5th Gear

   You can run, but you can't hide from text anxiety. For some people test anxiety doesn't faze them, but for the majority test anxiety like that one fly at a family cookout that you can't get rid of. As soon as a teacher mentions anything about a test, students instantly just mentally shut down. If technology is changing everyday, traditional reading tests or quizzes should too. There is no need to fear, Quizziz is here to the rescue. I am sure you are asking what is Quizziz. Similar to Kahoot, players fly through questions at their own pace. This strategy limits all discussion to after all questions have been answered.  Hopefully this application hits the surface for future uses. -WC:118

    The above picture is the perfect representation of the reaction me and many others students have had when the word “textbook” comes out the teacher’s mouth. Something about the word “textbook” just makes student’s skin crawl. Unofficial studies show that students mentally check out of class once the notion of reading multiple pages of a textbook is brought up. If I could I wish I could give the mastermind behind chapter 6 of Subjects Matter a big hug. In chapter 6 they touched on many things that I wished some of my grade school teachers would’ve grasped. For some strange reason, if there is a textbook that is 275 pages long some teachers feel the need to go over those 275 pages plus the glossary before end of the school year. The first thing chapter 6 touched on is to avoid assigning the whole textbook. Most teachers will divide the number of pages in the textbook by the number of days in the school year. How can a student effectively learn that way? Students may act...

    Teachers have been teaching from textbooks for decades. Students understand the material, get good grades and retain the material for later use. With that being said, are textbooks the ONLY kind of reading students need? Before watching the TED Talks I said no, and the video had validated it for me. Technology is very vital in the 21st century. Students seem to be more interested when class involves using technology. For example, in classrooms you are more likely to see Smartboards compared to the traditional green or black chalkboard. With technology, problems could arise such as students becoming so reliant upon it that they forget what a textbook is.  Students need to learn that there are other ways of finding out information and being successful outside of reading a textbook. Throughout the discussion many valid points were made, but the one that stuck with me the most was the statement he made saying that even though technology is great for learning, it shouldn...

   No matter how old I get, I have no problem telling somebody that I hate reading. I bet if you put some numbers in my face I can crunch them faster than somebody crunching on their favorite cereal on a Saturday morning. As a future math or science teacher I am very much aware that there will be students placed in my class that can't or have a strong dislike for reading. In order to understand a student a teach must first be able to relate to the student in some fashion. For example, I can't tell a student who just lost their mother or father, "I know how you feel," when, by the grace of god both my mother and father are still living. It may seem small, but it goes a long way when developing a strong relationship with your students or you will just be blowing smoke to your students. As teachers no matter the subject, the goal is to get students to understand and learn the assigned tasks. Different students learn at different paces so we must be prepared to work stude...