Studying Effective Teachers

In Carl A Grant and Maureen D. Gillette's book "Learning to Teach Everyone's Children" the epilogue reccommends 10 things that people can do right now to become better teachers. The one I chose to focus on for this blog is number 10, studying effective teachers. I think this is one of the most important steps I can take in becoming a new teacher. Learning about how other teachers run their classroom, organize their lessons, keep all students involved, etc. can be the most useful tool in learning how to organize my own classroom.

We are lucky that we already have the opportunity to observe teachers during practicum. Every Thursday and Friday we are able to watch another teacher's practices in action. It is interesting to see what I think is working and what I think could be improved. I have seen my CT utilize classroom management tools that I wouldn't have thought of using without years of practice. When the children aren't paying attention she will sometimes speak French and amazingly they listen right away. My CT also has very organized and planned "centers" that the students work in groups in for at least an hour a day. The stations change every few week and cover all subjects. They seem very effective. I wonder where she is getting the ideas for all these different stations? I really like the ideas and techniques my CT has worked out to use in her classroom over the years.

Our class even learned a lot from watching the short clips of "The Ron Clark Story." Watching teachers in action gives me the change to take in what teachers do in different situations. Building my own pedagogy will have to come from observing and reading about experienced teachers. Many of the books we are reading for our classes are written by teachers trying to share their expertise and experience. I look forward to continuing to learn in other teachers' classrooms. Hopefully I will be able to go into some of the other practicum classrooms and see numerous teachers in action.