I have been looking around the edublogger world lately and I found one I like (actually there are several but I won't bore you with all of them...). The link is
http://www.soyouwanttoteach.com/
This blog is maintained by Joel who is a fairly young teacher. I like his practical advice on being a newer teacher. He has one series of articles titled "10 things I wish I knew as a first year teacher". In each post in the series, he addresses one of the ten items.
Since you are probably wondering (and even if you're not), the number one thing he wishes he had known as a first year teacher is...."Get a handle on classroom management early". I'll let you investigate the details for yourself but one of the things he believes leads to classroom management problems is not keeping the kids occupied for the entire class period. This definitely seems to play out in classrooms I have observed.
Anyway, for practical advice on being a new teacher, check out Joel's blog.
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7 comments:
I was interested (big surprise, eh?) to see why he put blogging on his list. As someone who enjoys reading edublogs (and coercing students into reading them...) I am aware of the fact that I haven't gotten over the hump as a blogger myself. I found his assertions about blogging pushing the writer to think reflectively and to think about how to tell a story to be interesting and convincing. Thanks for bring Joel to my attention, Cristi.
wow, that site really is nice. check it out, everyone!
how did you find it?
Hey Cristi, Thank you so much for sharing that blog with everyone! I am excited to look at several of the entries and see how it can help me improve my teaching skills.
Right now I am struggling with how to show students that I am excited about teaching my subject while having some sort of authority and control over the classroom (the age difference that I have between the kids offers me a sort of challenge that I need to get over!)
Anyways, I will definitely look for more sites like this and thank you again for providing the useful information!
Cristi
Thanks for sharing the site. I agree with Joel, get management under control. A wise teacher once told me (when I was a young 22 year old starting teacher) that you can always be more lenient with students but you cannot get tougher. SO I always started off the school year more strict than I wanted to be and would slowly loosen up over the school year. This worked really well...except when I had my old 10th grade students in my 11th grade course the next year :)
Oh goodness, classroom management. I will have to take a closer look at this guy's blog, it looks really interesting!! And I love top 10 lists. I'm hoping I master the whole classroom management thing sooner rather than later, for sure!
I got a real kick out of this site. I had a good time searching through all of the advice. I know advice is always hard to take, but it's nice to hear from a young teacher - it makes it really relevant to me. Sometimes, classwork can get really abstract, but this feels very real to me.
Great find!
I have noticed that too. If you don't keep the students occupied, you will encounter management problems. Kids start getting out of their seats, talking with their friends, lining up at the door... It's frustrating, but at the same time it's your own fault for not keeping them occupied!
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