   When we talk about the effective teacher I can’t stop but think ZONE OF PROXIMAL DEVELOPMENT, which takes me to mentioning the importance of knowing our content, lesson and abilities of our students.  I like to think of this as keeping them on the edge of their own learning.

Now for the Video question.  I think that as much as we cringe at the thought, there is much to be gained from this method.  Personally, the use of direct and meaningful words to explain what is expected would be something I’d find myself in need of working on.  I would also find that giving feedback would need my conscious thought.   As for colleague feedback, I think this is some of the most useful and important feedback we could ever get.  To be able to put our ideas out there and have someone respond critically at first is very troublesome and worrying.  However the power it can have to motivate our change is great.  Just as we make note of how children develop based on how they are viewed in their social circles so too can that be applied to us as teachers and how we are viewed by our colleagues.

In response to the “remember that” box, I’d like to think I’m smiling all the time, no more or less depending on who or ability.  To me smiling is one of the “tricks” we should all carry with us.

You know, I feel that with little experience teaching actual students, these questions and more specifically my answers are/will be pretty superficial (at this point).  I can say though that question 3 will be something I’ll have to make specific note of during the planning stages.  I may give myself a list of different prescriptive comments that could be made, to be handy during the classroom as a reminder to myself.

In regards to the your social politics comment Maggie, I personally can’t see this being an issue at all, as I would only pick someone that I trust and have confidence in myself to respond to my teaching.  This person would also have the same ideas around professional development as I do.  I can’t comment on the negative experience that Ana had as I can’t remember the details, but from the sounds of that whole teaching situation MONEY was a very big part of their schooling system.   I don’t think the issue of Money should ever be present when working on our own professional development or our students learning.  I think that has a time and a place, however this time and place should be nowhere near our methods and students.  Sadly I know for many it is.

One more note:  Having to re-read this chapter I have gained a new found respect for it.  When we first had to read it, it was grueling and painful as I had no context for it.  Having only very little exposer now to the learning environment I can see the value in this article especially for us as we plan our next few PE lessons.

Thanks for the great moderating Maggie.  Fantastic job.

One thought on “PE Forum post: 4

  1. Emailed to me by my Prof:

    Well done Deryck.

    A very thoughtful response incorporating practical experiences and course content. It is great to see issues, theories, learnings coming together and getting sorted out. This will be a beneficial reflection for others.

    June

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