Blog Assignment 9

What I learned this year. Blog post

I really enjoyed reading this post on the "At the Teacher'd Desk" blog. I found it to be very informative and helpful since I will be starting my career as a teacher soon. I think that Mr. McClung has made some very wonderful observations.

One thing he says is that you need to teach to your students. I know that it sounds like an obvious comment, but he is right when he says that sometimes teachers are more worried about how others are judging them, and they forget to teach towards their students. I agree, all teachers should be teaching in a way that ensures student comprehension.

Another point that he made was that you need to listen to your students. To me, this is the most important thing. If you listen to your students, they know you care about them. Like Mr. McClung said, sometimes you may be the only person who will be there to listen to them. Also, you need to make sure that you keep open communication, not only with your students, but with your coworkers as well.

Mr. McClung also stated in this post that you do not need to be too hard on yourself. Sometimes, you may get discouraged about lesson plans and activities. If they do not go right, just work harder to try to perfect them. I do not think anybody is capable of making perfect lesson plans for every single day that you teach.

Also, he stated that you need to be reasonable about your students and their achievement goals. Yes, you want to set high standards, but you do not need to punish students if they can not always achieve their goals. You need to push them to work harder and be there to help them out.

Teachers need to be life-long learners. This is a very important point. Not only will you be teaching your students, there will be times that they will be teaching you.

Since I am in EDM 310, I saved the best for last. You can not be afraid of technology. Technology is something that is available to us, and there are so many things that we can do with computers that are beneficial to our students.

I think that Mr. McClung has made some very good points. I'm so grateful that he has taken note of these things. I agree with everything he has said, and I know that these are things I will need to keep in mind when I start teaching.