My first class-2

My First Class

By Nicole Vasheo
Sep 3, 2008
School of Education
Long Island University, C.W.Post

The first class of this course was very exciting to me. I thoroughly enjoyed the Name Game and felt that it was a very good way to ease into the class. I enjoyed learning the names of my peers because that eases tension in the classroom setting. The Name Game was a low stress way to open our minds to try to remember all of our classmates’ names but using a trick to remember the name. Some students decided to rhyme their names with a familiar word, while others used references to places and food. Our teacher also helped ease the tension by letting us take down notes just in case we forgot a student’s name. It helped students relax in the class and enjoy the game. While I am not usually a audio learner, this game was helpful to me due to the repetition.

Down the road, when it comes time that I have my own classroom, I would consider the Name Game to be a very good way to start class. If this works in a college classroom, I feel like this can be useful anywhere. Other factors of education that I would like to explore are the ways that the children react to certain environments and what methods work best to communicate materials to the students. I think knowing these things would benefit me as a teacher because it shows how to get through to the students and make the best of their time in your classroom.

In my opinion, the chapter 1 reading had a few interesting points. First off it gave credit to the fact that teaching is one of the top complex professions, and how important psychology is to the success of a teacher’s career. I think that teachers should take advantage of all of the psychological research that is available to them to better their understanding of how students think. In my past experience with teachers, those who were motivating and showed the students how to work cooperatively were the most enjoyable and that follows along with the research results.

I like how the text also realized that psychology does not have all the answers that teachers need in every situation, so I appreciate that they realize that there is some room for error. It is interesting to find out that education has changed so much from generation to generation and how this science is continually changing, even though the course materials are only changing slightly. I agree very much with the quote “good teaching is partly an art and partly a science.” I believe that teaching has so much to do with personal touches but on the other hand, there is also a method to what works and what ways to communicate are proven to be successful. I aspire to be what they refer to as a reflective teacher who is a teacher who blends art and science. (Nicole Vasheo, Sep 3, 2008)