Thread: Help in Changing Teaching Style Please!

This might be off the wall, but from what I read of your description, your supervisor wants you to display more empathy with your students. Kind of a "don't just stand at the podium" thing. Get out and about with the class and engage them. Remember that these are people have stepped away from school life for whatever reason and are now coming back to it. They now have experiences that high schoolers do not have, and it is a great opportunity to show them how your particular subject can help them further down the road. Have then use real life examples where math skill would have helped them out.

good luck

You shoul definitely look into Power teaching! It is an amazing and easy to use classroom management and teaching philosophy.

My blog on becoming a Power Teacher: [url]http://classroompower.com[/url]
Power Teachers Homepage: [url]http://homepage.mac.com/chrisbiffle/Menu38.html[/url]


The following video links will give you an idea of what Power Teaching looks like

TeacherTube links: [url]http://www.teachertube.com/search_result.php?search_id=chris+biffle&x=53&y=4[/url]

I looked through the power teaching and although it may work for a few HS classes, I can't imagine it working in most. I can see it working if there are only a couple of problem students in the class, but some of my classes have major student apathy issues. They don't care if they pass or not. Their parents don't care or have no influence over them. And this is not an urban school. It just seems to me that in order to get kids to learn teachers are expected to do more and more in the way of "entertaining" to grab their attention. By HS (the last step before taking personal responsibility for learning in higher education OR the work world) shouldn't we start to expect students to assume more & more responsibility for their learning instead of putting more & more responsibilty on the teacher to amuse/entertain/do-whatever-it-takes-to get-their-attention? It seems like were being taught to expect less and less from students and they are living DOWN to our expectations.

My school floated the idea of mandatory after-school study skills class for incoming freshmen and any student with multiple (2 or more) failures, but dropped it because of budget problems. Everyone agreed that since students didn't want to spend more time than absolutely necessary in school, they would do whatever it took to avoid Fs. That conveyed the message that it was the student's responsibility to avoid Fs. Odd, but when I taught non-American students, this wasn't a problem.

It just seems to me that in order to get kids to learn teachers are expected to do more and more in the way of "entertaining" to grab their attention. By HS (the last step before taking personal responsibility for learning in higher education OR the work world) shouldn't we start to expect students to assume more & more responsibility for their learning instead of putting more & more responsibilty on the teacher to amuse/entertain/do-whatever-it-takes-to get-their-attention? It seems like were being taught to expect less and less from students and they are living DOWN to our expectations.

Amen to that....

rjr,
Don't forget to make things relevant. Have them create or problem solve. I am a science teacher, but use a great deal of math, and the easiest way to get them interested and make it student centered is to make them use the math in solving everyday problems....for example...my students as a final project build and design an Ecohouse using the principles put forth in our class for environmentally friendly materials. Here are some other ideas....build house or car models and figure out dimensions using areas, addition, subtraction, etc. Have them design an outdoor garden for the school...how much dirt will they need? What is the area? How many gallons of water would be needed to water it 3 times a week? How many water bottles are thrown away in the school, pounds of garbage, etc. What is the total wattage they are using on 8 of their home appliances and what would it cost? Plan your dream US trip, calculate miles, cost for gas, etc. I'm not entirely sure of your content at this time of the year. These are just some I thought of off the top of my head. I'm sure you get the idea.

The math teachers were thrilled when I made my AP Env students use logs and the Shannon-Weaver index just at the same time they were learning logs in math, and they told me they were relieved to be able to show relevance and referred to it throughout the course of the unit.

Point being, if you can show relevance and, as someone else put it earlier, let them "get their hands dirty in the math" then you are a huge step closer to it being student centered.

Another idea...have you also tried mastery teaching? An English teacher I encountered told me about a program that she started (she found it online...all the ground rules can be found there) which was called Grammar Slammer where the students did their work, graded their work, and then tested. You could incorporate relevant problems into the work, itself. Afterward the students tested, and there were rules for "mastery" in that if you received a certain grade on the test, you would have to retest after completing further work, etc. She said it worked beautifully for her discipline, and all her students were working at a different pace. Instead of a test you could have a mastery project utilizing the skills they just learned to reinforce their usefullness.

I hope this helps. I, too, had great difficulties with converting from "font of knowledge" to "science guide" and have not fully made the transition, but am trying, because when I have changed things, not only are the students responsible for learning, but it gets you off the podium and in there helping those who DO need it. That's a great feeling.

Keep up the research! You're on the right track!
Tammy

We have been using KhanAdacemy.com to help students at home with their catch-up work in mathematics. It's an excellent site to watch individual teachers break things down into easy to understand steps for students.

"Sage on the stage", huh? Does this mean he thinks you are talking AT your students rather than TO them? If you focus more on their needs rather than trying to sound impressive, I don't see where you could go wrong. If your students are doing well with passing their tests, there should be no cause for complaint.

I sympathize because I tend towards the lecture model too. However, when I have students do more group work and discussion, they are much more involved. You still get kids who do nothing, but they don't act up as much. Just try incorporating more student-driven activities a bit at a time and you will be able to reach more kids as well as make your annoying supervisor happier.