Tuesday, September 23, 2014
Lettuce discuss
In comp tale #19, the author discusses a few problems I'm dreading when I begin teaching. While the situation described in neither completely out of control nor inappropriate to the classroom, I will escalate the issues. First of all, the issue of attempting to regain control of a class discussion looms over my head me since I digress really easily and I feel this will be a consistent struggle in my classroom throughout the entire semester. I don't think I'll really mind going "off topic" for a short amount of time, but I want to make sure I'm able to keep the students from distracting me and also to get them back on topic quickly. The second issue is when the teacher isn't completely aware of what the correct answer to a question is and what to do when that is the case. As I have discussed with my mentor, the simplest, and usually most efficient, solution is to say "You know what? I'm not sure." Perhaps then offering to look up the information yourself or asking a student to volunteer to look it up themselves. I feel like this could be a good thing as it could encourage not only a new line of discussion- making sure it's relevant, of course- but perhaps encourage students to do work outside of the classroom. I mean, I'm sure we all know how much students LOVE to work outside of class. But perhaps if it is interesting enough and the students are ACTUALLY curious, it could be a good thing, right?
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I love my mentor's teaching style. She is really open-mind to listen any types of story in her class. She always responds with smile in class. So our class is filled with various stories and opinions. Since this class open 8am and the first class of freshman in this semester, she makes them to get to know about collages and friends and class. Sometime she got little 'off topic' story but her responding was same as 'on topic'..... So far so good. As a TA, We are standing between making classroom friendly and boring classroom with 'off topic' risk. In this manner, I think your respond is good. What about after we say 'I am not sure' then little bit of pause (just about 3 second) and then quickly go back to the topic. The little bit of the pause has strong power and safe to your side. It makes them think one more time about appropriateness and shows them 'off topic' is not welcome without any words.
ReplyDeleteI have the same fear about going off topic because that's the way I am in "real life." My conversations rarely stay very focused. But I've found that when I teach, I'm much more focused. I have a particular idea or objective that I need to get through to them and I just kind of stay on it until I think everyone 'gets' it.
ReplyDeleteBut at the same time, there is definitely some value in letting students kind of guide the discussion while you just make sure it stays relevant to the topic at hand. Allowing students' comments to guide the discussion puts them in the driver's seat and lets them take charge of their own learning. Your job in that case is just to, again, make sure everyone stays "on topic." Even if it's not exactly the examples you would've chosen or the direction you would've gone, meeting students at the points that interest them or that they want to talk about and kind of tailoring your lesson around that (even on the fly sometimes) will make the learning process much more effective for them.
I have the opposite fear—I'm afraid of freezing up, or staring at a classroom of blank, silent faces. I can really see the importance of good lesson planning for all of these concerns. Trying to stick rigidly to a plan probably isn't the best method, but having the plan to lay the foundation of the class and make sure all your objectives are achieved should help us avoid either problem!
ReplyDeleteI haven't known an answer a few times in the past and told my students that I would get back to them, but sometimes I would forget to look up the information. Therefore, now I put the reminder in my phone to look something up. I have to do this because sometimes I would start unpacking for the class and then see my note on a piece of paper to look something up, and then it was too late.
ReplyDeleteI agree that digressing can sometimes be a good, even a responsible thing to do. It's just a matter of judging when it is productive and when it's not.
ReplyDelete