Unfortunately, it’s not as easy as just saying “Kids, I want you to learn to learn”. There are several questions I have about how to accomplish 21st century teaching:

• Does my role become a glorified babysitter?
  Kind of a silly question, but it does concern me that my role may move to just keeping students on task while they learn everything from a website. I’m teaching because I have knowledge that I want to pass on, not because I just need a paycheck.

• How do I effectively measure a student’s progress?
  I find it very difficult grading work on an “effort” or “creativity” basis. It’s too subjective and I’d hate to give a student a low grade on something they worked very hard on. I know I should be monitoring their progress throughout the projects, but I find it difficult remembering the effort level for 100 students. What’s the best way to manage this?

• How do I successfully convince the higher ups to let me use blogs and social media sites when I’m not even certain myself it will work?

• How do I appropriately filter content teenagers try to get away with adding?

• How do I write lesson plans that are actually geared towards 21st century and not just Thinly veiled 20th century techniques?

• How can I teach 21st century style for a subject I’m not very familiar with? How do I know the students are learning the right information?

• How do I provide a structured environment for the students who need it? Some students need and desire the structured step-by-step environment when it comes to learning and would get disoriented/distracted if I threw them to the mercy of the internet. How do I provide the structure for these types of students so that they can also succeed?

I’m definitely hoping to adapt my teaching style as I go and I’m thinking about ways I can really engage the students so hopefully some of these questions can be answered.

No related posts.

No related posts.

And apparently the powers that be decided Katie and I both needed to be completely overloaded with work at the same time, seeing as her manager has been out for the past four weeks in premature labor (long story. twins. one has been birthed, the other is still in there. yes, her manager has been in labor for four weeks. and I’m complaining about being busy…)

Webmastering is going well. I’ve got the students moving into embedded CSS now. They just finished successfully validating their first page (well, fixing the intentional errors in included on a page).

Quick thoughts

• Disciplining the students is hard
• Students absences ruin everything
• I’ve been using the Big Picture for daily warm-ups. Pretty pictures… Kids like it but I’ll need something new since they’re getting tired of it.

My goal over the next few weeks is to stop trying to just make it past the next day and start planning to make it past the next week.

No related posts.