Important ideas for_teachers fall 2011

Important Ideas for Pre-service Teachers!

1. You are not like them (or me) * not better or worse - just different

"I am not teaching me, I am teaching them" (Heather Montague, 2010)

2. Supervise yourself! or Take control of your supervision!

Some ideas to tryhttps://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AW_ST60LiRO1ZGRnNjc5c2JfNDgwZHNrODg3ZGo&hl=en 

3. Make use of all your class time - have students talk outside the room and enter the room ready to start - reading material, math problem on the board, a news item to think about, a science oddity to ponder and explain, a poem to memorize ...

4. Never stop learning – subject, student’s cultures, whatever.

5. Try to make contact with everyone every class.

6. The only real crisis in your classroom is the one you create.

7. Communication is mainly nonverbal. It's way more - eyes, arms, motion, smell, stance, etc

8. Technology does not solve problems --- people solve problems.

• Technology should be about helping individuals, groups and society.

 9. Multimedia is the 'black hole' of time

• minor adjustments will take inordinate amounts of time

• this is why you want students creating the multimedia stuff - you don't have time1

10. Any activity has to make it better for learning

• or not hurt learning while making it easier for the teacher.

11. Technology is not neutral

• it is Western, white, male, military, democratic, consumer centric and emotionless ...

12. Once the mark is given, the learning stops.

13. Don't complain about the marking - you assigned it! Make it interesting. You do not have to mark everything.

14. Know when to throw out the rubric

•15. Perception is reality. Yours, students, parents, admin, etc.

16. Use your style – no one else’s But don't let that limit your students! See rule # 1.

17. Who are the digital natives?

• If YouTube and Facebook are only 5 years old are we all native to them?

18. Is it worth your time? Make it re-usable.

19. Promote higher order skills / problem solving

20. You don’t need to know the details of a program to have students use it.

• You do need to know enough to assess the product.

21. Which intelligences are:

• enhanced by technology, • which are diminished?

22. Find the best uses of technology in your subject area.

23. How much time should be spent teaching how to use technology?

• How much time do we spend teaching students to speak, read and write? These are also technology based.

24. Break the rules when necessary

25. When is a movie (podcast, animation, glog,...) like an essay?

26. Discipline - make them choose.