My First Blog Ever!!!

When I first applied for college, my mother asked me a question. She asked me how I was going to learn to teach. I told her that I wasn’t sure; I didn’t think there was a class called ‘Teaching 101’. Once I finally made it through the process of being accepted and I looked at my course options and requirements, I realized that I would in fact be taking classes that directly pertain to how to teach! At this point I still wasn’t very confident that these so-called education classes were going to be enough for me to feel prepared for the classroom. I’ve been here for more than a full week of classes now, and already I feel more prepared than I did before.

In the first chapter of my Educational Psychology textbook, I read about ‘effective teaching’. In short, effective teaching is about how to be a good teacher. It has been determined that the top three characteristics of effective teachers are; a sense of humor, making classes interesting, and in-depth subject-matter knowledge.

I think it is absolutely wonderful that a sense of humor is at the top of that list! I also strongly agree with that conclusion. I remember when I was in school, and it didn’t matter how great the teacher could have been, if they didn’t have a good sense of humor, I didn’t want to pay attention in class! It was the teachers that would relate to me and understand my jokes that I really learned from. I hope that when I become a teacher that my students are there because they want to be, not just because they have to be.

The second point, making classes interesting, goes hand in hand with having in-depth knowledge of your subject. I think that if I were to have really great subject-matter knowledge, I would be able to come up with more interesting class activities. My rationale is that the more I know, the more I can do with that knowledge and therefore plan more diverse things. This hopefully will target all different areas of the brain and increase learning! I hope that I retain some of this information so I can use it when I am teaching!

In summary, I think my first week of college as an education student has been very successful, and if it continues on this way, I will be more than prepared to enter the workforce as a teacher.