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01.18.06

Know thy students

Posted in Math, Teacher Training at 8:47 am by leingang

There’s an interesting article in USA Today on 2006-01-12 called “Elementary teacher does her homework — lots of it“. It’s about a teacher who makes a special effort to get to know her students so she can tailor lesson plans to them.

This isn’t a lesson for K-12 teachers only. At the college level our students have even more diverse and interesting backgrounds. Especially here, where it seems that everybody is very good at something.

For a college teacher, getting to know the students breaks down the misconception that teachers and students are fundamentally different people and shouldn’t converse. That’s one reason why I recommend to teaching fellows they meet one-on-one with their students early in the term.

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