The author of the article noted 10 themes that her 220 students repeated over and over again.
- Working with peers: Students want to collaborate. That's great news. I do think that this particular theme is obscured a little by the fact that students seem to want to work with their FRIENDS not just their PEERS but it is something that I am working on with my students.
- Working with technology: I'm not sure I'm convinced that students really want technology per se. I feel that they definitely like doing things that are new and different (which technology based lessons tend to be) but I think this may apply more to theme 9 than really being its own theme.
- Connecting the real world to the work we do/project based learning: I know that I have missed the mark somewhere if a student asks me "where will I use this in the real world" and I don't have an answer ready. There is more than enough to cover in my content area that IS applicable for me to waste time teaching the many areas that are not.
- Clearly love what you do: I think that this is easy to do and yet very hard to do perfectly. I love teaching about (most parts of) chemistry, but I really don't like giving tests. Watching students take tests is BORING! So I think that I am full of fire when I'm teaching material but that light dims when I hand out the tests and students pick up on that. This means that I either need to find more meaning in testing (so I can come to love it more) or I need to find a way to assess student learning that I CAN love.
- Get me out of my seat! I wrote about this idea in an earlier blog and the point still stands. Sitting down for hours on end is exhausting! I recently talked with my cooperating teacher about the idea of "wasting time" by giving students stretch breaks in the middle of the period. I feel that in a 60 minute class a 5-minute break is an investment that makes the learning in the last 25-30 minutes more effective than the time "lost" in the break. If the break can be related to the lesson that's even better!
- Bring visuals: A picture is worth a thousand words is what they say. Google image search and projectors make it so that we have more ability now than ever to integrate visuals into our lessons.
- Student choice: As a student-teacher I know exactly what it means to feel, as my students must, like I am being forced to jump through hoops for the enjoyment of others. This feeling is enhanced when I am not only told to jump through the hoop, but also when, how, how many times, which leg to lead with, how low to duck my head, etc. The fact is that the state and district will always have a huge say in what I need to get students to be capable of by the end of the year but I can control the level of micromanaging that I use. I will try to design lessons and assignments that give students space for their own ideas and creativity.
- Understand your clients -- the kids: This comes back to what I wrote in the introductory paragraph. I need to learn about what my students want and what they need. THEN- I need to put this information into practice. Not every class is the same and I need to be flexible enough to adapt my curriculum to my students.
- Mix it up! I loved one of the student's comments that said "Eating the same foods constantly makes you not want to eat!" So it is with teaching. Even the most engaging activities will become stale if used too often. Rotating activities and teaching strategies will help keep students more interested.
- Be human: Some of the greatest lessons I learned from teachers didn't come from the course description. I learned to support others, laugh at my own mistakes, and to keep trying even if I'm not I'm not really very good at something from teachers that weren't afraid to let their human frailties show through. I hope that while I teach my students chemistry I can also teach them what it means to be human. Like with teaching science well, I must model the problems and the solutions in order to give my students the chance to learn.