Classroom Talk- Ann Brand

On Thursday Ann Brand came into class to talk to us about “mindful” teaching. This presentation was very interesting as Ann talked about how to be mindful in the classroom as well as how to manage our stress through mindfulness. Mindfulness is paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, non-judgmentally. It is a particular way of paying attention, as it requires the “whole experience” through thoughts, feelings, body sensations and senses.

She talked a lot about taking time for ourselves and how this can benefit our students also, “When caring about yourself, you care for your students.” To have mindful attention is to be self aware and aware of others. I believe this can help with classroom management. By being mindful we can increase our overall positivity in the classroom and increase our health. This stress reducing practice would also help with managing difficult situations, stresses while modeling good behavior. For students who have difficulties managing their own stress, mindfulness could help them cope and deal with issues when they are stressed themselves. Leading by example mindfulness could be implemented into your classroom within a short time.

Ann gave some good practice tips on how we could implement mindfulness in our classroom:

1.     5 minutes of mindful breathing

2.     Take a breath before answer phone or email

3.     Stretch for one minute before grading

4.     Noticing jaw or shoulder tension or tightening

5.     Count breaths at stoplight on your way home

6.     Mindfully eating your lunch.

Some benefits of mindfulness in education

1.     Enhances classroom climate

2.     Enhances academic performances

3.     Enhances attention and working memory

4.     Enhances social-emotional skills.

Within a matter of time these practices could be implemented in our daily routine. It was a great and mindful presentation as I learned a lot. Some of these techniques we already implement, but do not understand why, as Ann clarified some of that up for us. It was good!

Teacher Talk- Trey King

Today Mr. King came in and talked to us about teaching approaches, management and expectations. This presentation was interesting for me, as I have been working with Mr. King for the past six weeks at Fall Creek Middle and High School. For once I felt like I was a student of Mr. King’s as I truly got to experience his teaching style through his presentation. Mr. King is a very soft-spoken teacher, who hates to raise his voice in the classroom. His gentle approach forces his students to listen intently in order to hear everything and pay attention. If at any time Mr. King does raise his voice (to my normal talking voice) the students are truly bug-eyed and in shock as they know that they must of done something wrong. I noticed through my practicum experience with Mr. King that I started to adapt this approach, by consciously making an effort to talk quietly to grab the attention of my students.

Mr. King addressed some issues we all feared with teaching and student teaching. Some of the topics that came up included; dealing with student conflict, grading rubrics, making time, and experimenting.  He had some great answers to these topics; choosing your conflicts or battles as what ones are the most important, if you make a grading rubric you can reference it and use it as support, you simply just have to make time, and experimenting is what student teaching is for.

He also strongly recommend us all to read the book Love and Logic as it would help us with parenting and classroom management. He made a good point about expectations. If you grade your students against themselves, they can feel successful instead of setting too high of expectations for your students, and they fall short, they feel unsuccessful. Another pointer he gave us in terms of classroom management dealt with influencing your students with good behavior, not controlling them and when enforcing something, you must stick to it. All in all it was a great presentation by Mr. King.

Student Teacher Talk- Anna Bush

A current student teacher, Anna Bush, came into our classroom to give us some tips on the edTPA. Her enthusiasm and admittance of difficulties student teaching and teaching with the edTPA made me at ease when teaching with the edTPA. It was nice to hear her honest opinion of student teaching and her honest feed back on the benefits and disadvantages of the edTPA.

One thing that she recommended for future student teachers is to not do the edTPA lesson right away in your practicum experience. She admitted that she learned a lot about her teaching strategy and her approach but realized that it would have been easier to wait, as she gained more as her time increased in the classroom. Anna suggested teaching your lesson during the fourth or fifth week of class as it allowed for you to get to know your students more. Anna also emphasized the importance of having an open relationship with your cooperating teacher. This relationship will benefit you, as they will help you become a better teacher. She also mentioned that without this relationship, it could change your overall experience student teaching.

Anna also had a few good tips about classroom organization and by simply writing the criteria up on the board for your students, can help them stay on task and keeps them in the loop of what is expected of them today. She mentioned that taking on a class week-by-week would help eliminate the sense of being overwhelmed when it comes to your head weeks. By adding a new head class each week, by week seven, you will be teaching all of the classes anyway. I think this approach makes sense as it could help eliminate the stress of teaching all at once.

Overall Anna had some great tips and pointers about the edTPA and student teaching. It was great to hear her talk about these issues from the point of view of something who is currently going through these difficulties.