Welcome! This is something new. I've never blogged before. I've never even looked on a blog before. I've never been that interested in anybody's blog before. Pathetic, I know.
I'm a high school teacher. Sometimes I feel like it is a genetic disorder. If you look at my extended family, meaning aunts, uncles and 1st cousins, 14 of us are teachers. Fourteen. I call it chalk in the bloodstream, even though we don't use chalk anymore. And no matter how the district or the state treats us, we can't seem to get the chalk out.
So what is learning? That's like asking what is life. But I don't think my professor is looking for that as an answer. Learning, in the end, means altering behavior. Really, we cannot know if a person is learning something unless the behavioral component kicks in at some point in time. We can't see a student absorb new information unless he or she acts upon it. Sometimes, that behavior will not happen in the classroom. It may not happen for many years. But we hope that sometime, what we taught our students will show in their behavior.
How can learning be best effectuated by a teacher? There are a lot of answers to this question. There are endless theories and, of course, the educational fad of the year that gets rolled out in the opening faculty meeting. (Can you tell I've been teaching a very long time?) There are many things that help a teacher to teach effectively. Technology is incredibly helpful to a teacher. I have been using a particular type of technology called Video On Demand. It helps with my history classes. Instructional Architect is very good and I use it.
But the most important way learning can be effectuated by a teacher is his or her example. I had a great mentor teacher back when I was student-teaching. His name was Mr. Jessop and he taught at Skyview High School. He was a true master teacher. He told me two things I've never forgotten. First: "You don't just teach your students what you want them to know; you teach them who you are." I've never seen anything in all my years of teaching to contradict this, and it is one of the scariest things in education. I have to be who I want the students to be. If I want them to be curious, smart, prepared for the world, good citizens, able to handle all the ups and downs of life, I have to be all those things. Frightening, isn't it? And therein is the true responsibility of the teacher.
Can technology help with this ridiculous task? I believe it can. Our minds work faster than any other part of our bodies. Technology helps to bridge the gap between minds and bodies. For example, if I want to show my students a particular clip of a film from World War II, I don’t have to chase down the video or DVD. I have the technology in my classroom by using Video on Demand. The act of using technology in the classroom promotes technology use in the students, not to mention the content of the film itself. This applies to Smart Boards, IM, computer projection of all kinds, and a host of other things I am not even aware of.
We used to call this modeling the behavior. I believe it makes a difference. I’ll save the second thing Mr. Jessop told me for another blog if it fits in.
