Week Seven of Student Teaching

The fact of the matter is I need to get more organized. I'm a good teacher, its not like I'm totally slacking or anything, I just like to play things by ear too much. And the funny thing about it is I've seen the difference in my lessons when I take more time to study them out and get them solid, I notice that they flow better, that I feel like I'm actually teaching something which is actually being learned. But I seem unwilling to let go of my impulsiveness and my ability to shoot from the hip. Which is a talent by the way, something to be desired in many situations. I just can't let it dominate my teaching. Planning, planning, and over planning is the name of the game.

This week we spent a good deal of time in the computer labs. As I said in a previous post we're working on memory poems, and I had them get into groups and those groups are going to present their poems in a creative way. Most groups chose to do a power-point. One chose to do a blog and a few others chose other creative ways which didn't require computers beyond typing and printing.

I have been really impressed with the students knowledge of power-point. In general they know how to do a basic power-point and make it look pretty. Many knew how to do small animations with their transitions and even how to add sound clips. The presentation day should be fun and it will be good for these students to get in front of each other and present. I expect to get some guff about making them read their poems but I can deal with that.

This has been something the have been pretty excited and up-beat about. They are not exstatic in anyway but there has been limited complaining and a good amount of smiles and talking about them. I think this is something I will do in the future. Although one thing I would like to do when I have another chance is to have them get into groups at the begining of the unit and have them make a blog or a website, they will then be required to post all of their poems to the blog or website. And the final will be to make a digital story of their favorite blog. I was going to ahve them do something like that at this school but they have almost all of the blogs blocked to students and all things google blocked. I also can't install photo story on the computers so...there you have it.