Motivating Students

Anyone that has taught in the classroom has experienced the problem with motivating some students. You always have students that will do anything you ask, ones that do what you ask most of the time, and then the ones that no matter what you do, it's hard to get anything out of them. It is frustrating, but you have to look at each individual student to see what is going on with them. For different reasons, they don't come to school or they don't complete work or turn anything in. Most of the time, there is an underlying reason for this behavior. We just don't know what it is. These students sometimes do not have any support at home and are pretty much raising themselves or the family unit does not exist for them. As a teacher, I have found that you have to let them know that you are interested in them and want them to do well. Most students need praise and encouragement. They need to know that you are there for them. Sometimes you find out after they have graduated and moved on that you made a big impact on their lives. If you're really lucky, they get a chance to tell you face to face!

Enough Snow For Me!

We have been out of school all week--which the students love! Semester exams are quickly approaching and a lot of things need to be done. On the other hand, shoveling snow does provide much needed exercise. I will just be glad when it isn't a daily regimen.

Snow! Snow! Snow!

Well--to say we had some snow would be an understatement! We had about a foot at my house but I know that other areas had as much as 2 feet. Our electricity was only off for about 90 minutes and for that I am very grateful. Other people were not that fortunate. It always seems to get worse close to semester test time which is around January 15. I have been hearing about another storm for New Years. I hope it is not as bad as the last one.

Special Christmas Present

We've been waiting for 9 months, and Friday we got the best Christmas present we could ask for. Our daughter had a baby girl. She was 8 lbs. and 7 oz. Her name is Jasmine Shea. Mother and baby are doing great!

A Week to Rest and Revive

Finally Friday is here! We have next week off and time to rest and recharge our batteries. The time will be well spent. I plan to do a little Christmas shopping, catch up on grading papers and look for fun activities for my students to do in class. There will also be time to work on our team game for January. Hopefully, my daughter will have her baby this week too!

Seeing Clearer Now

I had cataract surgery yesterday. It was quite an experience! The patch came off today and the doctor told me that after a few days I could have the right lens in my glasses popped out and replaced with glass. It is really amazing the advancements that have been made in medicine. If anyone is considering the surgery, it was not painful at all!

If I had to relate a powerful learning experience from my past, I would have to say when I visited Denise Stalnaker’s classroom to observe. She had been teaching Digital Imaging and Web Page Publishing and I wanted to add these classes to our curriculum. I observed her students working on web pages, animation files and viewed the pictures that her students had to take for a competition. That event took place five years ago. Since that time, our FBLA students have placed at the State FBLA Conference just about each year and last year we had our first National FBLA winners in Web Page Development.

I have a feeling that the next powerful learning experience will be the Globaloria training. The following video was taken during the training session.

I'll try the links again!

Darfur Game link http://www.darfurisdying.com/

Free Rice link http://www.freerice.com/

Evaluation of Games

I played Darfur is Dying game and it dealt with a refuge that is fighting for survival. It was a good game in the respect that it is a true situation in some locations. I would have liked for it to involve more than someone running from a truck. This is a link to the game:
http://http://www.darfurisdying.com/


I agree with msheppard that the Free Rice game is addictive. I liked the fact that it worked with vocabulary. I would have liked shorter rounds. This is a link to the game:
http://http://www.freerice.com/

Link to Braxton County Board of Education website:

http://http://boe.brax.k12.wv.us/