This week I visited two very different classrooms, and both interestingly enough are part of my major and areas that I am really intersted in. First I started the day with a ninth grade woodshop. Their teacher started the class with one of Harry Wong's "bellwork" assignments. Here it was called question of the day. "What has a mouth, doesn't chew, and runs?" He would have the students come in and write the answer quietly in their planner (I believe in support of the school policy to always have it for every class). He would go arround at the beginning of class and check off the students who got the answer right. If they didn't have their planner they couldn't get points for answering the question. There was a quick review of previous assigments and then they headed into the shop (ladies first of course). Today they worked on boomarangs and turning pens. The student set right to work. His way to teach was to teach a piece at a time and then teach the next step when someone reached that point. The shop is just a fun environment for learning because it is where you do more hands on, tangible creating which is something that I love.
After the first hour I headed over to the classroom across the hall for the multimedia side of things. Again it was a ninth grade class and the class was started with a "bellwork" problem. These were more of a puzzle to be solved rather than a riddle but none the less a great way to get the students thought processes going at the wee hours of the morning. We helped with some basic drafting and then video editing. I don't know why but I just really enjoy working with video and seeing the creative possibilities that the students can come up with.
Jr. High is really a cool time to each technology because depending on the situation you may be teaching it all. I am really excited to go to the high schools and get a better feel for what it is like for a teacher there.
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