Due to the guest speaker being unwell, Kerrie's lecture today was her presenting a guest speaker talk. As with any good guest lecture, it lacked structure but contained lots of interesting insights.
The points I found interesting and/or useful included:
1. Be explicit with students. Don't assume that students know what you are thinking and understand what is expected of them.
2. Think about classroom organization. Single desk arrangements are good for some situations. U-shape is most flexible. You need to teach students skills for working in groups - don't assume that they know how to work in groups (see point 1!). Putting difficult students in far back corners can reduce eye contact problems.
3. Develop class rules and do it collaboratively. Have consequences for breaking rules. Have realistic consequences.
4. Take time to build relationships before starting on content. My mentor teach said something related - take time to motivate content before starting on content.
5. Routines are great. We all need structure and routine. We need boundaries that we can work within.
6. Don't wrestle with the pig! Look at your weekly schedule. What are your productive lessons? What are your unproductive ones? Adjust material to suit lesson times. For example, Friday afternoon lessons aren't going to be productive, so don't fight the class trying to make it productive. Instead, find an activity that suits Friday afternoons.
7. Don't try to teach content all the time and every lesson. For starters, it takes too much preparation time. Schedule activities that are low preparation but engaging for kids. Good for kids and good for teacher.
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