As I consider all of the applications I would like to do in my classroom I am immediately hit with the obstacles that are in my way. This in and of itself is an obstacle. The fact that I struggle with thinking in a "sky is the limit" mode is an issue which prevents the possibilities that I could achieve in my class. The truth is that for me to be able to think in a limitless and creative way I must be confident that whatever obstacles I will face are within my power to overcome.
Through my experience as an educator the biggest issue that I have observed within my peers and my own class is the methods of classroom management. Many educators, including myself, have had those moment where we get a really fun idea for our class and suddenly we remember those students who keep us on our toes. Then without even a second thought we think to ourselves "there is no way that my class could handle that".
The issue of classroom management is, in my opinion, one of the largest contributors to the suppression of creative thinking. For us to move forward we must be able to maintain order in the classroom.
The answer is to search the net and network until we can find the resources/methods that we need.
James,
ReplyDeleteMaintaining a classroom has not been a problem but maintaining comments on a blog scares me. What if a student states something inappropriate on the site or takes a slam at another student. I do not want to end up in a lawsuit.
It has been suggested by another teacher to try edublogs, because with that system you are the moderator and you monitor what appears and what doesn’t. It can be contained so that it is not posted into cyberspace. It is a blog but you maintain it and control it as a teacher. I like the idea of that type of blog until I am more confident in my student’s behavior in such a forum.