The warmup is with my newly turned 6 year old class. I have actually known some of them since they were in the 4 year old class. I see them once a day for 30 minutes Monday to Thursday.
First and foremost, WHERE AM I TEACHING??? My classroom looks more like a prison cell for convicts, than a place of caring and nurturing made for the inspiration of young minds! I would love to place the blame on my school for stripping my walls over the break, but even before the break my falls were bare. I just never realized until watching it in the video... At the start of the video you can see that the children are all focused on the only stimulating thing on the walls and it's the old tapemark remnants of a previous poster! I definitely need to work on my classroom, make it personal; something that reflects me and my teaching. Work on some projects in class to decorate the walls and give them life. ART ART ART COLOR COLOR COLOR WORDS WORDS WORDS
Looking at the warmup itself, I believe that it went relatively well considering how worried I was about watching the video. The students seem to be very responsive to this activity. At first, you can see some of the students not fully engaged with the song/actions, but by the second time around, the entire class was participating and having fun. Which was the point of my warm up.
~I noticed, (from the readings I have recently done) that I don't give the students anytime to react or speak on their own. I don't know if this would be something that I would apply or worry about given the warmup activity is a song and their age.
To change this I could keep leading in the same manner , then in future classes I would assign a song leader who would essentially take over my role and lead the class. The goal being to slowly remove myself from helping the 'Song Leader' till I could completely remove myself and each student could lead without my assistance. In the end it would be a warmup completely made up of student student interaction, which would be completely opposite of what I'm doing now.
WOW... I literally just came up with this as I was writing and reflecting on this video. Maybe those guys Richards and Lockhart are on to something with this whole teacher reflection thing. Also, I hope that's a good idea! Because if not... that means I probably shouldn't be feeling the way I am now. Well, I'm proud of myself for just coming up with that and that's all that matters! HAHA
As for the overall teacher interaction, I noticed that I whistled at a student to get their attention. Need to stop that approach. They're not dogs. I do like the hands up, hands down, etc.. for getting their attention. I will actually do this in the middle of a lesson or do a song and dance when I feel them slipping through my fingers. Gets them moving around again and focused back on me. This also gives me a second to rethink my approach for teaching the material or if it's time to just switch gears completely and start something new. I STRONGLY believe one of the top attributes of a professional teacher is that 'you got to know when to hold'em, know when to fold'em'. If the class is rolling, don't stop it just because you have something else planned or the lesson says to. You might not ever get this opportunity again, so just go with it. On the reverse side, if it's not working, then stop. Later, go over what you did and try to figure out what went wrong. If you just keep going, you accomplish nothing in the form of teaching. The only thing you accomplished is finishing a page number, chapter or lesson. It might not be the right approach, but that's how I feel!
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~I noticed, (from the readings I have recently done) that I don't give the students anytime to react or speak on their own. I don't know if this would be something that I would apply or worry about given the warmup activity is a song and their age.
To change this I could keep leading in the same manner , then in future classes I would assign a song leader who would essentially take over my role and lead the class. The goal being to slowly remove myself from helping the 'Song Leader' till I could completely remove myself and each student could lead without my assistance. In the end it would be a warmup completely made up of student student interaction, which would be completely opposite of what I'm doing now.
WOW... I literally just came up with this as I was writing and reflecting on this video. Maybe those guys Richards and Lockhart are on to something with this whole teacher reflection thing. Also, I hope that's a good idea! Because if not... that means I probably shouldn't be feeling the way I am now. Well, I'm proud of myself for just coming up with that and that's all that matters! HAHA
As for the overall teacher interaction, I noticed that I whistled at a student to get their attention. Need to stop that approach. They're not dogs. I do like the hands up, hands down, etc.. for getting their attention. I will actually do this in the middle of a lesson or do a song and dance when I feel them slipping through my fingers. Gets them moving around again and focused back on me. This also gives me a second to rethink my approach for teaching the material or if it's time to just switch gears completely and start something new. I STRONGLY believe one of the top attributes of a professional teacher is that 'you got to know when to hold'em, know when to fold'em'. If the class is rolling, don't stop it just because you have something else planned or the lesson says to. You might not ever get this opportunity again, so just go with it. On the reverse side, if it's not working, then stop. Later, go over what you did and try to figure out what went wrong. If you just keep going, you accomplish nothing in the form of teaching. The only thing you accomplished is finishing a page number, chapter or lesson. It might not be the right approach, but that's how I feel!
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