What do you think is the most challenging role a teacher plays? Why?

2/27/14

From what I have seen this semester, the most difficult part of being a teacher is teaching and engaging all students in learning and inspiring them to be better today than they were yesterday. This goes back to my discussion post on the role of a teacher. I used to think the prep work and planning part of being a teacher would be the most difficult but from what I have seen in the classroom this semester all the lesson plans are laid out well in advance and can be used year after year; assuming the curriculum stays the same there isn't much need to make major adjustments to the plans. So initially the planning may be difficult but if the intention is to make teaching a lifelong career those challenges will be short lived. The major challenge that exists on a daily basis is getting the students to learn; learning tends to occur when a patient, motivating, and inspirational teacher is involved in the process. I have seen a classroom with over 20 individuals and although similar in age each has unique talents, challenges, personalities, weaknesses, strengths, desires, likes, dislikes, etc. etc. The difficult part is getting all of those different agendas to mesh well together without majorly disrupting the flow of the class and most importantly getting them all to benefit from their time spent in the classroom. In order to be effective at getting students to learn, you have to care, be patient, be prepared for the unexpected, be approachable, be actively engaged in the learning process through wise and creative teaching practices and classroom management techniques and so much more.

P.S. I think this is the most important role of a teacher too :)

How does this teacher manage assessment?

2/27/14

This teacher is constantly assessing her students. She assesses them pre, during, and post learning. She will ask them questions before starting the lesson for a formative assessment, then she is constantly asking them questions during the lesson, and she will perform varies summative assessments to test what they have learned. The summative assessments sometimes are independent tests in a Q and A format but often they are group projects or individual projects that are more thought provoking. For instance, the students learned about parts of a story and so for a summative assessment they were writing their own mystery stories. This was a really fun way to see their understanding of plot, characters, setting, details, etc. I have noticed that this teacher and in other elementary classes I have observed the teacher does not lecture much (elementary students need to get their wiggles out vs secondary who have a much longer attention span) but instead the teacher incorporates lots of class discussions, demonstrations and group projects to get the students to engage in learning and assess their understanding. I feel like overall the teacher is having a conversation with her students...a very educational one.