5. Lessons learned from classroom visits

Erica, Mike, Adam, Kaeli
This page is for your group to summarize the major takeaways from our class visits to schools this semseter. Be specific to the expeirences we summarized on Monday in class and general to the major points that stick with you. Put your group's responses here.

Social Relations

• Know your students and their community. Work with those around you (faculty, fellow teachers, community members, and students) to facilitate work and education for all.
• Be a leader, don’t be the students’ “best friend”. Educators are teachers first and "friends" second. That does not mean you should be completely distant from your students either, though. Find a happy medium and work with it.
• Hopefully as a teacher you want to be liked by your students but you shouldn’t substitute this in exchange for lowering their educational experience. Teacher’s have to maintain a friendly relationship but at the same time remain professional so that the teacher-student relationship is a productive one.
• In order to garner respect from others, one must give respect. Students have valid input as well as fellow educators.
• Take criticism in stride and be ready to tweak your style if it is not working for your students. Find a fellow teacher to act as a mentor for you. Do not be afraid to ask for help if you need it! Personal pride should never get in the way of a student's education for any reason.

Classroom Habits/Teaching Methods

• Teaching the test and not the material can lead to kids who will grow up to lack the basic fundamental education because they simply memorized it and forgot it a month later. I was horrified to see first hand that 90% of one class I observed was based on review. How can it make sense to us as educators to review more than we teach? Tests are important and a tool to measure a students progression or regression but I feel that to much emphasis on standardized testing can greatly handicap the academic growth of the students.
• To be a good teacher, be innovative, don’t be ordinary. Relax, don’t force it. Be animated, not a cardboard cut-out. Mix it up; don’t turn it into a job. Be passionate when called for, don’t be emotionless. We are competing for our students' attention with their social lives and personal interests. We must find ways to keep and hold their attention and make them want to learn. Often, in order to do this, we must be entertainers as well as educators and know how to combine the two concepts.
• Pay attention to classroom décor. Students learn better in an inviting environment. If they feel at ease, they will be more willing to work with the teacher. Put up student work, pictures relevant to student interests/course matter. If in a classroom where able, include a bookshelf students can pick books from. Make sure the room is well lighted, if possible with at least some natural lighting. As teachers, we are trying to set up an environment students feel safe and willing to learn in, and the way the classroom is set up and decorated can positively or negatively affect that.
• Never let a student see you get flustered. Students will try to push your buttons to elicit a response, so do not let go of your professionalism. Don’t be a pushover—keep control of your classroom. Find constructive ways of dealing with discipline problems, rather than embarrassing the student and wasting time with interruptions such as sending the student to ISS. Such a method usually backfires, causing more of a disruption than the student had originally. Use the method of constant redirect to channel energy into activities you want completed.
• Be diverse in your lesson plans! Not all students learn the same, and the methods of learning which help you most may not be the most efficient methods for others. Make use of tactile, visual, verbal, and auditory stimulus, along with any other different methods you can come up with. It makes things fun for the students to have a lesson plan which is not always the same, and they may learn better as well.