Blog Assignment #9

Mr. Joe McClung
I really like this blog assignment because soon we are going to be starting off our new teaching careers, and by following Mr. McClung, we can see what it was like for him as he went through his fist couple of years of teaching and take his advice. This is just another example of how using a blog is a great way to share ones knowledge and experiences with others. When I become a teacher, I am also going to create a post at the end of each school year to share what I learned. This way other teachers who are just starting off can benefit from the things I learned while I was teaching, and they will be better prepared when they become teachers as well.

May 27, 2009 What I've Learned This Year (2008-09)

After Mr. McClung's first year of teaching, he shared what he learned in this blog post. One of my favorite pieces advice that he gave was to always focus on the students comprehension of what you teach instead of worrying about what your superiors think. The most important thing is to make sure that you do not lose touch with your audience-the students. Another great tip he gives is to be flexible. Things are not always going to go the way you plan, and the best thing to do is not get angry and just work with the situation that you are in. He says that, "NO LESSON IS EVER PERFECT. THE LESSON YOU TEACH AND THE ONE YOU PLAN ARE ALWAYS DIFFERENT". Mr. McClung also says to not be afraid of technology. Because I am in EDM 310, I don't think I will have a problem with this one! However, I think this is good advice for teachers who have already been teaching for several years. For example, my mom has been teaching high school for over 30 years, and she really is an excellent English teacher, but she has never used technology in her classroom because she did not know how. Now that I am in EDM 310 and learning all of these new ways to use technology while teaching, I go home and tell her about what I have learned. Even though she has been teaching the same way all of her life, she gets excited when I tell her these new ways to use technology in the classroom, and she is now getting me to teach her how to make a blog so she can use it in her class next year! That was fun for me to see that even older teachers are now catching on to using technology.

Version 4 Post (2011-2012)
After Mr. McClung's fourth year of teaching, he left this blog post explaining all the things he had learned in the that year. He said that he realized that he did not learn much from his fourth year, so instead of leaving a lengthy post, he would concentrate on two main points. The first point was "You Gotta Dance With Who You Came to the Dance With." This means that as a teacher you should not worry about what your peers think about you as an educator. You did not become a teacher to impress them, but to reach students and touch their lives in the best way that you can. His next point is to "Challenge Yourself." He explains that it is not good to get complacent and use the same lesson plans year after year. This will only make the subject you are teaching boring, and your students lose interest. Instead, you need to challenge yourself as a teacher to improve with each year, because there is always new and better ways to reach students and make learning fun, and you will never find them if you become a lazy teacher.