Learning to Unlearn

I spent a long time picking through "Unlearn" related images, and now the word "learn" looks really weird to me. Anyway, Since I hope to teach a very differentiated classroom one day, unlearning my own personal learning style is going to be a priority for me. It's going to be important that I understand where my students are coming from with their own learning styles, and being able to cater to that in a way that maximizes the effectiveness of my teaching. I best learn a task by watching someone else do it first, and then trying it myself. I'll watch the other person do it until I have memorized what I need to do (monkey see, monkey do?). Not everyone learns like that. Some do best reading instruction from a book, or in groups. I'm going to have to understand different learning perspectives so I can make myself the best teacher I can be.

Another thing I will have to be mindful of is following my role models. I have had some amazing teachers, and I remember some of my favorite assignments from them, or the way they taught that made me immediately understand the concept. I will be tempted to try to apply their methods in my own classroom. While there isn't necessarily anything wrong with doing that while I figure out my own teaching style, I will have to keep in mind that just because they were my favorite teacher, doesn't mean their lesson plan or methods worked as well for my peers. Contrarily, the teachers who I disliked were other student's favorites. Ultimately, I just have to remember that everyone is different, and try to work with that in the best way that I can.

Interactive Whiteboards in Today's Classroom

As someone who recently graduated from a high school that boasted technological prowess, my opinion of Interactive White Boards is that they're little more than an expensive way to show off what a great school system you have without actually improving the curriculum or learning techniques. As the article "Some Educators Question if Whiteboards, Other High-tech Tools Raise Achievement" states, there is little evidence to support that these boards actually improve student test scores, and are largely just a fad. I feel that they are a bad example of technology's usefulness in the classroom because the boards a more or less just large touch screens, and offer little that will truly utilize a teacher's lesson plan. Most of the classrooms in my high school had these white boards, and I only ever saw them utilized twice. They were used in my freshman year Spanish class, and we used the touch screens to conjugate verbs. We had done the same activity before, with magnets on our classroom dry erase board. As far as I could tell, the IWB did not offer anything the teachers didn't have access to through projectors and an little activity. Because of this, I don't really see how the IWB can help with a differentiated classroom. Overall, I think technology in a classroom is good. I take notes from power points every day. If I miss information in class, I can email the professor about it. Technology makes it easier to learn and acts as a tool for the teacher, and this is why it is useful. When we have it just for the sake of it, however, it become almost cumbersome. The IWBs were a chore, which is why my teachers seldom used them. They can be useful, but are not necessary in every classroom. What makes learning worthwhile is the student/teacher relationship.