Questions to ponder

Choose any question and give examples to back up your answer.

Do you consider yourself a risk taker? Would this be a good thing for a teacher?

Brainstorm some blogging activities that you believe would work in your classrooms.

What are some effective ways to build rapport with students? 

How do you feel about noise in the classroom?  How do you handle noise in the classroom? 

How do you give your students recognition? Do you think a student can have too much recognition?   

If you could create the ideal school, what would it be like?

How do you encourage students to learn?  What works for you?

Are you an objective person? Give an example.  

Are you patient?  Give an example.

What is the most important thing you need to be thinking about to be an excellent teacher?

Describe a "best practice" that you have observed in your classroom.

Now if you could ask questions of your peers, what would they be? It would be interesting to develop good questions. Isn't it amazing how much we can learn from each other?

Your experiences make for some great reading.  Keep on posting on your blogs!

Comments

[Karen]

I personally do not think that a child can ever have too many recognitions. I think that by giving the children recognitions it makes them feel good and give them something to look for in the future. When I get an award it makes me feel like I did somehing very special and it makes me want to try because I know that when I do something, someone is going to know and is going to say to me "Good Job." I think it is very good to give recognitons and a child can never have too many.

[Nancy1]

Hmm... How do I respond to noise? I am a really quiet person and like for the atmosphere that I'm in to be quiet and for the kids to be individually concentrated on their own work. If students have questions they should ask the teacher not other students. I am one of those people who believe that students should work individually. By letting students work individually you are giving them resposibility for their own work, and they learn to rely on only theirselves and not anyone else. Another reason why students should work by theirselves and not rely on other students is that other students might not provide accurate information and think that it's right. And of course, the most important part of when students work by theirselves the classroom is quiet when the teacher ins't lecturing which is the way it should be.

When the classroom is quiet the students can think without having to put their hands over their ears. For some students be quiet is necessary to function and do their best. For me personally, when I see a quiet classroom of students at their desk, I see busy students.

[Tiffany]

I would love to create an ideal school. I think It would make school a more exciting place to learn, and students would want to learn. My ideal school would be a school from pre-k to 12th grade. In every class room there would be a class pet that the students decide, and a fish would not be one of them. I think if the students had a pet in their classrom that they would learn to take care of others more. Every grade would get an hour lunch break to either eat lunch, study,or go outside, and play. Students could do about anythimg as long as ther're in class at the right time. There would be no going off campus because of accidents. School would start at 9am to 3pm where there would be an hour for each subject another hour for lunch and a specials hour. If any kid wanted to do another extra class, sport or club they would come to an after school class. This scool has a lot of things to work out and theres still more changes but this is the the start of the future.