"Who *writes* that??!!!"

....When Feedback Goes Awry....

Last night in one of my classes, we were all giving short presentations in pairs or small groups. As observers of the presentations, our task was to write one strength and one suggestion for improvement for each presentation. The feedback cards were anonymous, and the professor explained that these cards were for ourselves, to help us to see what we did well and what we need to work on. At the end of the class, after everyone had presented, the professor handed the cards back to each group and had us review the comments to incorporate the class feedback into a self reflection on the project, to be handed in later.

Well, as we're all reading our comments, we suddenly hear a slightly shocked "who writes that?!!!" In response to one presentation, someone had written "there was some attempt to be interesting, but overall this presentation was mind-numbingly boring."

Ok, really not nice. Our professor was pissed. This is a class full of aspiring teachers! And I have to agree. I approach this program as a professional, and sorry but that's not acceptable behavior in the workplace. Especially when an essential part of your job is to model good behavior for others.

These cards don't impact grades, and the incident just served to diminish our professor's respect - even if just a bit - for our class. She acknowledged it was just one person. But who is that person? What did he or she really gain from writing that? I think the recipient of the comment was more shocked and offended that anyone would write such a thing than she was personally insulted.

The bottom line is that feedback is so important to us, but it absolutely must be constructive. Another point our professor made about the incident was that we only found out about it because the girl said something; when we have a class full of students, we don't know that they'll say anything, and we don't know how comments like that can affect them later in the day, week, month, or in their lives. We need to be cognizant that students need to learn how to give and take feedback. And we need to practice positive, constructive feedback ourselves - which often includes saying things that do not want to be heard, but in a polite and positive way.

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Observation: Round 2

I just spent the day at the high school observing. It was a little crazy. I observed 6 different classes, 5 different teachers. It was really interesting though, and although it can feel a little awkward sometimes I definitely think I'm getting a lot out of it.

One thing I want to get better at is developing some questions beforehand to ask the teachers about. It would also be nice to have some time with two or three teachers to really get their opinions about things, but they are really really busy with grading and other things during their free time which makes it a little difficult. Another observation point - these teachers are almost always working on something, not just messing around when they have a period free.

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Motivation

Yay woohoo I get to be in "how to become a teacher" school and yes I really do love it, even when it's a pain in the butt.

I'm working on a project for my Ed Psych class - actually it's a lesson - on motivation. I chose this topic because I wanted to really get to know how to motivate students. Turns out I find myself doing a lot of thinking about my own motivation in the process.

This project is really hard because we basically get to choose whatever we want from that day's assigned readings to teach. This makes it difficult to know what exactly to go over and what we can leave for the professor. But at the same time I guess this is intentional because as a teacher you need to be able to do that on a daily basis.

After learning more about motivation I feel...hmm... I don't know, satisfied? ... to have words to put to why I left the company to become a teacher. Working at the company - I realize that I was extrinsically motivated to do it. I already realized this, but I guess I didn't realize it was a "real" psych term, and I referred to it as external reasons as opposed to internal (which is still correct; perhaps I also said intrinsic and extrinsic, I wish I knew!!). I loved the paycheck, my family was proud of me, I had the glory of the "war stories", people were impressed when I said "I work for ..." But nothing about it kept me up at night except for stress and fear. There were parts that I truly loved, and I can't emphasize enough that it was an incredibly valuable experience. But generally by 5pm I wanted to close up shop and get the hell out as quickly as possible.

Now I realize that working towards becoming a teacher is something that is completely intrinsically motivating for me. The pay is not extraordinary, my dad wanted me to stay at the company like all hell, and telling people "I'm going to be a teacher" is not very unique. But it's something I have to do. I just do. I'm interested in it, it's a job where I can help people on a daily basis, and I can seriously make a difference in the world and the field of education, a place that desperately needs change. I can envision myself working round the clock and on weekends just because it's not only a job.

I know a lot of that sounds idealistic, and may change once I really hit the real world of teaching. But I think it is important to have these feelings about my profession at all. It's something that's very internal to me, in my heart, and something I feel compelled and challenged by. I see a future for myself in doing this, and that is really important to me.

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Hello world!

Hi! My name is Lauren and I'm working towards becoming a secondary-level English teacher. For me, this means pursuing a masters in teaching. I'm super excited about this journey, and even though I know it will be challenging, I firmly believe it will be worth it.

I came to the realization that I was meant to be a teacher after a year of working the corporate world. Now please, don't jump to any conclusions! I really did love the company I was at, but like any large organization there was a lot of drone-like things about it and its culture. I really loved the concept of what I was doing, and I would have liked to stay longer, but the day to day life was just not for me. And I realized that I had many reasons to stay, but none of them included a passion for my profession.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized how opinionated about education I am. I realized that I love working with and helping people. I found myself daydreaming about innovative and fun ways to teach. When I envisioned a possible career in this field, I saw real goals and attributes that I could aspire to.

And so here we are. I've always wanted to start a blog, even before I knew that I wanted to become a teacher. The ideas spanned across a multitude of themes -- kind of the way my brain works! But of course, I never got around to really trying to document those ideas, and it all seemed too all over-the-place to actually try. Let's face it: I was intimidated! And I still am! But what the heck - let's go for it.

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