Quote: "In fact, sometimes children are copying sentences they cannot read, so the activity [copying from the board] becomes little more than handwriting practice" (Tompkins, 165).
Comment: I actually enjoyed that the book told us that copying poems or declarations from the board are not very effective for students, because they end up just copying letters without even knowing what it's saying. I appreciated it because I can see how teachers would just stick with an exercise simply because they've done it for years. Just in class the other day, Dr. Wimmer told us that research shows that DOL isn't very effective. So I think that we as teachers need to stay up on research, and we need to be open to change and new ideas. We need to be learning new things just like our students are. I think that's one reason why the partnership schools that we go to really like having cohort students come in because we have new ideas and fresh research that we can share with our mentor teachers. So we need to continually stay fresh and on top of our teaching.
Question: How do you feel about this? Do you see yourself staying in a rut, or being willing to change and expand?
I know I am always looking for new and better ways of doing things in my life. I hope that this transfers into my classroom and teaching. I agree with you that it is so important for teachers to stay current and willing to try new things. Interestingly, I just had a conversation with a lady in my ward about how she loves when her kids get new teachers because she feels they are better teachers. They are current and enthusiastic and that makes up for their inexperience. That gave me more confidence :)
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