A few things that I have learned from this class is that I need to start buying reading material that I want to have in my classroom. This material will vary in style, genre, and levels. I know that students come to us in various learning levels and I need to make sure I can accommodate everyone who I will be fortunate enough to teach. Some things that I want to incorporate into my class is vocabulary. I found a few awesome graphic organizers that can be used for any content area and I plan on using them. Vocabulary words are so important for students. I was fortunate enough to go to a state training and they said that students should be learning about 400 new words a school year (that was a minimum!). I was pretty shocked at the information. One way I plan on teaching vocabulary is to have a "word wall". This is where students can put down a word that they heard but don't know what it means. We can as a class figure out the meaning and that student who wrote down the word can then write the definition next to the word.
I am an English major so incorporating literacy into my content area will not be hard, but it will be challenging to get students to read. I hope to have a library in my classroom that is full of all kinds of reading material. I hope this will encourage students to read more. I hope having a diverse reading section that I will be able to have all my students interested in reading. It is hard to accommodate all types of learners, but no so much that it can't be done. In my library I will have books in other languages too. I don't want to hinder anyone from learning.
Integrating technology is going to be a little bit harder for me. I want to make sure students are able to adjust between technology and "old school" writing and reading easily. There are a few ways to incorporate technology into the classroom. Presentations are a great way to do that. I just learned about a new website called Prezi. Um wow! That is definitely something that I will be using in my classroom.
Teaching English and History is going to be a fun and challenging experience and I look forward to it. I hope that with the help of other teachers I can teach vocabulary across content areas so that students know the meanings that apply to the correct area. That will probably be the most challenging thing that I will face (I hope!!).