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Day 25: Just Stop


Source: 
Gonzales, J. (2015, September 3). 5 common teaching practices I'm kicking to the curb. [web log] Retrieved from http://www.cultofpedagogy.com/ineffective-teaching-methods/.

What is Sacred:
Students are sacred. Do no harm, even with good intentions. This article is about some of the things that I will raise my hand to say that, yes, I did that, and I apologize. I meant well.

One of the things is popcorn reading, which I stopped doing over ten years ago, but that means I had it in my arsenal for over ten years. Again, I meant well. I am into coaching for fluency and prosody but I needed to give the readings to people ahead of time so they could practice. 

I also used popcorn reading so that I could stop and model thinking, but again, there are other ways to model thinking, like my actually reading or again, giving people time to practice. 

What I learned and still use from Linda Reif who came to work with us one year, is to create plays with my novels by highlighting dialogue and creating character books so that students know what to read and don't read things like, she said, etc. I used that technique for Of Mice and Men for my 8th graders and I would write the names of characters who were "talking" today and students would rush in to sign up for parts and grab their character's books. It's just one way. Not the only way. 

Connections to Current/Future Work:
I think this is a good way to start conversation so I will probably put this with the Importance of Getting Things Wrong article for one of our online discussions. Most likely in my practicum course where we talk more about their field experience and lesson planning than any kind of theory. 

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