Today’s typical secondary teacher has evolved in the past thirty years. The teacher needs to be someone who does more than make sure students understands a topic. Today’s teacher needs to facilitate learning in a variety of ways, engaging students to learn can take on many different forms. As a result of taking Baker’s EDU 5101 – Learning Theories, I now have a variety of best practices and strategies to facilitate in my classroom. I have been teaching freshman girl’s health and PE at Buhler High School for fifteen years. I decided almost two years ago to begin the process of earning my master’s degree in education from Baker University. My most recent class, Learning Theories, has helped evolve me as a teacher. I feel more comfortable
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Empathy helps students learn what it is like to be in someone else’s situation and to see things from their perspective (Kagan, 2003). People who do not feel empathy are likely to commit crimes against other people because they cannot relate to the emotions of someone who is unlike them. We completed a project in our classroom that gives students the opportunity to see the world through the eyes of someone else. I had my students “tell their story” in a digital art project as a conclusion to our emotional health unit. The students used a Web 2.0 tool called Tagul and shared stories and words of major events that have taken place in their lives. Once completed they designed a symbol that had meaning to who they are as a person, such as a cross, an animal, a landmark, or an ancient symbol. The students got into small groups and shared their design and explained the history of whom, why, and what went into the design of telling their story. The other students in the group took turns giving one compliment and one idea they related to. This gave students of mixed groups a chance to develop empathy for someone who is not the same as …show more content…
Harvard Psychologist, Howard Gardner recommends that students recognize and understand their world in eight “distinct intelligence’s,” which are “a set of skills allowing individuals to find and resolve genuine problems they face.” (Miller, 2010) In a typical classroom, teachers tend to focus on verbal-linguistic and logical-mathematical intelligences. Personally, even though I teach PE, in my health classroom I focus on those two intelligences. To make changes and add more personal choices into my classroom I have begun to create choice boards for each unit I teach. We are currently finishing our drug unit and for the concluding project I am having the students look at a tic-tac-toe choice board and decide which ending activity they would like to do. I am receiving great feedback from the students concerning the application of the activities and how they are better suited to what they like to do. Making the change to include more variety for learning in the health classroom will result in students that are better able to express themselves and will make the learning
Empathy helps students learn what it is like to be in someone else’s situation and to see things from their perspective (Kagan, 2003). People who do not feel empathy are likely to commit crimes against other people because they cannot relate to the emotions of someone who is unlike them. We completed a project in our classroom that gives students the opportunity to see the world through the eyes of someone else. I had my students “tell their story” in a digital art project as a conclusion to our emotional health unit. The students used a Web 2.0 tool called Tagul and shared stories and words of major events that have taken place in their lives. Once completed they designed a symbol that had meaning to who they are as a person, such as a cross, an animal, a landmark, or an ancient symbol. The students got into small groups and shared their design and explained the history of whom, why, and what went into the design of telling their story. The other students in the group took turns giving one compliment and one idea they related to. This gave students of mixed groups a chance to develop empathy for someone who is not the same as …show more content…
Harvard Psychologist, Howard Gardner recommends that students recognize and understand their world in eight “distinct intelligence’s,” which are “a set of skills allowing individuals to find and resolve genuine problems they face.” (Miller, 2010) In a typical classroom, teachers tend to focus on verbal-linguistic and logical-mathematical intelligences. Personally, even though I teach PE, in my health classroom I focus on those two intelligences. To make changes and add more personal choices into my classroom I have begun to create choice boards for each unit I teach. We are currently finishing our drug unit and for the concluding project I am having the students look at a tic-tac-toe choice board and decide which ending activity they would like to do. I am receiving great feedback from the students concerning the application of the activities and how they are better suited to what they like to do. Making the change to include more variety for learning in the health classroom will result in students that are better able to express themselves and will make the learning