Making lesson plans is the bread and butter of the education process. It is where it all begins or ends. But how can we create, deliver, and augment “dynamite lesson plans?” I discuss the concept and give some suggestions that work well for me.
Podcast file: Tools for Making Lesson Plans
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The best tool I have used in years to check for student understanding.
Podcast file: White Boards for Assessment
A teacher’s work is never done. So now that you know that, don’t lose heart. This is defeinitely some food for thought. Comments are always invited.
Podcast file: Revising Lesson Plans and Classroom Management
This is my favorite step of EDI. It’s the one where you elicit responses from the kids based on what they already know.
Podcast file: Activate Prior Knowledge
Friday soccer, lunch with the teachers, art, these are all things you can give the kids as classroom awards. No human will do a job well without some sort of reward. Kids are just small people and we as people all work for rewards. Not all rewards are going to work in the classroom, but you should always be thinking of ways to student motivation. I talk about classroom consequences mixed with rewards.
Podcast file: Value of Rewards
I look back in this podcast episode on how I saw teaching when I started. Then I talk on how I see it now … it has changed a lot. Most of all, I talk about and push the idea that things usually don’t work out the way you plan. You need to keep an open mind. It is important for teachers to have an open mind and take time to reflect. Making reflection a priority is probably one of the most valuable tips I can offer, based on my experience. I hope you enjoy the podcast episode, comments are always appreciated. Lesson planning is important but you need to reflect before you plan. Issues from school administration dealings to classroom management can all be diffused and solved through reflective teaching.
Podcast file: Being a Reflective Teacher
The results of rethinking things can be huge. We owe it to our students to try new things. This applies to classroom behavior and academics. After all, if there were a better way to do a difficult thing, why wouldn’t you try it? I believe in sticking with what works but when there is something that works better, it makes all rational sense to rethink our teaching methods, our ideas, etc. Rethinking things and keeping an open mind is one of the highest things we can do as teachers.
Podcast file: Rethinking Things
Explicit Direct Instruction is a teaching method that really helped me explore better teaching. I am no expert but I enjoy sharing the method with other teachers and it is very gratifying when it works. This will serve as a table of contents for other posts on EDI and its steps.
Podcast file: Intro to EDI
Link to my posts on EDI: Explicit Direct Instruction
It’s been said, “United we stand, divided we fall.” Nowhere is that as true as in the classroom. There are times when you don’t know what the goal of education is in your classroom. In this podcast I talk about a goal I have had in recent years and muse on what good classroom goals might be. Though I make the goal state testing in this podcast, the bigger idea is that you simply pick something. Another quip I’ve heard in that if you aim at nothing you will surely hit it.
Podcast file: Create a Common Classroom Goal
Let’s face it, most stuff we learned in school had no relation to our real life. That made a lot of classroom experiences boring for me. We don’t want our kids to be bored. More than that, we want our kids to be engaged and excited about learning. We need to take subjects and make them real in “real life.” The term realia in teaching comes up a lot in teacher school but how much do teachers really bring it in to the classroom? In this podcast episode I explain how two of my teachers through my education used realia to get their point across to me. I can tell you wholeheartedly they had a major impact! I want to have that same impact. How about you?
