In Response to Weeks 2&3 Posting

Hi Sarah: thanks for your latest post! Very interesting and thoughtful.

I liked your thoughts about classroom management, seating, and class rules. My experience has been that grade 9 and 10 teachers often have assigned seating, but it'll be interesting to see what the practice is in your practicum school class-- try to talk to as many teachers as you can about this (and other management issues). You are always free to change the seating arrangement if it's not working. I think it's also a good idea to set classroom rules, and it's even better if the students have a big say in this-- what do they want?

And very interesting your comment "however, I still think that I would prefer to just 'lecture" to the students, and maybe do student lead activities once a unit. However, this perspective might change once I start teaching." Most of us, including myself, learned ourselves through lecturing, and this is our "default" teaching style. But I would like to say that a lot of research shows that lecturing isn't a great way for students to learn-- e.g. physics education research (which we should talk about in class) shows very clearly that other approaches, such as peer instruction, lead to more learning (especially conceptual understanding). So I urge you to try different approaches during your practicum and in your own classrooms, assessing student learning and engagement as you do so, and see which approaches work best for your students and yourself.

Terry