Reflection 11 - Teaching 6-Graders

Today, I taught the six-graders with my group. We taught them about commercials and how they effect our feelings, what story they portray and how they (the companies) get us to buy their products. We divided into groups. One of us took a group of students and went and made a thirty-second commercial about a candy bar we had.

It was a lot of fun, but I noticed a major problem with my teaching: I felt like I was lacking control over my group of students. Geoff kept reminding me that there were things I needed to do with them. First thing was that he asked me whether or not I was coaching them. I immediately jumped in and tried to keep them from jumping off the walls. Granted, they were focused on the assignment, and I was not alone in teaching this group. However, that may have been my downfall, if I was alone, maybe I wouldn't have taken the initiative and taught instead of just standing. In truth, I didn't just stand, but it sure felt like it.

Anyway, as I said, I tried to coach when my partner was away, but the students wouldn't listen to me right away. I think why is because I hadn't exerted authority over them yet. I felt bad, I felt very useless, and like a horrible teacher. Also, after we finished the video, Geoff told me that a teacher would get his students on task. Problem was, we had nothing except the worksheet to have them work on. It felt like giving them busywork, but I decided that it was the only I could do without having my group of students not distract the others. Another problem arose: they had forgotten their worksheets in the other room. Even when they went back to look for them, some had lost their worksheets. Fortunately, I think they kept busy enough just looking for their pens and worksheets that they did not distract the other students.

At the same time, the students were really focused on the assignment. Almost every five minutes, one of the students in my group would want to practice doing the commercial again. They seemed to enjoy making it, and most of them took the lead in making their movies (from what I gather from the other groups, too). So, in that area, we did a good job of keeping the students on task for the most part. My group even quieted down when another group in the same room was going to record their movie, and watched instead of making noise.

Looking at my own teaching, my change is that I need to take the initiative when teaching others. I cannot be afraid and just stand around. That's how I'm going to better next time. Take the initiative, take control by exerting authority, and giving/gaining respect.

Reflection 10 - Charisma and Middle School

So, I was listening to Jess Carter talk today about how he got into teaching Middle School, and while I had no revelations, it made me think about Middle School as an option. The one thing he said that really surprised me was the fact that the kids were fun to be with and interact with. That's something I had not assumed before, because, as I've said, my Middle School experience was Hell for me. Granted, I created a lot of that Hellish-like atmosphere in my Middle School for myself by being immature, but the kids never really treated me with respect; save the ones in the Mormon circle and a couple outside that circle. I did try to preach the gospel there, but I always did it with the wrong approach, and ended up arguing angerly with other students. There was also that one time when someone jammed an umbrella in my butt—a very unpleasant experience. Thus, anyone can see that I had a bad Middle School experience, which is why I never wanted to teach Middle School because I never wanted to deal with kids like that again.

Jess's experience seems to be different. The kids, while they have their whacky tendencies, tend to be fun in his class. I'll admit he's smart about he teaches, and he teaches in a way that's really attractive to students. I know because I went to American Fork Junior High to watch his class; I thought it was amazing how he kept it under control. So, after listening to him, and also seeing his class earlier in the semester, I will give Middle School another chance.

I also heard Shum talking to a student about teaching after the Seminar. The student was “torn” between teaching High School and Middle School. I don't remember the reasons that student had; all I remember was Shum saying that when you student-teach, you will probably figure out what type of school is best for you. I felt like that was important to note because when I came into this major, I was set on just being a web designer—like Jess was set on being an Autoshop teacher. What Shum said was important because I need to have an open heart to the possibilities. If my heart is hardened, then I will not know where to be or what to do.

One thing that worries me though is that I lack charisma. In Jess, Geoff, Shum, and other good teachers, I see charisma as one of their better attributes. Because of their charisma, they make good teachers since that attribute is connected with leadership skills, and people interaction skills. I really sink in the social/people skills department in waters that I do not know how to swim in. To me, this means teaching for me will be harder than others (at least this is what I believe).

I have no idea what I can about my lack of charisma; there's probably very little I can do to change that. However, the way I teach can be changed, tweaked, and improved.

Reflection 9 - Effort and Determination

My grandfather always said that determination is better than brains. With determination, one can overcome all the odds to achieve his/her goal. One with brains, lacking determination, will just waste his/her resources instead of using them. Having both is wonderful, but usually, it is better to have determination than to have brains.

In the Marzano book, it talks about a study done on students and learning and shows that belief in effort is the greatest factor in gaining success. Those who put forth the effort gain the rewards. I can see this in the STL lessons we were taught today. The student teachers, obviously, put a lot of effort into their lesson plans. There were activities, good lectures, double teaching, and good use of videos. Not only did they put effort into their plans, they put a lot of effort into executing their plans. It is my opinion that execution of the plan is just as important as the plan itself. If you don't execute it well, your plan will fail. This is shown by the fact that the student teachers kept our attention, interacted with us, and made us a part of the lesson instead of 'empty vessels.'

What my grandfather said, and what the book said line up with each other: determination is better than brains, and effort is the most significant factor in achievement.

So, what am I going to do? I'm determined to put effort into everything I do, including teaching! I believe that this will dramatically change my success in class, and in my learning. For example, in TEE 125, I'm planning something epic for my Flash Animation, I'm going to put all the effort I can into it all week long. I believe that if I put in enough effort, it will be epic enough. My belief in effort is much stronger after reading that small section of the Marzano book. No more sloppy learning, no more sloppy teaching. Expect something new.

Reflection 8 - STL

Teaching the STLs today was quite the challenge. I think I may have chosen the wrong object to teach: a LAN. My objective was the following: “Communication systems are made up of source, encoder, transmitter, receiver, decoder, storage, retrieval, and destination.” A LAN was given as an example of this in the STL book, and I thought since I had experience with LANs and I have a brother who is very intelligent and knows a lot more about LANs that it would be a perfect subject for me. Boy, was I wrong. I could not find on the internet how a LAN decodes and encodes information, hence why my presentation was so short, my brother said to look at “Ethernet” on Wikipedia, but warned me that the subject was far too complex for the grade level I marked in my Lesson Plan. Therefore, I took it out.

I want to capture something here that's important: my groupmates' lessons. I thought they, especially Kyle and Amy, did an excellent job. They used the board, videos, activities, and power points in effective ways. The board was used effectively in that it was used to write the answers that the class gave, and to show the points that the 'teachers' were making. I liked Amy's introduction to her lesson, it was creative and tied well into what she was teaching. That's effective because a creative introduction is memorable and helps a person remember the lesson more clearly. Kyle's activity was interesting, and involved the whole class, making the lesson feel, in my opinion, more student-centered than teacher-centered. I think that's effective as it also makes the lesson more memorable. One could say, “hey, remember that time when we split into two groups? I remember that lesson!” because of Kyle's activity.

Going back to my subject choice, I think it was ineffective because the only video I could find was a boring “how to build a LAN” video. That could have been exciting, but the way it was executed, it would have bored the class to tears, and I didn't want to do that. Also, I could not think of a creative opening for my lesson—a video, an activity, or whatever. Therefore, it lacked the grabbing effect that I needed for my lesson. Granted, I could have searched harder for something similar to a video of people communicating in a way that is analogous to a LAN, but I didn't think of that until after I taught.

I think overall the reason I was not as effective as Kyle and Amy is that I didn't give myself plenty of time to prepare my lesson. I did it the night before, like Geoff mentioned. Upon reflecting this, I'm going to take action that I mentioned in my teaching analysis: I'm going to give myself time to prepare for the lesson and choose the best topic I can think of for the type of assignment I've been given the next time I teach. I think then, next time, I will be better.

Was I more effective this time than the first two? I think so. I addressed the class, and I had a different topic this time. I was also watching myself throughout the entire lesson instead of focusing on how to condense the lesson into a small space of time.

This has been a good learning experience for me; I know now to think about the questions I'm going to ask and try to work with someone to answer it whenever I ask one, give pre-testing, and try to evaluate learning throughout the lesson. I know that the last part is not necessary, and that a review is fine, but I want to try out testing throughout the lesson instead as one of my new approaches to teaching. Expect something new and exciting from me next time.

Reflection 7 - Hedges and Learning

I was reading in the Marzano book, and I have to say that I disagree with Hedges. I may not have done intensive research or have statistics to back me up, but I disagree because I feel like he is wrong in one way or another. I think it's because he believes that educational research is weak, and isn't as important as the “hard sciences.” After all I've learned about teaching, I really feel like he's wrong about that because teaching is important for the future.

Let's take the world's greatest teacher, Christ. He brought forth the Church of Christ through His teachings. While it fell after a short time of being on the earth, it was restored again in 1830. Even after centuries of silence from the heavens, Christ's teachings, and the teachings of His Apostles touched the heart, spirit, and mind of a fourteen year old boy that led to the restoration of the true Church. Christ has had a phenomenal influence on the world because of His teachings (and of course, His crucifixion, and resurrection) which were brought forth over 2,000 years ago. Thus, His teachings have had a profound influence on the world throughout time. It proves that teaching matters, much more than Hedges thinks it does.

I have very little left to say. I'd just like to add that my love for teaching is slowly growing, hence why I jumped on Hedges a little hard here, and my love for learning is growing. There's probably hope for me after all.

Remember when I said I was a "sloppy" learner? I remembered a time when I did learn something from a class. I was in an English class, and had the book called The House of Mirth. I hated it. It taught so many evil things, and made me wonder why on earth it was considered a classic. The book taught the following: Being good doesn't get you anywhere, except death (suicide) in the end; you can do bad things and get away with them; you can frame the goodie-two-shoes with your evil acts; and being important to society is all that matters.

These things disgusted me, and I swore never to write a book like this one, ever. Even if it meant that I couldn't get into the English Canon (which is one of my goals as a novelist), I just was not going to walk down that path. That day, I learned what I really wanted to write as an aspiring novelist. As a teacher, I also will never teach anything that could depress my students, and not inspire them with anything worthy of God.

Reflection 6 - Aren't We All Redeemers?

Today, we started with “Teach Something 3.” Seeing what it was like was starting to give me an idea of how I should set up my lesson plan. However, I was, at first, thrown off by the fact that the group itself did not teach, but one person at a time was teaching. It intimidated me because I had just gone over my own teaching with MediaNotes, and seeing all the errors that I had made, I almost signed myself off as someone who cannot teach.

Yet, I cannot give up. I was reading in Alma 9 today, and after reading it, I went back and looked at certain verses. They are as follows: “For there are many promises which are extended to the Lamanites; for it is because of the traditions of their fathers that caused them to remain in their state of ignorance; therefore the Lord will be merciful unto them and prolong their existence in the land.... And not many days hence the Son of God shall come in his glory; and his glory shall be the glory of the Only Begotten of the Father, full of grace, equity, and truth, full of patience, mercy, and long-suffering, quick to hear the cries of his people and to answer their prayers. And behold, he cometh to redeem those who will be baptized unto repentance, through faith on his name” (Alma 9: 16, 26-27, bold added).

Now, I put in bold two words that stood out to me: 'ignorance' and 'redeem.' I ask the question as teachers, are we not redeemers? While we are certainly not the Redeemer, we redeem those from ignorance by teaching them. I know that I'm definitely stretching the meaning of these verses, but this is what came to me after reading them, and considering my teaching approach. I just cannot give up, because I am a redeemer, who leads others to our Redeemer.

Teaching is a way of redeeming others from destructive behaviors and downcast lives. Remember what the Gong book said multiple times? It talked about how many students' lives were changed because of a teacher (it also mentions this a few times in the Wong book). Their lives were changed. Their lives were redeemed from ignorance. We give knowledge and truth, which comes from Light, the Light of Christ. In a sense, we do God's work as teachers. Maybe we will not teach religion, or gospel principles, but the students will see it in the way we act, speak, and teach. Hopefully, they will see Christ in us.

That is why I cannot give up. I've got to try again, and this time, it'll be better.

Over the past week, I had the opportunity to teach others as well. Last week, for TEE 125, we had to design a website. Many, many people asked me questions about web design, especially trying to differentiate HTML from CSS. I was not frustrated, but I was happy; happy to help them learn how to make a website. I was not nervous, quiet, or teaching the computer, but I was teaching them. I'm not boasting here, merely giving an example of how my teaching has improved. So, I cannot give up. I cannot give up at all.

Reflection 5

High school is what I wanted to teach, yet before I went to Skyline this morning, I kinda had a dreadful feeling that the kids would make fun of us, or just me. I don't know why I thought this, because when we arrived the students cheered for us for coming from BYU. It's probably my paranoid side of me that always imagines worse case scenarios. Regardless, I felt welcome at Skyline today.

The class was fun to watch, I had no thoughts at the time that Alicia was teaching about my own teaching methods (I was trying to analyze hers). However, after the class left, I felt a little intimidated by Emily and the others because of their excitement for teaching. They seemed so... strong, so willing. I felt like I lacked that motivation. I don't understand why, but my motivation was not springing up like a magnificent fountain of everlasting water.

I'm not saying that I don't want to teach, but I don't think I have that level of enthusiasm for teaching. It worries me because I wonder if anyone in this major really needs that level of enthusiasm to be a good student, to be a good learner, to be a good teacher.

Emily asked me in the car what I wanted to teach. I told her I wanted to teach High School, probably something with Multimedia (web design, hopefully). I want to be able to teach what I love to do, and I love web design. I think it would do people good to learn web design since the internet is becoming more and more required in our lives. From what I can tell, Utah itself seems to be foolishly cutting web design out of its systems (Alicia told us that it had cut from the school programs, and there is no web design major at BYU. Just two to three classes on it.), which will create a problem in schools. I think if kids want to learn it, they should be allowed to learn it and no class should be cut off from them. This is a matter of necessity.

I will teach web design. Somehow, it all comes down to how I will play my cards.