This article really got me thinking! It was about "10 Things You Really Need to Learn." He asked thoughtful questions that challenged me to consider things I sometimes do not thing twice about. I think he is right that one of the most important things we need to learn is to "How to Predict Consequences." When I think of this in relation to my teaching, I think that it is one of the most important things I can do. When I am planning a lesson and different activities, I try to consider what will happen if I pair certain students together or how the students will react to a certain topic. I think "How to Communicate Clearly" is also extremely important. I mean, if I cannot communicate clearly to my students, how can I be teach them the skills they need? And it is not just communicating with students, but also parents and colleagues. I think communication is essential for a teacher. I read this article the first time thinking how I could relate to it as a teacher and then I read it a second time to think about what it means to me as an individual. If you want to see more of what the 10 things you really need to learn are, click here. It is definitely a good read and will get you thinking!
I completely agree with you about the consequences and communication. As teachers we need to be confident in our choices but also be sure we do our homework and think things through before making classroom decisions. This could be the hardest part of teaching. We need to ensure we communicate clearly what we want and expect from our students. Great job with the link in your post by the way! Very nice job on your blog!!!
ReplyDeleteYes, I couldn't agree more! If there is one thing I have learned from teaching it is that I can plan and plan and plan, but a huge part of teaching is being able to think on your feet.
ReplyDeleteI also agree that improvisational skills are vital to successful instruction. I haven't got that much experience in the classroom, but I've already learned from last semester that you can put hours into planning lessons and get thrown a curve ball that completely throws you off your game. Then some times it just clicks, you get thrown another curve ball, you come up with something spur of the moment, and it works.
ReplyDeleteP.S. When you hyper-linked those pictures did you just input the image URL? I never thought of doing that. Very clever way of addressing picture size and text wrapping.