Effective Teaching Practices I can Work On

There are plenty of Effective Teaching Practices I can work on but here are just a few I want to work on. The one I want to work on the most is specifying and reinforcing productive student behavior. The class I am in this semester has been a little bit chatty. A lot of the students also don't seem to want to do their work which can sometimes be expected in school. The hard part for me will be to find a way to get them to be productive. There are multiple ways I could do that. I just need to find the way that works. Some students respond well to fear of getting in trouble (I know I did). As far as I can tell this will not work on the students I am working with. At this point I need to find a new way to motivate. I am hoping that if I show them respect in the classroom, they will respect me enough to listen to me and do what I ask.

The other practice I want to work on is checking student understanding during and after the lesson. One of the easy ways to check understanding is by simply asking the students if they understand. When you ask the whole class usually only the kids who understand say something and sometimes the teacher assumes that means the whole class understands. I want to be able to teach a lesson and then be able to talk to each student individually so they can ask me questions if they feel embarrassed. That is obviously what a perfect world looks like but I can adjust to use techniques that are variations of that.

These are just a few of the practices. As a young teacher I need to work on all of them but these two were the two I felt I could work on effectively in my class this semester. 

Improving teaching, not teachers

When I hear the phrase improve teaching  not teachers it make me think about how there are usually no bad teachers. Every teacher has the best intentions and believes that the techniques they are using will work. Teachers know how to teach. Maybe there technique isn't right for the demographic or SES class or simply that specific set of students. Whatever the case is, teachers know how to teach. The idea is to learn new teaching techniques that you may not have thought of that can may work in your situation. That is why it is so important that we as teachers share our ideas and share our experiences both positive and negative  We need to improve teaching and in turn that will improve teachers.

A few quotes from "The Teaching Gap"

"Standards set the course, and assessments provide the benchmarks, but it is teaching that must be improved to push us along the path to success."

"Reducing the class size from thirty to twenty certainly will make teachers happier. But if teachers continue to use the same methods they used with larger classes, learning opportunities for students will change little"

"To really improve teaching we must invest far more than we do now in generating and sharing knowledge about teaching. This is another sort of teaching gap. Compared with other countries, the United States clearly lacks a system for developing professional knowledge and for giving teachers the opportunity to learn about teaching."

How I Characterize Math WorkShop style lesson

I like the way the author describes it. So many times teachers want to do "hands on" activities which is a good thing. But teachers need to be mindful that the activities are also "minds on" meaning the student will have to think, solve, and analyze challenging problems. I think that's what a math workshop style lesson is all about. It also allows for multiple strategies. Too many times students are taught one way to solve a problem even though there are 5 or 6 well known strategies they could be taught. A math workshop allows for students to find the strategy that works best for them. I would characterize it as student centered instead of teacher centered. Even though the teacher is present and conferring with students, it's up to the students to solve the problems and not be spoon fed the answers. It also allows for discussion at the end of the workshop by students. It allows the students to recap what they have learned and to talk about it instead of the teacher recapping and giving out exit slips to check for understanding. Student centered and minds on are the best works to characterize math workshops.

Hello There

Hello there friends,

My name is Marty Brudzinski. I am currently a student at Grand Valley State University. I am going into secondary education with a major in math and minors in economics and engineering sciences. I start my first day of teacher assisting at Grand Rapids University Prep Academy on Sept.6 where I will be teaching Algebra 2 and Pre Calculus.

I am originally from Canton, MI. It's about 20 minutes west of Detroit. In high school I played football, basketball, and was a thrower on the track team. While I had the chance to play college football at some small Division 3 schools I decided to to simply go to school and be a student at Grand Valley State.

When I'm not in school I enjoy all sports. I love playing sports, talking sports, watching sports, and coaching sports. I am a big fan of all Detroit sports teams and the Michigan Wolverines. I am also big into snow skiing and was a member of the GVSU Ski and Snowboard team for 3 years. That is where I met my girlfriend Christine who is currently teaching 1st grade in Fremont, MI public schools.

I think that's about it.