I truly believe every teacher can be successful in their own way. I don't think there is a recipe you can follow to lead to success, but I do believe their is a mindset or important criteria needed in a classroom to be successful. The first criteria is believing in what you do. If you do not believe what you are doing is for the benefit of students or is important, I do not think it can be successful. Many teachers do not believe in the MRS strategies, DOLs and LOs that we are forced to implement in our classes, which has caused most of the frustration in schools today. I suppose i'm probably an outlier though because I do believe in them and I do implement them.
Here is what I believe. Students need to be engaged in class. Students need to talk, think, write, and push themselves. Students need to be doing the work and the thinking. We know the material. You know when I know the material best, after I gave the same lesson five that day, because I talked about. What if I had students doing the talking, the sharing, the peer teaching, then they would know it best.
I also believe students need a purpose. When I go to a meeting or a lecture and there is no agenda, no topic, no purpose, not only am I confused about what we are talking about, I am less engaged. If students know what are supposed to be learning and can asses themselves whether they learned I truly believe they will be more motivated to succeed. Additionally an organized lesson with a clear objective will be more likely to help students reach that goal.
Here is what I do not believe in. A dog and pony show for administrations. Faking a turn and talk for the sake of it. Taking off points on my spot because I didn't say the words whip around, but all students were engaged. I believe in MRS strategies because I believe the point of them is to get students engaged. Engagement is was administrators should be looking for, not the set list of 7 strategies we are given. No a stop and jot is not going to lead to better scores, but activating thinking any way you can will. Similarly a DOL and LO provide purpose for a lesson and an understanding if that purpose was met. Does it have to been written in the exact format provide to be successful, no. Can I provide purpose in other ways besides "students will be able to..." Yes! To transition a large system I understand there needs to be standardization and we are working towards implementing stronger practices in all classrooms. So I believe in what we are trying to, we just need to rethink how we are doing it.
Here is what I believe. Students need to be engaged in class. Students need to talk, think, write, and push themselves. Students need to be doing the work and the thinking. We know the material. You know when I know the material best, after I gave the same lesson five that day, because I talked about. What if I had students doing the talking, the sharing, the peer teaching, then they would know it best.
I also believe students need a purpose. When I go to a meeting or a lecture and there is no agenda, no topic, no purpose, not only am I confused about what we are talking about, I am less engaged. If students know what are supposed to be learning and can asses themselves whether they learned I truly believe they will be more motivated to succeed. Additionally an organized lesson with a clear objective will be more likely to help students reach that goal.
Here is what I do not believe in. A dog and pony show for administrations. Faking a turn and talk for the sake of it. Taking off points on my spot because I didn't say the words whip around, but all students were engaged. I believe in MRS strategies because I believe the point of them is to get students engaged. Engagement is was administrators should be looking for, not the set list of 7 strategies we are given. No a stop and jot is not going to lead to better scores, but activating thinking any way you can will. Similarly a DOL and LO provide purpose for a lesson and an understanding if that purpose was met. Does it have to been written in the exact format provide to be successful, no. Can I provide purpose in other ways besides "students will be able to..." Yes! To transition a large system I understand there needs to be standardization and we are working towards implementing stronger practices in all classrooms. So I believe in what we are trying to, we just need to rethink how we are doing it.
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