Cody Said:

I am a graduate student and I need to interview 5 teachers (3,5,10,15, and 20 years of experience). Help?!?

We Answered:

You should interview actual teachers in your community so you can verify their years of teaching experience. Also, you'll want to keep their responses private. Here, people are not always who they say they are and you'll not get honest reflections if they read others' responses first before responding themselves.

Nicole Said:

Strategies for teaching philosophy?

We Answered:

Well, what my college professor did was instead of trying to get the students to remember what those philosophers said, we would just discuss questions that were from the text and get a general concept of philosophy. If they are interested first they will be much more likely to respond with intelligent inquiry. Now I realize in high school its much more difficult to be able to get students to truly think and not just memorize, but I found that I understood philosophy a lot better by not categorizing things into right and wrong answers. I don't know if it is even possible to do these sort of things in high school since there is a certain curriculum and the forum cannot be just a large discussion, but I definitely would not go about it the same way you would history or math.

Glen Said:

what is metacognition teaching method?

We Answered:

I have never heard metacognition referred to as a teaching method, but the term means "thinking about one's thinking." We do want children to become metacognative. How I have done this is to demonstrate think-alouds and ask the students to do the same. We want them to be able to explain their thinking and how they came upon an answer or idea. We ask students to be metacognitive often in Math these days, especially when we ask them to explain how they got their answer. Metacognition is also important in reading. This is how teachers model think-alouds most often. While reading aloud, they pause at a difficult word and talk about the strategies they use to figure out that difficult word or understand the meaning of the passage. It might sound something like this....

"Hmmmm....I don't know the word herbivores, I wonder what it means? Let me go back and read the sentence again. Black bears are herbivores. Well...that didn't help me very much. Maybe I'll go on to the next sentence and look for clues. They love to eat honey and wild berries. Hmmmm, I bet herbivore has something to do with eating. I wonder if herbivores like to eat sweet foods because berries and honey are sweet. I'm going to keep reading and see if I can find more clues. Black bears will bite an animal or human if they feel threatened, but they do not eat meat. Ohhhhh, this sentence is a good clue. It talks about how they might bite animals or people if they're scared but they won't eat them. So the sentencee before talked about what they like to eat, this one talks about what they don't eat, and I think herbivore has to do with eating. I bet it means that they don't eat meat!

(ok...it's not a perfect example, because black bears do eat fish and some small mammals, but you get the idea). I don't know what cognitive strategy instruction is, nor do I know about metacognition as a teaching method, but I hope this helps.

Carolyn Said:

HOW DO I MAKE A PORTFOLIO FOR TEACHING?

We Answered:

The description of your assignment is vague. In my experience, a portfolio included samples of student work, lesson plans, and reflections on the lessons delivered. Perhaps you can contact a teacher to observe and collect some samples.

The autobiographical sketch sounds like it might be a written statement of what has led you to teaching.

Jessie Said:

Instructional strategies for teaching philosophy?

We Answered:

One Buddhist sage was asked to teach someone. He got him to kneel by the river and look at the water ... then the monk pushed his head underwater.

At first he student wondered how this would help, but as he started running out of air, he tried to get up. The monk held the back of his head tighter.

The student got frantic and after a struggle, got out of the water, backing away from the monk. The Buddhist then folded his arms and calmly said, "When you want to find the answer as much as you wanted air, you will start to learn"

.... Just be careful the student doesn't come to class with a concealed weapon next time

Cecil Said:

How are the following systematic teaching strategies: Instructional, Content presentation, Provided practice?

We Answered:

Concept maps:
Cooperative Learning Groups:
Audiotape of Chapter:
Study Buddies:

Each of these could be Instructional: WHAT is a concept map? Cooperative learning group...
Each could be Content presentation: HOW would you teach a concept map, cooperative learning group...
Each could be Practiced: Okay, what is the activity you will use to teach the concept map, cooperative learning group....

Make sense?
Good luck.

Clinton Said:

HOW DO I WRITE AN INTRO TO MY TEACHING PORTFOLIO?

We Answered:

Just type in teacher portfolios on google and look at how others are made. I have one at http://www.mikesmainpage.com/teacherport… if you wanna take a look at how I completed mine to graduate from my masters program, but there are many others out there. Just use some of there thoughts (re-worded). Talk about how you want to change kids lives, etc...