6 ways to improve trust in the classroom

That said, trust is not a given. It has to be earned. Teachers, in the case of the classroom are responsible for building trust.

Keep it real

The kids are not looking for Glenda the Good Witch to teach them, so keep it real. Sure, mix it up, and add a few new slogans to your repertoire of words of encouragement. But be you. The kids will feel more comfortable, and so will you. Kids can smell phony.

Be honest

If you make a mistake and the kids know it, admit it. When we are honest and model a little humility for students, the trust grows exponentially. An occasional "I'd like to apologize to the class" goes a long, long way. If you are open to admitting to a mistake, the students will also be much more open to doing so.

Be reliable

Be fair

Fair means all students getting the same rules, and exceptions to those rules. If you move the line for one student, and not another, kids will talk and they find out. Unfair teachers are the most despised and the least trusted.

Don't confuse the two

The thought if they liked me, they'd respect and trust me. Surprisingly, trust and liking someone don't really have much to do with each other. According to Tschannen-Moran, "It is possible to like someone you do not trust and trust someone you do not especially like."

Remain competent

Whenever you are able, go to professional developments to learn new strategies and technology to assist you in teaching all students, the gifted and the struggling. Also, stay sharp with the content you teach. That may mean reading the Twilight series if you are a middle school English teacher, or practicing simulated experiments on the computer at home if you teach science.

Efective pedagogy or teaching a whole child

That YouTube video went so quickly I had to re-watch it several times just to get a grip on it.

I think I did and here is what I got form it:

Effective teaching pedagogy depends on 3 elements witch include, pastoral care and student wellbeing, effective teaching practices and school environment and lastly using classroom resources effectively.

I had no idea what pastoral care was, so I did what any student would do, I googled it. A great definitions popped up, "Pastoral care is an ancient model of emotional and spiritual support that can be found in all cultures and traditions. It has been described in our modern context as individual and corporate patience in which trained pastoral carers (teachers) support people in their pain, loss and anxiety, and their triumphs, joys and victories".

What does that means in my classroom then, well I think that it means we as educators should support our student when they are down or on a high. We should use all the tools we have (internet, the curriculum or CAPS) to make an environment where our student would flourish. We should also allow and encourage the students to build each other up, we should encourage our student to try and understand each other and show empathy towards others.

For effective teaching to take place you will need to engage your students, the easiest way you can do that is bay asking your student what they think, give them feedback and ask for feedback yourself. They are the ones being taught so why should they not have a say in how they are taught. Now you can’t give them all the say, because they are still kids and let’s face it, most of them are a few fries short of a Happy Meal.

Lastly classroom resources, this is all the material that you can use to help teach you students. Every school has limited resources that you can use, this all depends on the school. If you are at a school with less resources you will need to be more creative in your implementing of those they have.

In closing, we are more than teachers

Do you want social media as an ally?

I am still a believer in the old school way of teaching. The way I was teached when I was still a lad. The teacher was in front and he/she would facilitate the teaching by asking questions and sparking your curiosity. The teacher would not converse with the students outside the class room, it was kept as a learner-teacher relationship.

Some of the ideas that the articles gave across, was a little too progressive for my ancient was of thinking, but that is not to say that there where others that I thought that I could implement in my class.

First let’s look at the ones that I might use:

• ·      Reminder - it is a tool that allows the teacher to connect with the teacher through their mobile devices. The teacher would create a group and only the teacher will be able to post on the group. I think this will be a good way of relaying important information to their learners, and will help the learners stay up to date with the classes.
• ·      Blogging - In the way as the teacher will post something that will spark the internist of the learners and they can then exchange ideas or thoughts that they have on the specific topic. The parents of the learners can then also see how their kids react to the new information or ideas that is put out there.

Now let’s look at the part where I differ:

• ·      Twitter - I feel that twitter is too personal, the line between teacher and learner gets blurred, the learner will think of you as a friend. I see where the idea can actually help with the teaching, "Twitter has become a medium for students to expand their learning in the classroom. They've used Twitter to share something they saw outside of school that related to our class conversation."
• ·      Instagram - I don't think that sharing funny photos does anything to help with teaching... I understand that you can extend the learning beyond the classroom, and that you can share informative ideas or concepts through it, but I still feel that it becomes too personal.

In summery we have to remember that we are in South Africa and that all the learners don’t have equal opportunity to technology and that we can’t go running blindly in to this way of teaching. Some of the ideas that was giving in this article I feel will benefit the learners. Most importantly I feel that the learner-teacher relationship must stay just that, it can to easily morph into something that can be interpreted as something that was not its intention.   

Digital pedagogy is not a dancing monkey, when did we start talking about a zoo?

Digital pedagogy is not a dancing monkey, when did we start talking about a zoo?

It won’t be wrong to assume that most people think that digital pedagogy and online teaching is the same thing. Most people would be wrong. The difference between the two is that digital pedagogy is a learning opportunity between a teacher and their student while online teaching is just giving information over.

Not every teacher is a pedagogue, that means that there are lots of ways to teach your students for example black bored teaching. Pedagogy is a scholarship unto itself, a study of learning and the many ways it is fueled wherever learning is poised to occur. But in the same breath, you can not outsource digital pedagogy. As the text explained digital pedagogy is not a path through the woods but in fact is is your compass. 

There is no set definition for pedagogy because it is so responsive by nature. A little extract form the text that really caught my eye was an quote from the film Metropolis which says "slaves to a machine becoming food for the machine. The danger in fetishizing machines is that we become subject to them. But turning away in the face of the digital will lead to much the same fate. Rather, we need to handle our technologies roughly - to think critically about our tools, how we use them, and who has access to them."

That is how I feel about digital pedagogy, we should not over use it because then it will lose its effectiveness. But we must not be scared of it either. We must use it to enhance the learning experience for our students.

Digital pedogogue teaching starts with asking questions, this is the reason why it is so important. It reminds us that teaching and education is a mystery that is worth exploring.

Digital Pedagogy Unpluged

Digital Pedagogy, you don’t even need a computer?

When I first read this I thought, well I am not a smart man, but digital means binary digits and for that, you need a computer?

As it turns out I was wrong, again. The article Digital Pedagogy Unplugged written by Paul Fyfe, shows different examples of an unplugged digital humanities pedagogy that can be very effective. The different strategies that he touches on include teaching naked, the technology of cultural studies work, text mines and not reading in the digital humanities.

The one that really caught my eye was naked teaching. Naked teaching actually means removing all electronic devices wich in clued computers and projectors. When I read that, I wondered why would you remove such an enormous source of information? Why would you cut your students off from the biggest source of information out there (the Internet)?

Dr. Jose Bowen sparked my interest, he claims that teachers or lectures rely too much on technology to teach, there is no discussion happening, the teacher would just open a PowerPoint and bombard the learners with information. He says that technology need to be a tool not a strategy. By a tool he means that we as an educator are not supposed to give or try to fill our student’s heads with knowledge, because the Internet has a lot more and can relay it much faster than we can. We as educators must help our students sort through all the information out there and think critically about the content. We must facilitate learning.

This does not mean we should start throwing computers out the window, it only means we should start using technology to spark the interests in our students. We must use technology to start conversations, relay new ideas and discuss them. In the article they used an example of a flip classroom, basically you would give out the text or study material before the class and then in class you would discus the content.

In conclusion I will end of with a quote from Mr Benjamin Franklin, “Tell me and I will forget. Teach me and I’ll remember. Involve me and I will learn.”