Blog Post Assignment 9

“What I’ve learned This Year” by Mr. McClung was a very informational post for beginner teachers about what to do to become an effective teacher. First Mr. McClung talked about how to read the crowd. Many teachers are concerned with how they are doing based on what their superiors think but forget that it’s all about the students. Mr. McClung reminded us that in order to be effective, we have to let the audience drive the instruction. I totally agree with this point of view because if the teacher has the students engaged, the students would be very attentive and interested which creates an environment conducive for learning. I remember the teachers I had that refuse to engage me and just stood up there and taught like they were reading from a book rather than actually teaching.

Next, he talked about how to be flexible, he made the point that we are performing in front of a crowd who tend to forget their lunch so we should be flexible if students does not do exactly as we plan. This was a great point that he made because nothing will go completely as planned and as teachers, we must be willing to accommodate some students.



After that, he stated that we should be reasonable. He wrote as teachers, we sometimes hold high expectations for our students and sometimes they do not meet those expectations. I agree with this because not every student will excel in what we expect than to do. We must not make the mistake of being too unreasonable because it could hurt the learning process.

Next, he stated that teachers should not be afraid of technology and that we should listen to our students. I agree with this as well, there are many current teachers who are afraid of technology and do not incorporate technology into their lesson plans. I believe that the new generation of teachers will not have this problem as much as the older teachers because we are more technology literate. Furthermore, listening to students is an important ingredient to becoming an effective teacher. Teachers who fail to listen to their student will lose them and will not be an effective communicator.

Finally, he stated that teachers should never stop learning. In my opinion, one could never have too much education and each class we have will be different from the other. For example, the way one class learns one year may be not work for next year’s class so it’s important to learn different ways to teach the lesson. Most importantly, we should be expanding our knowledge about our content area and other areas. All in Mr. McClung post was an excellent piece of work.