"Learning to Unlearn"

Teachers today need to realize that they are learners first.  Learning is a huge part of the job.  With our learning we are able to make learning happen with our students.  We need to get in touch with our inner child, that child inside us that does not overcomplicate things and that sees things for what they are rather than focusing on the problems before them.  Once you get through school your learning is not over, because realistically it is impossible to live in this world and not learn.

So do you really have to unlearn in order to be an effective teacher.  In a sense, yes you do.  You need to be able to put yourself in the students shoes.  If they are having a tough time with an assignment then, you need to take into consideration what is going on in their head.  You may need to ignore what you know about the subject and maybe teach yourself another way to figure it out that may help the student.  You can't always teach in the same way and you are going to have to try new things, new teaching methods.  "Try it out and see if it works" is the mindset that you will need to have.

Unlearning is not the easiest thing in the world to accomplish.  Especially when everyone has expectations that the teachers job is to teach and a students job is to learn.  That is what's expected from teachers.  I believe that if the teacher has refused to continue their learning then they have already failed their students.  Part of the reason that I wanted to get involved in special education is the fact that I enjoy learning and this profession will force me to do so.  I will be forced to dabble in every subject and i'll need to be able to help the students with whatever they are working on for the day.

Interactive Whiteboard's in Today's Classroom

The iterative whiteboard is the the new toy that many people believe children are going to need in order the twenty-first century classroom.  Is the IWB really as good as advertised, or are there better things that you could spend your money on instead.  Obviously the answer of that depends on who you're asking.

If you were to ask a teacher they would probably agree that the new technological whiteboard is extremely important for their classrooms. It allows them to have less work than before.  Rather than writing their lesson over and over they can save it and use it as a template for all of their classes.  They can easily share things with their colleagues.  It allows them to display videos making their job easier.  There may be activities that you can access that will help differentiate inside the classroom, but does that mean the teacher will be smart enough to use that?  So what about the student?

The student may be the one suffering if anyone does.  With these boards you start to lose the student's interaction with the teacher.  You lose the "teacher talks, students listen" part of the classroom.  It's easier for a child to stay focused when it's a person talking than when it is a video of a person talking.  Also what happens if the user has little knowledge of how to use the board.  This results in the student's time being wasted and a lack of knowledge being learned.  

There are also other problems that can occur.  With most of these boards you can only have one user writing on it at once.  With old whiteboards you could have relay activities, and group activities on the board.  Now you can't can only have one student be interacting with it at a time.  Writing on the board can also be difficult at least compared to the marker boards that nobody could really screw it up.  In my opinion there are supplies that schools should be focusing on more than this expensive board.