Learning Teaching/Teaching Learning

What kind of teacher do I want to be?

Today I posed a question to my Tech Resources professor, "How do you teach an overview class to primarily beginner-level students term after term?" I am beginning to realize that my Dance Education degree is about more than each individual course on its own:

1. Each course is essential to my degree.
2. Each course encompasses subject matter that is essential to my field.
3. Each course will be taught by a professor whose teaching style I can observe.

This third point is equally as important as the course content, or maybe more so. Over the past three weeks I have been observing teaching style, class organization, availability of teacher, patience with questions, presentation of course material, and assignment progression. I suppose at some point it comes down to teacher expectation. You expect that students will understand, gain more knowledge, and stretch their abilities. I have witnessed novice computer users whose technology experience consisted of word-processing and Internet surfing prior to taking this class emerge with projects including: writing html code, altering photos, working with sound and movie editing, posting blogs, and creating group projects that employ all of the afore-mentioned skills. The class is geared toward allowing students to accomplish all of this while keeping their specific educational field in mind. For me, the terminology was not foreign, but I did not have prior experience with most of the programs I have been introduced to in this course, nor had I considered including technology in my classroom.

I am excited to continue to learn to be a teacher and to use technology in my future classroom setting, as well as in performance. This will be one tool that will assist me in creating a dynamic learning environment. What an amazing collaboration is dawning in my life. The links are infinite.