Reflection 11

Yesterday I went with my group to go and teach at a sixth grade class.  We taught them the elements of design, more specifically layout, shape, color and texture.  It was a bit hard to find how to teach these because to me the elements of design are almost like a "no duh" topic.  I was in charge of teaching color, so at first I made a lesson plan on primary, secondary and complimentary colors.  But then I talked with Geoff and he told me that colors can play psychological role in our lives.  I had herd about this already but I just didn't connect the two and two.  So I also thought that maybe this "no duh" topic would actually be like the experience I just had, which is just to put the puzzle pieces together.
So I decided I would work on my specific lesson plan for color.  I looked up different colors and what the statistics were for each color.  And I found some interesting stuff that I hadn't heard about before.  Like football coaches will paint their opposing teams locker room pink because psychologically it makes people feel tired, making the opposing team tiered before the game.  So I gathered all of these statistics, printed out some colors and went to go teach.
And I thought it went really well.  I taught them about colors and how they effected people psychologically and how they could play with peoples psychology to make the best marketing ability to sell the most product you can.  And it was great! They understood that red was the most exciting and most appetizing color and when they made their final product they had red in their cereal box plan! I really had so much fun doing this.  It makes me excited to become a teacher.

Reflection 10

Today we had a speaker come in and talk to our class about his different ways and forms of teaching and I loved it.  I can just tell by the way that he acts and by the way that he presented him self he really touches students lives, which is the whole reason why I want to be a teacher,
First he told us to document our classes through teaching.  And not only through written documentation but through actual photos.  And I really liked that because through out his presentation he showed pictures of things that they did in his class room and it just looked like fun and it made me excited as a student to become a teacher and teach these different technologies.
Secondly he gave a great idea to invite your administrators to join your class and get involved with the projects of the class. I think this is great because not only are you gaining a personal relationship with your administrators but the administrators are getting involved with the students.  And now the students won't only look at say the principle as a disciplinarian but they will look to him more as a fun leader.
Lastly he also talked about in the class room while we are teaching kids how to do something, don't skip steps.  Because a lot of kids have never done certain things that we have done our whole lives.  We can pick on me for example, I grew up in a small town in California where we didn't get any funding and my schools were very academic (math, science, english) thats it.  I had a technology class out of all four years in high school and it was just a learn how to type fast my freshmen year.  And it only lasted one semester.  So when I came into the TEE major I had no idea what flash, photo shop, illustrator, how to sawter something together, how to cut wood on a saw, any of that I had no idea how they worked. I new of some of them and that they existed but never saw them in person till this semester.  And that is why I feel so strongly that you need to show your students every little baby step because the students don't get it if you just throw them in there and say go do it, they are so over whelmed that they don't even know how to start.  So in my classes I am going to make sure every student feels comfortable and confident in what they are doing.

Reflection 9

I was reading about how to be a good teacher and I reolized that the best way to get an enducation is to have a great teacher.  It is the teachers that seem to make the bigger differences, not the school, not the atmosphere of where you live but the teachers.
As I think about this I  wonder, how are you going to know if you are going to get a good education? I believe that is is true through out all levels of education, from elementary through college.  Most of the wieght is on how well a teacher teaches.  If a teacher doesn't make any thing clear to how is the student going to learn.  Yes I do know that some students will not put effort into learning the material and so they like to blame the teacher on how horrible they teach.  But there are also those teachers that say, go read chapters on through five and we will have a test on them tomorrow.  I know for me as a learner I do not understand information from a book.  You can't ask a book to restate what it said but use a different example because you didn't understand the one you just read 30 times.  But you can ask a teacher to reexplain things and you can keep asking questions and get a faster more efficent answer from a teacher then from a book.  Teachers do make a difference in students education.
Becauseof this knowledge that I have, I want to be the best teacher I can be, because if I can't get the information across to my students clearly enough then they will not learn as well or get the proper education that they should.