Intro to Education

The two service-learning teachers that I am with have shown me how to get students engaged in learning in many different ways. To start, my 6th-grade placement teacher has helped engage students by using collaboration and movement techniques. I am in her class when she is teaching math, which in general is not a very engaging subject for many kids. She uses collaboration to help fight this. This collaboration is mostly done by allowing students to work together on homework sheets. They get to work with their friends and discuss the assignment. I have seen many students learn from their partners and both students benefit from this. My 6th-grade service learning teacher has also shown movement in her classroom. Every week she picks one of the students to be the class "personal trainer". The personal trainer's job is to pick exercises that will get the class awake and energized. If she notices students are looking tired during the lesson, the personal trainer will come up an...

My 6th-grade service placement teacher establishes a positive classroom by acknowledging students achievements. If a student has done really well on something or has shown progress, she asks the class to give a round of applause for that student. This is very meaningful and uplifting for the student, and it does not distract from the learning. She also asks the class to do this after a student has shared something that was hard for them, why they got a problem wrong, etc. This helps the students to recognize that failure is not a bad thing, but rather is a step in the learning process. My cooperative teacher has also offered the students many choices. One of the choices she gives them is if they want to stay in and work on assignments during recess, or if they would rather work on assignments during fun Friday. This allows students to understand that they have a choice in their learning. They still, of course, have to finish the assignment but they get to choose when it happens. She ha...