Students, oh my students

My Students...

In thinking about who my potential students will be/ are/ have been  I realize that my student population will be every shifting and changing so I had best be prepared to be flexible. Despite the title of students- no longer is it a group of just graduated high school freshmen. Older students come in with a wealth of experiences and hands on knowledge that can help (and sometimes hinder) classroom progress.

Just because I have a class of students that are incoming freshmen does not mean that each of them is tech-adept and will be able to acclimate quickly to writing in a variety of spaces.  Asking students to compose on their smart phones or write a collaborative narrative in Facebook is daunting for most. Students are smart accomplished people with great innovative ideas and learning styles that keep me on my toes.

Technology in the classroom should be an augmentative source that blends teaching practices with practice concepts.  So what does that look like? A powerpoint slide to add some concepts to discuss in a group, a walk through video of how to format a paper, an audio file of the lecture for a review session, a class wiki or blog for group assistance, small manipulatives (yo-yo, squeeze ball, etc) on the table for redirection, a variety of writing implements (marker, crayon, chalk, etc), a variety of writing surfaces, concept driven video games,  art rendering programs, 3D puzzles... my ideal classroom would probably cost a half million to put together :)

I could probably write pages and pages about my students - these creative unique individuals that comes into a class about writing, certain that they will hate it and have nothing new to learn.  Leery when I ask them to  step outside carefully constructed composition formats and surprised that learning involves the 5 senses not just lecture.  Trust has to be formed, the learning space has to be safe, authority must be strong but approachable, humanism must be established.

Every class I teach I learn more about being a good teacher from my students, I learn where I fail and could do better and where I am doing well. So ends my thought wanderings about students for the moment. But I will end on the note that I always become a better teacher when I am being a student :)