Saturday, April 2, 2011

Blog Post 9

Question Mark


What I've Learned This Year
It is always helpful to have someone else's insight. Mr. McClung gave some great advice on how to handle the first year of teaching. He was able to be honest with himself and learn from his experience. I think that one of the most important things he stated was being flexible. You always have to be ready for any curve balls that life throws you and I can only imagine that this is especially important in teaching. Mr. McClung seemed to realize early on that being able to go with the flow was going to make his teaching go much smoother. He also found out that even though his formal education was done, that he still could always learn more. Knowing this will only make him grow each year as a stronger and better teacher. I am definitely going to bookmark this article so that I can go back and be reminded of his ideas when I start my first year of teaching.

4 comments:

  1. I agree that being flexible is really hard to do but well worth it for your students. We all have lives outside of the classroom, but students are always our top priority.

    We are always learning! Good job on pointing that out.

    Stephen Akins

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  2. It's true that we always have more to learn and need to remain flexible not just as educators but as people. I also got that proper communication is key to being an educator from Mr. McClung's blog. We have to remember how to talk with our students and our colleagues to perfect our own teaching styles and prepare for any curve that may come. We won't know what types of students we will have in any given semester and must be ready to teach everyone who sets foot in our classrooms and learn from them.

    Keep up the great work on your blog!

    Nickolas Sullivan

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  3. Nik and Stephen were right on target in regards to your post. I am only going to add that his comments about teacher expectations seem to directly apply to you and some of the other insights that you have been sharing with me in regards to this class, your son, and your aspirations as a teacher. I just learned this week how important it is to expect them to do less. What I mean by that, is to be prepared for them to zoom through any concept or activity, but expect them to take longer than you anticipate to complete a task, understand a concept, or connect it to other applications.

    I say that it relates to what your overall sentiment about technology and EDM because you keep pointing out that students NEED differentiated learning. Some of them are going to zoom through and some are going to struggle, but in order to build confidence and purpose in all of our students, we must make our expectations bite sized so they will all succeed.

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  4. Hey Molly,
    Your blog looks great. And I agree with your post. It is great to have someone else's insight. I work in the education system now and I must say everything Mr. McClung said is true. It is all about the student. It is important to remember that. I think that knowing who the students are helps with our teaching style. We may not always be just a teacher to a student we can be mentors as well. So it is important to keep the communication open and clear. Any ways great job and keep up the good work.

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