Observational Learning Report

The teacher I chose to observe is actually one of my current professors. She approaches teaching with a very positive attitude. She makes the students feel as if her subject matter, not her class, is the most important there is. I think this is a very great quality. I think that the teacher uses strategies that make the student feel important. All of the work is student-graded but at the same time she has you participating in class discussion through different activities so that she knows you are doing your assignments. I think this teacher’s theory is that participation is the key to having quality class sessions and that hearing the students’ opinions may be more beneficial than her own. I have found in her class that this is the case, not because she has nothing beneficial to teach but because the discussion can facilitate twice the amount of learning that takes place. Although the class is three hours long, she makes me feel like it is much shorter than that. She demonstrates activities that we can use in the elementary classroom by having us participate in them. I find this class both beneficial and fun! I would probably teach this same topic in a similar manner, however, I would spend a little bit more time explaining definitions and ideas since there is no textbook for this particular course, and maybe that is something I would change as well. I think that taking time to explain the definitions and concepts would help the students to more easily take in what is being taught and would give them the ability to use what they learn in their everyday situations. I would want the students to have the ideas and definitions be second nature to them. I think this would help them be more comfortable with the idea of openly discussing their own opinions about the class topics because they feel as though they know a lot about them.