Well, week one of my final term of certification classes is behind me.
Let me tell you that I did a LOT of reading last week. I had three chapters of my Psychology Applied to Teaching textbook to read. Each chapter was over forty pages long. I found out that I will NEVER go back to school and get a degree in psychology. The stuff, while kind of interesting, is very confusing. I’m of the firm belief that you’ve gotta be a little nuts yourself to actually want to study psychology. LOL
What I did find interesting was reading about the way that students learn.
One of my assignments last week required me to describe five learner characteristics of the students that my problem based learning plan will be geared for. I had to closely study the cognitive, physical, social, and emotional characterstics of high schoolers, and the information helped shed light on why I encountered some of the problems in one of my classes. I will definitely use the knowledge I gained to be more empathetic during the rest of my career. I also learned that instructional strategies must be tailored to address these characteristics.
Once again, I was reminded that a lot of thought must go into lesson planning. Lesson planning is not just about knowing the material you are teaching but knowing your STUDENTS.
I think that too many teachers try to fit students into the cookie cutter molds of traditional teaching methods, and this simply does not work.
Trust me. I learned this the hard way this year.
As far as assignments for last week, I created the first component of my problem based learning plan. I had to select the “problem” and incorporate the learner characteristics mentioned above.
Here’s the title of my plan:
Concerned members of the community address ways to assimilate young hurricane refugees into the local school system and the community at large.
I selected this topic because this is, in fact, something that my community had to deal with after Hurricane Katrina devastated parts of Mississippi and Louisiana. Podunk, USA was inundated with disaster victims, and local officials struggled with the issue presented above.
I feel that this is something that is relevant to my imaginary students’ lives, and it is something that I could, realistically, bring into my classroom.
The instructor for this class is fabulous, let me tell you. Although she had said that she would provide feedback by Tuesday, on Sunday, she had provided feedback to those of us who had submitted our assignments early. I adore this instructor. She’s very nurturing but tough on the important issues. She has the ability to analyze assignments to the smallest detail yet provide positive, corrective feedback at the same time.
My classroom management class is going well, although the text in one of my books paints an unrealistic picture of life in the classroom. I hope my classmates aren’t lulled into a false sense of security. Some of the tips provided in the book do not work so seamlessly in the real world. However, this particular book does have some good resources that I feel I can tweak to my particular needs. I think I’m going to save the book at the end of the course rather than sell it.
This class is rather easy, and I have already completed quizzes for this week and next. As soon as I finish this week’s PBL assignment, I plan on completing week three’s assignment for the management class.
My diversity class is proving to be the easiest one of all. I only had one assignment last week…a quiz. This week’s assignment is to write a critical review about last week’s chapter. I decided to go ahead and write it after I took the quiz while the information was still fresh in my mind; hence, I am now one week ahead in that class.
My goal is to quickly finish the assignments in my classroom management and diversity classes so I can focus on the brain-intense PBL class.
And so I have seven more weeks to go.
The clock is ever so slowly ticking down…
Filed under: Teaching | Tagged: EPI classes, problem based learning | 2 Comments »
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