BUSD : Banning Unified School District

It has now been 4 months, and I really enjoy my job at BUSD. Over the time, I have been able to find programming tasks that have pushed my knowledge. Also, the support side has allowed me to watch some really good teaching techniques. I am going to go back in time, but when I taught, students would rarely ever speak out loud when I asked a question. This was fine by me since the students were all processing the question inside their head. What always catches me off guard is when I ask a question during a presentation to adults. All of a sudden I hear people answering the question. Completely catches me off guard every time. One of the teachers I was able to observe did the following

To limit students from just blurting out answers, (also to give everyone time to think about the question) she would hold her hand up and when she dropped it, the students would all speak their answer aloud. This simple technique was ground breaking for me.

  • All students were participating ( as opposed to just one student always answering the question for everyone).
  • Student were given time to think. When presented new material, the brain takes longer to develop an answer. 3 seconds is usually a good wait time, and by this teacher holding her hand up, she guaranteed all students had about 3 seconds of processing time
  • The teacher was able to quickly assess how many students were understanding the material by participation level and the answers she heard aloud.

Watching great teaching has always interested me, and it always makes me wonder how I incorporate certain techniques and styles in my own presentations. Besides the computer work I am able to do for the school district, I really enjoy helping and watching the teachers.

About Constantine Krick

Once a teacher, now a word press blog
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One Response to BUSD : Banning Unified School District

  1. Karla says:

    This is great! Thank you for sharing. It is obvious you love learning– I admire that very much about you– and miss teaching. There is no doubt if you ever go back into teaching, you will be a fantastic teacher. 🙂

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