An Example of Good Teaching.I thought this video was a good, realistic example of what good teaching looks like. Because the video is so long, I will talk about approximately the first 4 minutes. This video is an example of what a "classroom observation" might look like, in which a teacher is observed by an administrator in their own classroom in order to assess whether a teacher is doing a good job or not. I believe that this is an example of what a good teacher's classroom observation might look like. About a minute into the video, the teacher begins to take up homework. I think the teacher does a really good job in giving clear instructions. She tells her class exactly what she wants them to do. What I appreciated the most about the teacher was she catered her teaching towards the needs of her students. She begins by taking up question 7 of their math homework because one of the students needed help with it. However, she doesn't simply just go through the problem with them. Before she jumps straight into it, she asks the student what exactly about the question they need help with so that she knows exactly what she needs to teach. I think this is really important because it is a clear example that the teacher should always listen to the needs of their students and should the cater their lessons to those needs. Not only that, but she allows for students to be in charge of their own learning. She uses a technique she calls "practise teaching" where students work in partners in hopes to teach and learn from their pupils. She claps her hands and says, "teach!" and all the students clap back and say, "okay!" This helps them stay focused and allows them to take ownership over their own education. But that doesn't mean that she allows them to do her job for her. She takes up the question with the students, but asks them for what they think are the answers, and guides them in the right direction. She doesn't do all the thinking for them and allows them to answer questions and learn by doing, not by watching. Finally, what I appreciate the most is the "10 finger woo" she implements in her classroom. When one of the students makes a mistake, another student says that it's okay to make mistakes, and the teacher makes sure to reward this kind of behaviour by having the class acknowledge it using the "10 finger woo". I think this is important because it helps foster a positive attitude in the classroom where: 1) Students treat their fellow classmates with respect and kindness. 2) Students feel safe to make mistakes, which allows them to learn. An example of problematic teaching.Though silly, I think this short film by Disney does a good job bringing to light some of the problematic behaviours of a teacher. While George, the main trouble making kid is responsible for a lot of the chaos in the video, I believe that the teacher (in this case, Goofy) could have done a better job at handling the students.
Firstly, at the beginning of the school day, George tries to throw something with a slingshot at Goofy. Goofy only exclaims his name and gestures him to put all of his toys in a drawer. I think that this is problematic because the interaction lacks communication. I believe that in disciplinary situations like this a teacher needs to communicate with a student why what they did is wrong and help them understand that there are consequences to their actions. Instead, without any communication, George could simply think Goofy is being mean and unfair, and doesn't learn anything. Similarly, when Goofy starts taking roll, he doesn't address (or is oblivious) to all the inappropriate behaviours going on in the classroom. His classroom lacks structure, which disallows the children to learn. This is further seen when he attempts to teach geography to the class. He doesn't have a prepared lesson, and instead attempts to teach the students from the daily newspaper. Because of that, he ends up burying his face in the paper, and does not engage with his students, who end up not listening, and therefore not learning. Finally, Goofy disables the children from learning through his own obliviousness and distractedness. During class, he's distracted looking out the window, which allows for the students to copy out answer from the sheet he's holding. Because of that, the students aren't able to learn anything as they aren't using their own knowledge to find the answers, and instead are just taking them without first thinking. All in all, the methods of teaching seen here disallow for students to engage and enjoy their time in school, and sadly they do not learn. As someone who deeply believes that children should feel empowered to tackle their own learning as motivated by a teacher, this was extremely sad to me.
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Carole PalattaoI'm an 18 year old studying classical voice at Western University. I'm also a hardcore mental health advocate, and I do creative writing on the side for fun!
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