Teaching at it's Best

Over the past month I have been sitting inside classrooms witnessing exceptional instruction. Teachers are conscientious of the hour they spend with students often breaking the lesson up into 3 different activities to keep students engaged. I have seen innovative teaching strategies to help reinforce concepts, relationship building with students setting forth the desire to learn and questioning techniques that have students think. When I observed Ms. Piagentini’s class students participated in a circle discussion. Students were facilitating a dialogue of their reading with only minimal guidance from the teacher. I have seen teachers building relationships with students and empowering them to help their peers in learning concepts, as witnessed in Ms. Gilbert’s class. Teachers are having students “think.” Instead of students being exposed to “sit and get,” teachers are asking students why and how they concluded an answer or concept. In Ms. Agne’s class, students who gave an answer were then asked why, requiring them to add support to the answers