Models of Teaching

I had not thought that the various models of teaching that we have studied this year would have such a profound effect on my classroom. These models provide such a variety that my students are much more involved and interested in my classroom than they have been before. Some models, such as the problem based inquiry model, actually have charged my students with motivation while making my job of teaching less difficult because I am not having to pull teeth to get my students to learn. They are learning because they want to, not because they are made to.

This has been an awesome class.

synectic model

This was a rough model. It showed me that I could teach by analogy. I had never realized that this could be so useful. I have found that students can remember better when analogies are used than if they are not. Although this is not something that should be used as a universal teaching method in my classroom because other methods teach other items better, it taught what the illegal immigrant experience in America is much better than I have been able to do it before.

Socratic Seminar

I tried to socratic seminar again. I liked it a lot better when I had a little more experience. I was suprised that my students would think as deeply as they did. For the most part, I think that I could use this well in teaching culture, but not so well in teaching grammar and vocabulary. I do think that it does have its place in my classroom though. Especially at the beginning. I would like to use this model on the topic "Why Learn Spanish"

I think that it was important to try this model because it showed me a new way to get to know what my students are thinking about things.

Socratic Model

Well, this Socratic Model went better that the problem centered inquiry model. I used Picasso's painting of Don Quixote since the topic is about such a famous character and Picasso is hispanic. The hardest thing to do was to teach the kids how to write the different types of questions in the pre-seminar. I wasn't sure if I was supposed to video that part or not. It was also difficult to keep my students from all answering questions at once. They didn't seem to want to let anyone else into the conversation. I think that I am going to try this again for my final filming. It really didn't go very well.