Week 3 T2P Essay

I enjoy the way GNA begins the class by taking a few minutes to share a little about herself, and ask how all of us are doing.  BTW, I saw a coyote standing next to I84 on Sunday!

I thought the RRSQCC exercise was great.  It got everyone focused and ready to learn.  With so much overlapping and similar reading between the classes I found this to be helpful getting into the topic at hand.

We broke into groups of 6 to discuss our theorist.  It was quite interesting to observe the group dynamics.  We are getting to know one another better, and personality traits are becoming more evident.  I was pleased with our summary, and thought I did a good job sharing the information in my triad.  Effie and JP did a good job as well, and I felt that I got a good introduction to their theorists.

Lunch was spent blogging, and then another theorist was assigned.  This time another triad prepared a presentation.  Kelly, Dave and I had a lively discussion, with GNA stopping by to offer words of wisdom. I am pleased with the presentation we developed.  Kelly is good with tech and did a great job.

TAKING IT TO THE NEXT LEVEL;)

When students like their teacher and feel comfortable in their classroom, learning will occur, because the student's respect for the teacher and camaraderie with the classmates.  I would love to be able to take 5 with my kids,  but am a little concerned about the time constraint in the public junior high classroom.  I'll have to do some experimenting.

When students are given an assessment, and that assessment will not be graded, then students will fairly accurately display their understanding, because they are not overly prepared or overly stressed.

When students work in groups, they necessarily learn from each other, because every exchange is a learning opportunity on some level.  Whether it is content, vocabulary, what happened on last night's
episode of Glee, or just that their nerdy neighbor is actually pretty funny, every classroom interaction has an effect.  I have really enjoyed the collaboration in all of my classes and hope to employ that as much as possible in my teaching.  Also, one person may be great in tech, another strong in concept, and another strong in language.  All can make progress by learning from the other, and all are reinforced in their own strengths.