Early in my Master’s program, I remember one of the experienced teachers (a wise, wise man) say that one of the big difference between novice and experienced teachers is that novices think a lot about themselves in the classroom: how they are doing, what techniques they are using, etc, and experienced teachers think about the [...]
Archive for the ‘difficulties’ Category
Self-Centeredness
Posted in difficulties, planning, tagged experience, revision on March 12, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Touchy Feely Flower Child
Posted in chemistry, difficulties, math, students, tagged intuition on March 4, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
One of my students referred to a task we were doing in class today as “touchy feel-y flower child” methods. Not something that one expects to hear in chemistry class, when classifying compounds as either ionic, polar covalent, or non-polar covalent.
This was because I was discouraging the method in the book, which no one except [...]
I can’t love technology
Posted in difficulties, technology on March 4, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Today, I actually had notes on my computer, in a little PP presentation, to save some time while reviewing and to have fast access to some practice problems.
The LCD projector would not work. It searched, and searched, and searched for my computer. I tried to play with it after class, but no dice. Why???
It was [...]
Flexibility
Posted in difficulties, tagged flexible on February 29, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
If there is one thing I can safely say that I am doing very well, it is being flexible. I have had a number of things get in the way of what I had planned, from the students not knowing something they should have been taught, not having my photocopies made, programs updating within 24 [...]
A Voice of Experience
Posted in difficulties, ideas, math, tagged inspiration, math, videos on February 26, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
One of my teachers got back to me right away with math ideas.
There are two videos that he made last year, mini-documentaries that I found inspiring. And yes, I did spend my Saturday night watching them. (family was asleep or at departmental parties).
Here are the links, but I will also keep them on my video [...]
Not enough time
Posted in difficulties, tagged math, problem solving on February 26, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
I didn’t make my goal this week of one lab or one demo. I have ideas, but no time. I also don’t always know what we have or don’t have.
I have been emailing old teachers for help on teaching math to my students. This was inspired by Friday. On Friday we spent the entire period [...]
When planning goes awry
Posted in difficulties, planning, technology, tagged technology on February 15, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Today I had planned to take my students to the computer lab, to do some computer simulations on Molecular Workbench. I love molecular workbench. I think the models and simulations are very good. They also have ways for students to answer questions (which I have found to be high quality so far) and submit reports. [...]
Scaffolding
Posted in difficulties, tagged open ended, scaffolding on February 4, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
One thing I have realized, is that for all the talk about scaffolding in grad school, we were given very few examples of how to do it. I have all kinds of charts showing how a teacher is supposed to help the learners become more independent, and guide them to a place where they don’t [...]
Idealistic Realism, or Realistic Idealism
Posted in difficulties, students, tagged idealism, realism on February 4, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
I am an idealist. In many ways, this is a great help as a teacher. I truly believe that every single one of my students can improve, learn, and achieve in my classroom. They might not all get A’s, but in my heart I know that they can at least all get B’s, if they [...]
Wasted Time
Posted in difficulties, students, tagged wasted time on January 25, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
First period has it rough. First of all, they are so sleepy that everything takes longer. They are at a definite disadvantage just by class starting so early. Second, on homeroom days, the most minutes are taken out of first period. I thought all the classes were treated equally, 5 minutes from every period or [...]
