As I was reading this article, the first quote stood out to me from Routman. "We are not only role models for learning; we are role models for living". This explains why we need to use real-life experiences in the classroom because it teaches our children how to live their daily lives in school and outside of school. When students are in school, they become better at what we teach them if teachers spend more time on instruction and have lots of time to read and talk about books or math problems. Another example that was stated was "To trust your own judgement and knowledge as you teach". When we teach, we should use the knowledge that we learned throughout our educational classes and apply that information into our planning to make it more interesting for our students. We should not rely heavily on textbooks to tell us how to teach. I try to use the resource books for a guide of how to get started and then create ways to teach the concepts by adding technology, writing, etc. This strategy will continue to keep work meaningful so that more value will come from the students.
Keeping work simple that students can do without the teacher's assistance will help the teacher observe how their students work and be able to help some students in a small groups if needed. When teachers teach a skill and assess, they check different levels throughout the day. During shared reading and writing, you can notice strengths and weaknesses to move a student forward to build confidence. Teaching that keeps students engaged saves time for the teachers and energy. Sometimes you can find yourself spending too much time discipline a student in the middle of the lesson when that time can be used for something else.
Hi Teresa,
ReplyDeleteI loved the quote you cited from Routman at the beginning of your post about how as teachers we are more than just role models for learning, we are role models for living and how this is important for us to remember when we think about our schedules and our instruction - what is most importnat.