Teaching/Learning

In my experience, a great learning experience is someone that values the learning differences of each student and makes the classroom experience engaging. Various types of activities can be used to keep the interest going. One year I was not going to school in the traditional sense and only had class for four hours a week so I was encouraged to use the internet to learn about whatever I wanted. If I heard about  something that peaked my interest then I would research it and give a brief report on the subject. It was a great way to learn since I had one on one interaction with the teacher. Another classroom experience that I found highly enjoyable was my senior year English class. Several kids in that particular class were taking it for graduation credit and did not care about school since they were not going on to college, so the teacher was left with a challenge on how to make the class interesting. He would connect the book to our lives, creating lessons that were interactive and significant to us. If the book we were reading was about life skills he would teach us life skills at the end of the unit or if relevant at the time it was brought up, like how to manage a mortgage or the steps to fixing a patch a wall. At the end of the year students were to give lessons to the class on skills that they knew such as building steps, or replacing a part to a car engine. The challenge was that we had to relate it back to one of the four books we had read.

The most memorable teaching experience I had was when I was teaching a group of skiers and we were working on race technique. My students mostly  have various mental disorders ranging from ADHD to schizophrenia, with some amputees at various times, so making the lesson interesting is key. One of them was really struggling with the lesson I got the others to help me show him by making the lesson into a giant game of follow the leader. After repeating this game a few times, I sent the rest of the group down with my partner and asked the student to ski in front of me and show me what he learned. After a few mistakes he was able to demonstrate the technique correctly and even beat me to the lodge.

It is hard of teachers to get the information they are trying to get across and keep the lesson interesting. That is the most challenging thing, I think. I always look for some way to make it fun and interactive but educational. I have had some teachers that have done this, but most of them did not creating an atmosphere that was stifling to the kids that were more creative and learned more hands on creating problems in school and if it is too creative the kids who are to structured will have issues. There needs to be balance.