From the notebook

One of the things we forget easily in the digital age is that the physical act of writing is closely tied to memory. Write it down and you're likely to remember it and let it sink into your mind and your heart. Before I started teaching this fall I started a notebook to write some of these things down in. There are things I'd learned while teaching, things I'd learned from teachers, things I learned about myself and about others. Here are some of the highlights.

Focus on developing strategies; both developing strategies as a teacher and inhelping students develop strategies for themselves.

What people hear is sometimes more important that what you say.

Find ways to celebrate students' achievement without extrinsic rewards.

The broken record technique: If you catch a student misbehaving, repeat the rule until they relent. i.e. "In this class we do not interrupt others while their speaking." Repeat every time they argue. Do not accuse them of anything, this just opens up something new to argue about.

Use the things that students do best to help them learn what they need the most.

Emphasize the knowledge and skills that students already have rather than focusing on what they don't know.

Grading papers is hard work. Be sure that any assignment you give the students is also worth the effort you need to grade it.

We tend to equate silent, obedient kids with good learners, but the opposite is probably true. Active learning creates energy, and lots of it. Energy creates sound, heat, and motion.

Be positive. Try hard.

If a large portion of a class scores poorly, it shows that the teacher is not meeting the needs of the students, regardless of how other classes performed or how well the methods used worked before.

Students must be able to see themselves in the curriculum in order for it to be relevant and meaningful to them.

Showing a movie at the end of a book unit probably doesn't have much value. Showing it at the begining can help front-load the reading and give it more context, and showing scenes interspersed with the reading can help increase understanding.

Find a way to keep the morning classes awake. (If anyone figures this one out, please let me know!)