Yesterday we had an education class come in and, essentially, teach us how to teach. In the next coming weeks, we have to teach middle school classes something about technology. As interesting as it was to find out the thinking behind what teachers make us do in class, I don’t think teaching is for me. I found it difficult even to think of an idea, figure out what was important to get across, come up with ways to teach it, and then create some sort of assessment to see if the students understood what I taught. It takes extreme patience and social skills to be a good teacher; all characteristics that I admire and respect, but not necessarily what I think I excel at.
Overall, I learned that teachers need to create goals for the class on the large and small scale – what do I want students to do this semester? what am I going to get across today? Then, they need to recheck in with those goals constantly by assessing, reevaluating and discussing. Things like essential questions, skills, understandings, and knowledge all make up the content and purpose of a class or a course. All of this I understand while separated from it, but how do I actually get up in front of the class and teach?
I’m struggling even with the task of choosing a topic: what do the students already know? what would be useful to them? what am I allowed/not allowed to talk about? It’s extremely difficult to find out what’s relevant to the students and their classes without having the students for a long period of time. I guess this is how substitutes feel like.