Day 4 of teaching - Krystle

For this day I'm going to talk about Student Centered learning. This is because in order for the students to learn they have to care. Tuesday was really interesting because it was our 4th day of teaching and I think that it really let us know what the students think of us. In the classroom the students do really well and they participate. I believe that this is because we are encouraging student centered learning by making the focus about them and not us. We have activities and discussions that engage the students and get them thinking. One area that is struggling is the homework department. They know that we are not their real teacher and so they treat us as such by not taking our homework assignments seriously. One girl even gave us the excuse, "I'm sorry I just had a lot of other things going on." Their assignment over the weekend was to gather 2 more monologues and fill out two character analysis sheets with a written paragraph for both. Not a single student had fully completed the assignment. Some had done some or most and a few nothing. This also got me thinking about student centered learning outside of the classroom. Learning should be happening both inside the classroom and out but if the students don't complete the assignments given then the learning doesn't happen. We also had a memorization check that day and only one student was fully memorized. Is there a way to ensure that the students know that what they are being asked to do is for them and not just busy work? I think though that a lot of the trouble is that the students didn't realize that they'd be given a grade for the things that we do with them. But it makes me more aware of what I am including in my lessons and making them based around student centered learning rather than just the content.