Last week in week 4 we looked at creating lessons in smart board using the gallery and the tool kit. I am impressed with the lessons that you came up with and I think your comments on using the toolkit were valid. It might have been overkill to ask you to look at premade lessons and to create 3 lessons with 10 pages each at different levels but if we do not practice using something how can we get a feel for it. I appreciate that most you you were willing and able to accomplish this goal.
My reasoning behind having you do this was to give you and authentic experience. Most of you are not in a classroom yet and I am sure that the tools that I am sharing with you this term seem useless and pointless. But I absolutely believe that the use of smart board in the classroom can enhance most lessons.
By creating lessons I find myself reordering how I want to teach something in the classroom. I am able to see the flow of information that I want to present to the students. It makes me present the information in smaller pieces, with constant review and reinforcement. Plus I see the lesson from the perspective of the students and so I can hopefully see how they are going to be able to interact with it. Not every lesson that I present in using the toolkit is exemplary and some may seem repetitive and tedious but I see the value of the lessons when I am able to engage my low level learners at the same time as my TAG students. I know that I am on the right track when I see the student that never participates waving his/her hand to access the board or use a computer to complete a project.
I am reinvigorated as an educator when I know that I have engaged and promoted learning for a short time in everybody that day. I know there are days that I am a boring, homework giving, droning, and another rule creating individual for some of my students so when they are smiling and engaged in learning (which is the norm in my classroom) then I am a ‘happy’ teacher.
