Week 4 Reflection

Week 4 Reflection

This week I have been working with my group on a rubric for students to use when considering a serious game for the classroom.  We did much work on through the wiki.  Email was also a useful tool to keep up with changes.  Nicole set up a few meeting on AnyMeeting.  I had never used this before.  It was a great tool to meet and discuss our rubric.  My part of the rubric is to make directions.  I am attempting to make some directions before the final product is made so they may be more general than I’d like.  We decided at our group web meeting that a screen cast would be a good way to deliver these instructions.  I thought that would be a great idea, however, I would use the rubric and it would need to be in its final form.  I’m not sure there will be time for that. 

I have been enjoying reading Teach Like a Pirate.  The chapter on passion has inspired me to find my professional passion to teach in those areas that I am less passionate about.  I think this is one way I can make a difference in my ability to engage the students.  I need to find a way to keep remembering to do this.  It is easy to forget doing the daily routines. 

While reading others' blogs, I was intrigued that several people talked about two of the same things that I came away with in the first part of Teach Like a Pirate. 1.   How important passion is in teaching and that professional passion can be used when you don’t feel passionate about a topic.  2.  The importance of a safe and supportive classroom for students to feel okay being creative.   I commented on several of them.  I commented to one blogger how another person had similar thoughts on engagement (students need to play a part in becoming engaged) so that he would have a chance to look at it if he hadn’t already.  

I shared on my blog several sites that I found that gave excellent advice on engaging students.  (http://www.edutopia.org/stw-school-turnaround-student-engagement-tips)
http://ctl.utexas.edu/teaching/engagement/active_interactive_class,
http://www.knewton.com/blog/teacher-tools/five-ways-to-make-math-lessons-more-engaging