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Showing posts from May, 2016

Teaching Social Skills

I've begun a new role outside of Brock as a Beyond the Bell educator with the YMCA, and part of that role is creating programming to teach students social skills. It's a daunting task, but I thought drama would be an excellent way of practicing conflict resolution. Here's what I came up with. Let me know if you have any more ideas or potential tweaks I can make to this one. :)

Conclusion: The importance of Enthusiasm

This social studies class at Brock has opened my eyes to some fascinating teaching strategies that make learning meaningful for students. For example, I was always scared of inquiry - now I feel much more prepared to attempt it in my own classroom. I've also learned the value of enthusiasm. Not everything I'm excited for will thrill my students, but you can bet that if I'm bored, they're bored too. I feel much more prepared now, especially after all the incredible presentations, to make my classroom engaging and even exciting for students. We learned about the value of role playing to assume a perspective, and strategies to help students understand their place and impact (at a local, national, and even global scale). The strategies we learned are not easy to implement. They require a skilled teacher who has incredible control of her/his class in order to make smooth transitions and learning accessible for all students. However, despite how challenging these strategi