Observation with teacher.

I had the pleasure of observing another teacher in my school today who teaches the 8th grade. We are creating a partnership of practice (or something with less alliteration) so that we can find out exactly what good teaching looks like from different personalities, in different classrooms, with different demographics. It is something that I really don’t feel like I do enough. I know what my own teaching looks like and I know what the teaching of teachers looks like. But, how connected am I to the practice of other teachers when I can’t be in their classrooms? I must constantly remind myself that the answer to the question that authentic learning presents should not always look like MY CLASSROOM. It is the approximation of an ideal, the learning environment as work-in-progress. Plus, it gives me so much more time to reflect upon what I do that it seems ludicrous that I don’t make more time for it. No matter what my future job description looks like, I always want to observe classrooms and be a part of this. It amazes me.

1. 
• I really like the ways in which students immediately were proud of solving the puzzle. Does it approximate success?
2. 
3. 
• I like the idea of a more relevant poem.
• Is there a greater purpose for this kind of thinking/writing?
4. 
• Do kids settle for just those answers when they are enumerated?
5. 
• How can the bigger questions be answered in the student discussion as well as the teacher-led discussion?
6. 
• The relevancy to student life is easy to see. Is there any way for students to be as critical of the lyrics as they are of the news article?
7. 
• I love the modeling. What kind of modeling works the best (student created, teacher created, discussion created)?

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