Good teaching

Submitted by Ben Johnson <author> (not verified) on April 6, 2008 - 07:21.

Theresa:

Graphic organizers and KWL are good for all students, but especially useful for students facing extraordinary challenges. Games are perfect examples of learning systems that provide intrinsic rewards. It is not the teacher that is providing the rewards, but the game itself. Students play by the established rules and complete tasks at high levels and get rewarded by points or privileges as a consequence.

I was a Spanish teacher and the biggest challenge that I had was to help the students memorize the verb conjugations. So, I made a game out of it. This can work with any multi-step process. I place the student desks in rows or small circles. One student starts with a piece of paper. I give them the verb (or problem) then the first student does the first step of the verb conjugation (or problem). Then she passes the paper to the next student, who does the second step and so on until each student has participated and the verb (or problem) is solved. The last person to finish, raises her hand with the paper. The teacher quickly reviews the paper for correctness. If it is correct, then that team gets a point. If it has errors, then the teacher gives it back to the team to fix. The students enjoyed this game and truly gained skills because of it.

Ben Johnson Natalia, TX

Reply

Share your thoughts on this story. Please increase the credibility of your post by including your name and city, and by demonstrating respect for others' opinions. Comments will not appear immediately; all comments are moderated and will be posted in order of submission.

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
  • Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd>
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.

More information about formatting options