Giving Students Ownership

The two suggestions for giving students ownership of their learning that I found to be really helpful were "offer choices to engage students" and "choose activities that prepare students to learn".

First, I always appreciated when teachers or professors gave me, as a student, choices as to which projects or activities I could do. I think that this undoubtedly gives the student a chance to take ownership of their learning because they are able to do what interests them the most (which can be quite difficult). Also, as a teacher, this gives us a great insight as to what our students can strive the most at.

Second, choosing activities that can prepare students to learn is absolutely vital when educating students. They must be able to relate the lessons to real life and its importance in real life before they will take much interest to it. As they realize that the information we're trying to teach them can better prepare them for life after high school, they will most likely try to learn more about this topic.

Giving students ownership of learning( Part 1)

www.ascd.org/SearchResults.aspx?s=Giving%20students%20ownership%20of%20learning&c=1&n=10&p=0 You will need to type in this hyperlink.
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Check out this website. ASCD is an awesome resource for teaching techniques based on research and doing "what works" for today's students. Each HDFS student ( fall 2008) will choose 2 of the most interesting teacher topics and will post a synthesis of the article on the Betty Lamp Blogger site. Each student will read and react to each of the blogs posted by your classmates. Be prepared to share your experience in class on Dec. 10. Based upon your experience with teaching literacy in the classroom, create a rubric to use with middle school or high school students who have been given a "blogging assignment." This assignment is due on Wednesday, December 10, the evening you will share your unit. Remember to bring a hard copy of your unit which will be placed in the HDFS Junior Units binder.

teaching

Yesterday, I taught the lesson that I prepared for the Child D. 2 classes. The lesson was an introduction to curriculum in nursery and preschools. I think that the lesson went pretty well; the first class was more responsive than the second class. It was interesting to see how different the 2 classes were when it came to different activities. For example, I started the class by playing a game of "strike-out" (it's the same as hang-man, I just didn't think that some of the professors would like the concept behind hang-man, so I called it strike-out : ) Anyway, the first class was really excited because they were playing a game. The 2nd class, after I was done explaining the rules, just sat there staring at me. I had to tell them that the game was not that hard, all they had to do was guess a letter. Then one person, very hesitantly, suggested the letter A. The students in the class are very intelligent- strike-out just did not seem to motivate them. Overall though, I think the lesson went well for my first time writing a lesson plan and then teaching it.

Classroom Management that works!

As your middle school FCS teachers get new students in the new marking period , pay special attention to the "systems" the teacher sets up to do manage students, the environment, lessons, assessments, discipline etc. Experienced teachers make it look soooooooooo easy. Teaching is an art and a science and good classroom management is 80% of good teaching. Check out the following website from ASCD and read what Ms. Devries and other professionals have to say about classroom management. http://www.ascd.org/research_a_topic/Education_Topics/Classroom_Management/Explore/Classroom_Management_Explore.aspx.