"Use what talents you possess; the woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best." -Henry Van Dyke

Sunday, January 31, 2016

Enthusiasm

Enthusiasm in the classroom is something I have never really been great at...

Typically whenever I teach lessons, I will wander around the room and not laugh or joke or anything just continue teaching until the bell. Last week I made my first noticeable improvement in my enthusiasm.

In my Small Gasoline Engines class, We had just finished going over the different tools we use and I was starting a lesson on the four strokes of an engine. It started off a little bit slow with the students not really wanting to answer my questions.

Image result for teaching enthusiasmThen something clicked, I needed to do something differently. By the end of the lesson I was running around the room getting students up and out of their chairs extremely excited writing on the board. while I was explaining the movement of fuel and air in the combustion chamber.  At one point when I got a question answered by the entire class all at once, I threw my arms into the air and shouted "YES! GREAT!" and continued explaining why the valves on an engine had to be closed during the compression and combustion stroke.

As I said, Enthusiasm has never been my strongest teaching characteristic, but ever since then I have noticed myself acting more like this in other classes also (most notably my 1st period small animal science class, they are always still asleep.)

Every day that I teach I notice myself improving little by little.

2 comments:

  1. I am glad to see you are becoming more enthusiastic, as this will encourage your students to become more engaged. It will be good to see continued reflection and growth in this area as the semester continues.

    Dr. Ewing

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  2. Good for you Matt! Have a solid week 4!

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