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Ongoing Activities: Ten Activities
Professional learning is an ongoing process.
The activities listed here will help you keep your on-the-job
learning vibrant and alive. They
are designed not only to help you gather practical teaching tips,
but also to give you a chance to connect with your colleagues.
Activity
1: Teaching
Tip Card File
As you work through the various Teachers on Target activities
build a card file of teaching tips.
Divide your file into four different categories: classroom
management (includes discipline), relationships (with students,
colleagues, administration, parents, and community), teaching
(includes materials, planning, demeanor, rhythm, activities, etc.)
mechanics (classroom design, organization, student procedures, etc.)
Add even more tips by regularly asking other educators to give you
ideas that they use to make their teaching more effective, manageable,
interesting, clear, etc.
Activity 2:
Best
activities Collection
Build a file of favorite lessons or activities.
Ask other educators to give you a copy of a favorite lesson or
activity (most teachers are happy to help colleagues).
It doesn’t matter if the lesson is in your subject area or
grade level. By examining
quality lessons and activities you can glean workable ideas for your
own teaching. Indeed, the gathered activities will serve as
springboards to new and exciting teaching ideas.
Activity
3: Video Taping the Pros Video tape (or observe) five teachers who you know are quality
teachers. Assess the tapes
by answering the following questions:
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How do you characterize their style?
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What qualities do they all share?
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How do they use body language or gestures to
their advantage?
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Is there a rhythm to their teaching?
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Are they clear?
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Is the objective or purpose of their teaching
clear?
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What is their relationship to the students?
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What is their relationship to the material?
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Do they use humor?
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How do you characterize their use of
classroom time?
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Are student expectations articulated?
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How do they energize students?
Activity
4: Teacher
Quality Circles
Find two or more teachers who are willing to meet once
every two weeks to discuss what it means to be a high functioning
professional. Your Quality
Circle will not only offer you concrete professional advice, but it
will also provide important psychological assistance. We all want to
feel professionally connected.
Activity
5: Teaching Journal
Maintain a teaching journal.
Each day write a few thoughts or observations about your
teaching. Focus on the
positive. A journal can
help you stay focused on the important issues and help you keep in
mind why you went into teaching to begin with.
Activity
6: A Dozen Personal Inquiry
Questions
Write twelve key questions about your career as a
teacher. When answered
honestly, the questions should give you a better understanding of
yourself as a professional teacher.
Every month, ask yourself these questions as a quality check.
You may want to go over them with a colleague or mentor.
Sample Questions
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If I were a student in my own class, how
would I relate to the teacher?
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Am I utilizing my talents fully?
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How is my teaching changing?
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Am I teaching creatively?
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What am I learning about myself as a person?
Activity
7: Professional
Reading Group
With a colleague or small group, select several professional
books to read and discuss. Meet
monthly to discuss ideas from your reading.
Activity 8: Characterize
Your Teaching
As an expressive project, characterize your teaching in a
poem, painting, short story, or song.
If it is appropriate, share the work with students and/or
colleagues to gain their insights.
Activity
9: Student
Feedback Groups
If appropriate, meet with selected students after school in
a relaxed atmosphere and ask them to give you classroom feedback.
Phrase the questions so they are age appropriate and
non-aggressive.
Example: Don’t
ask “Am I a good teacher?”
Instead ask “over the last month what things in
class have you enjoyed the most?” or “What have we done in class
that has helped you grow and learn?”
Activity
10: Improving Student
Discussion
Meet with other teachers to share ideas about keeping
students actively engaged in classroom work and interaction.
One of the most frustrating things in teaching is to present a good
idea for discussion and then witness its agonizing demise when
students don’t react. Although many factors work to make a
discussion take off, a teacher can set the ground work for a
productive discussion by practicing sound facilitation behaviors.
Below are seven key group-discussion behaviors to keep in mind.
Rate your competency for each
behavior using the following scale: 5=strong,
4=somewhat strong, 3=average, 2=somewhat weak, 1=weak
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5
4 3
2 1
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Focusing:
Define the topic
clearly and emphasize why it is important to discuss the topic.
Example: “This discussion will give us a clearer idea about
the impact of the ______.”
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5
4 3
2 1
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Building:
Build on ideas presented in the discussion. Example: “Can
anyone see how Christa’s idea relates to our system of law in
America?"
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5
4 3
2 1
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Clarifying:
Summarize what has
been said or check with students for understanding. Example:
“Robert, do you mean to say that our jury system fails more
than it works?”
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5
4 3
2 1
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Praising:
Offer praise freely and meaningfully.
Make your praise specific.
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5
4 3
2 1
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Reviewing:
On a regular basis,
review or summarize major ideas or discussion trends. Example:
“All in all then most of you agree our legal system has flaws
but works sufficiently.”
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5
4 3
2 1
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Targeting:
Keep the discussion on
track and focused. Example: “Let’s go back to our definition
of justice.”
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5
4 3
2 1
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Assigning:
When it is applicable,
have a student find out about something that could not be
answered during the class discussion. Example “Mary, thank you
for volunteering to find more information about King John’s
so-called Thirteenth Tax.”
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5
4 3
2 1
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Concluding:
At the end of the
discussion, review major points in order to demonstrate what
students have accomplished. Example: “This was a great
discussion; let’s summarize what we have done.”
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Reminder:
Not only must the
teacher demonstrate these class discussion behaviors, the student must
use them as well. As the
lead facilitator, the teacher must do the following: 1. Explain
exactly what is expected during a class discussion by establishing the
ground rules; 2. Define expected class-discussion behaviors; 3.
Enforce discussion behavior consistently; and 4. Reward students when
they practice sound discussion techniques.
Let students know emphatically that it is their responsibility
for successful classroom discussion.
Professional
Development Activities (Select a category listed below)
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