After a full week of observing lessons in the classroom I am now even more aware of how important it is to engage your learners. When students are not engaged they become bored, they start behaving badly, they don't pay attention and they cease to learn or care about learning.
Most of the lessons I have observed have been standard chalk and talk lessons, however one lesson stood above all the rest and this was a lesson performed in one of the school library rooms that had an interactive whiteboard.
I had previously witnessed this class in a standard classroom with a whiteboard, copying things down from the whiteboard and answering questions. The teacher spent a large proportion of her time managing behaviour and there was a great deal of bad behaviour to manage.
In the room with the interactive whiteboard the students had two videos to watch on the whiteboard. The teacher paused the videos at particular points to highlight important definitions or points. When I finally realised that I should be watching the students and not the videos I realised that every single student was watching the screen and genuinely seemed interested.
I taught my own lesson for the first time this week on navigation and unfortunately had a standard classroom with rows of desks and a standard whiteboard that was in no way interactive. There was no projector and no way of showing video. I made the most of what I had and took in a globe of the world instead.
When I am able to have more control over my lessons and do not have to fit in with a mentor teacher I will do whatever I can to use video in the classroom. I found the following video on YouTube that quite nicely explains latitude and longitude and would have been a great way to start the lesson and a great way to save my voice.
Students need technology. If you're not using technology in your classroom they are finding a way to introduce it themselves by listening to their iPod or sending SMS messages when they are not supposed to be. Teachers need to be using technology to focus the students on what they need to learn and avoid the students focusing their attention elsewhere.
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Hi Tina!
ReplyDeleteI completely aggree with what you are saying about students introducing the technology into teh classroom themselves if we fail to as teachers! I am lucky enough to have an interactive whiteboard and students have laptops also, they are so excited to use these and the challenges of classroom management are diminished as they are focused on their work! So I will be using these as much as I can!
I think its great that you thought ahead and took in your own globe and made the most of what you had available. We won't always be lucky enough to teach at a school with up to date ICT'S and will still have engage students without them.
Regards
Meegan SOmmerfeld