creative teaching techniques (prompt 3)

In every classroom there are going to be students that learn differently. There will be the children who learn just by listening the lectures, the visual learners who will learn best with a video or demonstrations or there will be the hands on learner, who will learn best when working with the material being taught. It is the job of the teacher to be able to reach every kind of learner so that each individual student fully understands and grasps the material being taught.

            Along with the different types of learners there will be students depending on the school one teaches in where the students don’t fully understand English or have learning disabilities. What are we to do then? How do we help those students understand the subjects as well as the rest of the class? In the classroom I’m in there are a few students with learning disabilities. They act socially like the rest of the seventh grade students but during lesson these few students tend to get very upset and give up before really trying. I was able to work with these few students during my time at the school and we figured out ways for them to understand and follow the material the teacher taught.

            When I noticed that the kids were getting very discouraged with themselves I asked the teacher if I could take a few of them on my own and see if I could help them. She had no problem with it so I made a copy of her lesson plan and went over it briefly and developed a way to teach it to these kids that I thought would help them. They were learning about force and motion so I created a hands on activity where the kids could actually see what cause an object to move and made a chart where they could record their data about how far the objects went and how long it took to get to the end point. I also showed them a ten-minute video the teacher had about motion and the laws of motion. By the end of my time with these 3 students they understood the material and felt that they had enough confidence to go into the classroom and learn with the rest of the class. From that day on the kids have had a more positive attitude in the classroom and they know that when the material gets confusing they can always come to me and I can develop a way for them to understand.

            I was able to do that because when I was in school my teachers always taught their lessons in more then one way so that all the kids in the class could understand. Because I was able to bring that to this classroom the students have felt much more comfortable coming to me when they get confused and when they don’t want to hold back the rest of the class. When I begin to teach I plan on providing different ways to teach a lesson because I want my students to enjoy my subject, but more then anything I want them to feel confident in themselves and believe that they can do well no matter the circumstances.