After spending the last few months working with strictly 8th graders I find the change from 8th grade to 7th grade to be extremely drastic. The difference in levels of maturity is extremely shocking. Even after 2/3 of the school year has gone by, 7th graders still find it hard to have the rules and procedures of the school locked down. They lack ability to follow rules, and the entire dynamic of the classroom is changed. It is a lot more hand holding and baby-sitting, where as 8th graders had a lot more independence.
8th graders (most of them) can be expected to come into class, pull out their materials and begin writing in their planners. 7th graders on the other hand have to be asked specifically and most of the time don't even bring their materials or planners to class.
7th graders also have a lot more energy, all 30 of them are constantly moving ALL the time. It's a constant struggle to try to watch all 30 of them and keep the classroom running smoothly.
Lets not forget to mention the development differences between 7th and 8th graders. The extreme differences in height are most noticeable. Being 5 foot 5' my 8th graders were often times towering over me, or almost my height. On the other hand my 7th graders range from waist height all the way to being taller than me.The thinking skills and decisions making skills differ greatly in the development of 7th graders as well.
I'm not saying that either is better than the other, what I am saying though is that it is an entirely different style of teaching required to meet the needs of the students. As a teacher, you just hope that you can make it so that the students learn some kind of responsibility or real world problem solving skills during the course of your class so that they become the young adults we want them to be.
Tuesday, April 22, 2014
Saturday, May 18, 2013
Things MIS has taught me
-Learn how to expand and contract your lesson plans, some classes will have more time some classes will have less time. You have to be prepared for both. Pick out the key components of a lesson and make sure that no matter what you cover those. Students can learn content on their own at home, but the hands on piece is practical and should always be kept to the full length.
- Always have twice the amount of materials that you think you will need. Someone will mess up a set of test tubes, something WILL be dropped, things WILL get spilled, and something WILL go wrong. Always have more materials than you need just to be sure.
- The kid who does not like to participate WILL have his/her niche, you just have to find it. The kid who is always disrupting class or not participating has to like something. It may not be your class, but try to incorporate what they like into your lesson/lab. The kid that doodles instead of paying attention could make your posters and illustrate concepts that you cannot do yourself, or the kid that is constantly singing could make a cool podcast rap/song that can be shared with everyone to help remember a hard topic. Get kids involved in new ways
- Inquiry is a great way to teach science. Continuously doing science experiments with known outcomes is not the way to teach science to our students. We want them to come up with their own questions and their own personal interest in science. When students have a personal connection to their experiments, or if they understand why an experiment is practical in real life, then they will want to learn more about it.
- Science is not a lecture topic, as much as we pretend it is. Science is hands on, and practical, and questioning, and figuring things out. We must always question our students for more information, rather than spoon feeding them vocabulary and boring facts.
- Science is life. Science should not be a class where you memorize facts for a test and then forget them two days later, it should be a continual learning process. What they learned ten minutes ago, should be practical in tomorrows lesson, or months or years alter. They should be able to draw onto that knowledge and build upon it.
-Every school district is different. Questioning and answering questions comes with an entirely different classroom etiquette and participation than schools that do not make their students answer questions. If students are not open to being wrong or giving all sorts of different answers than they are not fully participating in their learning.
-Teachers behavior plays a large part in student behavior. Although we should be teaching our students good behavior, things we model in the classroom have a bigger effect on students than we think. Our participation, or questioning, or want to learn should be just as great our students. They should be our teachers as well.
- Always have twice the amount of materials that you think you will need. Someone will mess up a set of test tubes, something WILL be dropped, things WILL get spilled, and something WILL go wrong. Always have more materials than you need just to be sure.
- The kid who does not like to participate WILL have his/her niche, you just have to find it. The kid who is always disrupting class or not participating has to like something. It may not be your class, but try to incorporate what they like into your lesson/lab. The kid that doodles instead of paying attention could make your posters and illustrate concepts that you cannot do yourself, or the kid that is constantly singing could make a cool podcast rap/song that can be shared with everyone to help remember a hard topic. Get kids involved in new ways
- Inquiry is a great way to teach science. Continuously doing science experiments with known outcomes is not the way to teach science to our students. We want them to come up with their own questions and their own personal interest in science. When students have a personal connection to their experiments, or if they understand why an experiment is practical in real life, then they will want to learn more about it.
- Science is not a lecture topic, as much as we pretend it is. Science is hands on, and practical, and questioning, and figuring things out. We must always question our students for more information, rather than spoon feeding them vocabulary and boring facts.
- Science is life. Science should not be a class where you memorize facts for a test and then forget them two days later, it should be a continual learning process. What they learned ten minutes ago, should be practical in tomorrows lesson, or months or years alter. They should be able to draw onto that knowledge and build upon it.
-Every school district is different. Questioning and answering questions comes with an entirely different classroom etiquette and participation than schools that do not make their students answer questions. If students are not open to being wrong or giving all sorts of different answers than they are not fully participating in their learning.
-Teachers behavior plays a large part in student behavior. Although we should be teaching our students good behavior, things we model in the classroom have a bigger effect on students than we think. Our participation, or questioning, or want to learn should be just as great our students. They should be our teachers as well.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)