After reading Peter Smagorinski's Teaching English By Design and Pamela Cooper's Communication For the Classroom Teacher, I can't help but feel that although the information is redundant and we have seen it across our methods courses at UIC, it is never-the-less extremely useful in terms of classroom implementation. Topics such as classroom environments and how to gage students' learning to adapt our teaching to their learning styles seem to be manifesting itself in the classroom I am observing. In terms of creating a comfortable and encouraging classroom environment, one thing I noticed is that there are posters of grammar tips and other various helpful information around the classroom. Also, student work is displayed around the room, and I think displaying a visual representation of their learning is important and gives the students a sense of community, belonging, and ownership in their classroom; that the product of their learning is proudly posted on the walls of their classroom.
As far as considering students' learning styles as Cooper suggests, I am noticing that Rich's style of teaching is directly influenced by the way his students seem to learn best. He notices that his students have a hard time working silently for the whole class period, so what he does to cater to this is a give and take method of sorts. He asks his students to work silently and diligently for 20 minutes of the class period, and in return, allows them to talk while continuing to work for the rest of the class period. I'm starting to understand that teaching is a lot about compromise in many respects to achieve an end goal successfully. I'm looking forward to seeing how other aspects of teaching that seem to reoccur in our readings take shape in an actual classroom.
-Ramina Odicho
I'm glad you seem to be enjoying your time at TEAM, Ramina! I think there are some really great things to be seen in Rich's class.
ReplyDeleteI appreciate your focus in this post on how the method of instruction comes from the students' needs and how this relates to the Cooper article. I think another interesting thing to consider, however, is something I think Sarah said in class last week about how the methods of are also really dependent on the style and/or ability of the teacher and their personality. I believe Rich is able to make these sort of "deals" with these students because they appreciate and respect him; they've set up this dynamic in the class that works for them, but might not work if a different teacher was inserted.
I guess this would just be another side of the compromise that you talk about; instruction must be based on the needs of the students to achieve the end goal but also consider what atmosphere the teacher is able to create.