Reflection 16

I hate computers. I feel like I am the slowest in the classroom because I don't know how to use a computer. Maybe it's because no one ever showed me how, or maybe it's because my family didn't get one until I was 18. Who knows. All I know is that it took me the entire class period today to get word processing and excel done while everyone else was complete with all four tests an hour early. Why do I feel stupid? I want to just be done with it.

Reflection 15

With passion comes great learning. That it my way of saying, "Interest proceeds learning." And that is exactly what I observed during our visit to Heber high school. What I saw was a teacher who loved his subject matter so much that his students and technological availability excelled. He was adamant to keep pushing the school board to let him purchase bigger and better material; he was also determined to to dedicate much of his free time. These two things along with a love for seeing students grow in learning assisted him in developing one of the coolest high school programs that I have ever seen. Not only was it a complete television and production class, it had professional technology that I know BYU would love to get its hands on. It seemed that the teachers pride and joy was being able to see the students grow and become self-sufficient; over a short amount of time, he didn't even have to tell the kids what to do. They just did it on their own with efficiency.
I want to be able to love my students that much. I want to be able to excel in teaching woodworking just as much or more than this teacher has in his field. I want the school systems to continue granting the educational inclusion of technology classes such as wood shop and not dispose of it because of the override of computers or core classes. If my field of woodworking can still be taught in the schools, I will prove to the school board that it is a fundamental course to take to help students in wide variety of achievements.

Reflection 14

Class was really awesome on Tuesday. I do have to admit that doing more than one or two presentations in a day can be overwhelming on those who are sleep deprived, but they are always good. I liked the little "5 minute" game that we did. I say "5 minutes" because it was only supposed to take a couple minutes and turned into a half hour, just like all of the presentations. Making a game review of the things that we learned was a good move by Geoff. I needed it. I tend to forget things or space them out when they are being taught, so going over those qualities of a good teacher, Teacher A, was beneficial. It made me realize how much a teacher needs to pay attention to when he or she is teaching. There are so many things to consider when coming up with a lesson plan, and then so much more to consider when actually teaching. The one thing that stood out to me the most was that it is important to like what you teach; it makes you want to teach better and more effectively. That's why I am going into woodworking teaching. I don't care so much anymore about earning money, but rather influencing lives with the passion and talent that I have. Plus, I will want to go to work every day instead of dreading it when I get out of bed. My goal is to know the qualities that we put to Teacher A, apply them, and like what I teach.

Reflection 13

Observations are always interesting; every one of them is different and is a learning moment. Amanda, Meagan and my experience on Thursday was definitely one of those learning experiences. We went to Lone Peak high school, and were a little late because I happened to sleep through my alarm clock again--go figure, but it didn't matter; the teacher forgot we were coming and he was testing. However, he was very apologetic and quickly showed us to a few more classes that we might have been interested in. We ended up in a multimedia class with twenty students. They were developing individual movies and announcement videos. Half of the class was goal oriented and hastey to go outside and get the work done. The other half stayed in the class room and messed around with the idea for while, but were mostly disruptive. What I found very interesting was the fact that the teacher was so interested in the subject matter and tried hard to push his students to making a better product. It showed me that it is a crucial thing for the teacher to have a love for his work. His most excitement, I think, came from showing us the tiny school radio station in his room. There students were able to add to and DJ the radio station. He was super excited that the school was thinking about upgrading their watts for the radio so that its broadcast could go farther than the perimeter of the school. I hope that I can continue to persue the field of work that I am headed toward and maintain the love for teaching and woodworking that I have. I hope that I can have a huge desire to help students learn what I know, just like the Lone Peak teacher.

Reflection 12

I must say that I was not able to make it to class on Tuesday because of a family situation that arose. I wasn't able to be there to participate with the presentations, but I assume that they went well. I would like to talk a little about the moral dimension talk by Gordon B. Hinckley. I liked what he said about trying harder to breath a little more testimony in all that we teach. I think it is getting harder and harder to comply with that suggestion in our day of living. Too many civil rights movements are taking place and politics are just in the way of anyone breathing the name of God in any school. So I guess in order for us to incorporate our testimony into our teaching, we need to be good examples. I guess living our testimony and being good examples is all that we can do for now.

Reflection 11

Even though it might have put some of us in a slight mode of discomfort for the time being, I think it was a great thing to receive the feedback handout of our last STL presentations. I think that receiving that handout, and then hearing Geoff review with us individually and as a whole what the handout said, helped me to understand what my goals need to be when I teach. I learned that I had some okay points in my last presentation, but that I need to eliminate my open-ended questions and also do better at assessing my students learning. It was good for me to read and hear what areas other students in the class need to improve on as well. I was able to learn from their feedback results and apply and reflect them to how I teach. I am going to attempt to remember these important points of review from my feedback sheet and do better in my presentations and teaching in the future.

A mixture of things

Thursday's visit was short and sweet. We went to Timpview high school and observed a group of 22 students learning how to use a wood lathe. Many of the students were very creative in their designs and it seemed that a handful caught on quickly to the dynamics of the tooling with the machine. They impressed me. Furthermore, the shop impressed me. I think it was a wood shop comparable to the quality of our university's, and in some cases even better. I think that the kids there have a wonderful opportunity to learn a lot about woodworking from a highly qualified teacher and also get the chance to use a handful of great machines. They are more lucky than I was at their age. I am beginning to realize how hard it is to teach a large group of young students such a discipline that has so many dangerous aspects. I learned a lot in our little visit about some things that I would like to include in my teaching styles for the subject. I know that not all of the students are going to be as curious or interested in the subject as I, but I learned that it is important to ratify that interest, at the most possible, so that they can bring out different personal characteristics and skills, and so that they perform safe procedures. I am going to have to make a log of the ideas that I have concerning these things.

Today's class was good. I got the chance to learn more about Dewey and his fatherhood to teaching theories and strategies. It helped me to understand more today about the importance of scaffling, or recapping material previously learned by students to get their minds to make connections. I also enjoyed learning a little more about the importance of a lesson plan. I think that lesson plans are a great way to keep yourself organized and on task. It also helps you to make yourself know the material better because you can't just follow the plan exactly; students' learning or questions may invoke something other than what's on the lesson plan. So what I really learned from this was that I need to be organized, but not be too sticky about following the lesson plan directly. I hope to learn Geoff's lesson plan better (cause it is the best one out...) and how to apply it to my teaching so that I may get better.

Reflection #9

Okay. I don't think that any one of us in the class is going to fail this whole teaching prep stuff. From what I can see, we are all doing a good job. The STL presentations have shown me that we are beginning to grasp the concept of teaching and with the help of our teacher, we are gradually applying great tactics. I noticed that on Tuesday the lessons taught were very good. They involved the students, provoking more thorough questions, and got the message across well. I noticed that we still had some gitter bugs (like me) but we are doing awesome. Once again I am impressed with the intelligence of my peers. There is one thing that I think we could improve on when we present and learn to be teachers; I think that we should know our presentation well enough that our heads and eyes can be more attentive to the students. There were several times that I noticed that a student had a question and was raising his or her hand and the presenter or teacher had their head down, looking at the computer power point. I think that I will try to learn my material better next time so that I will be able to get more involved with the students and maybe have to change my lesson plan on the spot. ??

Oak Canyon

Interesting. Simply interesting. I didn't know that junior high schools offered technology communications classes. The class that I went to on Thursday was one of these communications classes. They were in the process of developing their own motion picture video. For the day's work, the students were to get into their three to four person groups and sketch their thirty second video on paper, scene by scene. Then they were asked to write a one paragraph detailed description of what their movie was about. First of all, I was amazed at the number of groups that had story lines based on violence. Maybe it was the fact that out of a class size of 21, there were only two girls. Who knows? Once they were complete with their sketches and story lines, they were told to go over to the computers in the classroom and play around with different software, especially I-MOVIE. The teacher wanted them to become more familiar with the programs. I was shocked by the intelligence and versatility of these students in their ability to instantly become familiar with computer programs. I only wish that I would have had the opportunity to learn about computers when I was their age; it could have paid off for me by now.
I know it is good to let young students be creative and come up with solutions on their own, but I think that if I were the teacher of this class, I would have helped to stimulate their creative minds better. From what I observed, the teacher was only periodically walking around the classroom to answer students' questions. Many of the kids looked like they were at a stalemate. I would have had more of a one-on-one approach with each group, going around and spending ample time with them to make sure they were reaching a higher potential. I think they would have had more fun if the teacher would have given them some creative feedback on their own ideas, which is to say helping them to expand what they already had.