Myke Emal Ed Psych Blog

Current Teacher Behavior 1. My cooperating teacher works hard at trying to catch students' attention, often utilizing things that would effect sensory input (bolding things on the model texts he projects onto the board, fluctuating his voice, "this would be a good thing to know if you want to boost the grade on your paper"). New information is rehearsed with worksheets that focus on that day's skill so students can practice and incorporate it into their own writing. There isn't a ton of wait time, but there also aren't many questions asked that need it. The class is mainly lecture-based lately and doesn't call for many activities that would necessitate that students retrieve or reconstruct concepts from today's class or previous ones. edTPA Prep Also, answer these questions: Prior knowledge isn't activated all that much, except on extremely simple concepts that have been pounded into students' brains since elementary school (POV, for e...

Current Teacher Behavior 1. The teacher uses spiral curriculum by being aware of levels of complexity within concepts and adjusting the time spent on them accordingly. He knows that theme is still a tricky concept and approaches it like its fresh, asking for student input upfront to give their definition of it from previous school years. But something like POV (which is a simple concept pounded into their heads since first grade) he doesn't spend a ton of time defining, and instead asks students how it can be used to effect the story. For these simple concepts he'll use more tenets of constructivism; he asks lots of questions, has students experiment with them in their own hands-on writing, lets them fill the time with those experiments rather than lecture a lot. For more complex themes he sticks more to lecturing and modelling. He is constantly aware of readiness and has a rigid structure, but doesn't rely much on the students' intuitions or motivations in these les...