Day 3 Morning

Describe your teaching.

As a classroom teacher, I found that my students learned best when they received information in numerous ways--reading, taking notes, watching a video, conducting an experiment, creating a game about the topic, etc. Now, as a counselor, I still try to conduct lessons using a variety of activities because it is more engaging for the students and helps meet their learning needs (kinesthetic, auditory, visual, etc.).

A good way to describe my teaching as a counselor is to share some of the activities I'm planning to do with my students next year as part of a unit about conflict resolution. Students will use tangrams/manipulatives in an activity about communication, misunderstandings, and perspective; this is a "hands-on" lesson. Small and large group analysis and discussion of their experiences during the activity will follow. During another activity, I will show students several video clips of people in conflict, with individual and small group analysis following the clips. At another time, students will create and perform brief skits demonstrating conflicts and the skills that they have developed to resolve such conflicts. I am hoping that for the final part of this unit my students will be able to play the game that I'm designing for HI-FIVES, which will be about conflict resolution.

I like to have a diverse teaching experience for myself, too--it keeps me interested and engaged along with my students!