Acitivty 07a

Good Morning,

Well, I have fallen a little behind in the course, but I am working on catching up. I have enjoyed reading the different blogs and news on my Google Reader RSS. I have found some very good blogs. There are two that I am really enjoying and learning from.
One of the blogs is Teacher Created Tips. In this blog/website, teachers post different tips and techniques. It is very interesting and I have learned many tips that I never knew about. One of the tips I read about, was Tips for Encouraging Good Student Behavior. The tip that I liked the most was the Red Pen Reversal. The idea is to use a red pen to mark answers that are CORRECT, not incorrect. Basically, you mark the students correct answers and leave their incorrect answers unmarked. This is a silent message that the students need to correct the questions that are not marked. The students know, without you telling them, that the questions are wrong and to go back and fix them. I liked this tip because it allows the students to feel successful and see what they did correct. Too often, students associate red marks with the word "wrong". This is a nice way of letting the students know what they need to fix. There are many more tips on this blog that are useful. Most of the tips apply more to elementary, but there are some tips that would work in the higher grades.

The second blog that I really like to read is Cal Teacher Blog:Reflecting Teaching. This is another good blog to follow. This teacher has good insights and provides good discussion. The one post that I have enjoyed the most was Teaching Patience? In this post, he talks about how we, teachers, need to teach patience. We expect students to be patient and we ask them to be patient. (I know I do, and sometimes it is hard to get them to be patient.) In order for students to be patient, we need to teach them patience. A way to do this, is to show students patience. He says that teaching patience requires patient presentation. We need to be aware of the classroom pace. This article was very interesting and made me reflect on my teaching and the pace of my classroom. I learned some tips and I am going to try to implement them into my classroom.

I am enjoying reading the different blogs out there for us to read and learn from. It is a little overwhelming, scanning and skimming, but I have found my pace. There are just so many good blogs and posts. I find myself reading more and not scanning as much as I should be. But, I am learning and finding the blogs and posts I want to read and managing my RSS feeder. I look forward to reading more.