Friday, November 21, 2008

Some of what I have learnt as a teacher.......

1. There is such a thing as a stupid question. Plenty of them.
2. Never underestimate the lack of effort that some students believe is still worthy of a passing grade.
3. Only 20% of all students in an academic class are generally capable of critical thinking.
4. There is no substitute for proficiency in your subject matter.
5. Textbooks make mistakes - lots of them - too many cooks ruining a broth.
6. If a question can be wrongly interpreted it will be wrongly interpreted.
7. Students are easily duped by mutiple choice testing.
8. Reasoning is a lost art.
9. In a group of three or four students only two will actually work.
10. Acquired knowledge from Math is somehow lost by students when applying the same concepts in physics.
11. Take home assignments are not a good measure of understanding.
12. Only the brightest students get the puns.
13. Be alert during class.........in labs multiply that alertness factor by ten.
14. Lab Reports are extremely boring to mark.
15. Organization is key to a succesful lab.
16. Always have at least three different methods to explain a key concept...Use all three as well.
17. Students can never have enough problems to solve.
18. Be consistent...consistency = fairness.
19. There is no silver bullet to classroom management...students should understand that a classroom is not a democracy but a benevolent dictatorship.
20. Its never as bad as it seems.
21. No matter how many times it is explained to them some students will never understand why plagarism is wrong.
22. School Administrators understanding of how a classroom functions is inversely proportional to the square of the time that has elapsed since they taught in one.
23. Fire alarms always occur at inapropriate times.

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