Small Gas Engines

This week I there has so much going on and I have been learning all week. But one specific class I feel has progressed me the most. My small gasoline engines class.

To give a little bit of background, this class is a class of sophomore-senior boys and it takes place during the last period of the day. This class is focused primarily on teaching (you guessed it) small gas engine maintenance and repair. The first few weeks of this class have been focused on preparing the students to tear down their engines and rebuild them all while diagnosing and repairing anything that might be wrong with the engine.

This particular group of students is very talkative.  During my time I have been trying to come up with ways to reduce how much they talk in the class so that I can be sure they are grasping the material.

Then I started listening to what they are talking about.

During every class, regardless of what we are discussing, I started to really listen to what they are talking about. After doing this, I began to realize that they aren't talking about anything they feel like. They are specifically talking about engines and what I am trying to teach in class.

After I began to realize this, I would listen much more closely to what they are saying and occasionally I will bring it up to the class and have them explain it to the class.

My major take away from this week: Not all talking is a bad thing, a perfectly silent class could very well be a sign that the students don't understand what we are trying to teach them. When the students are talking about the subject, it is easier to find out what they understand and what might need to be revisited.

I am looking forward to listening more closely to some of my other classes and using this to decide what and how I teach.

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.

Then 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.