How would you currently describe your overall approach to teaching in your classroom: traditional, process mastery, or constructivist? What works well in your approach? What needs improvement?

[Austin]

I would say that I am mostly traditional and process/mastery; however, I do incorporate a hands-on approach and choices usually once or twice a semester.

[Austin]

I think my overall approach is mostly traditional but varies based on what we learning at the time. I am the one making most of the decisions about what will learn and where we are going, but I often incorporate a process/mastery approach as well when I feel students need that approach. On certain projects I do like to give the students as much choice as I can because I see how they get much more involved when they have ownership. The part of constructivism that I find helpful is the hands on approach to learning. I think we can find ways to use the appropriate approach, pulling out the best parts of each of them, and adapting as we find what works for our lessons.

[Austin]

I would say that over the past 2 years I am moving away from a purely traditional approach to more of a hybrid of mastery/constructivist. I do give the students some choices and project based learning, but I get them to follow processes, like in learning to write essays. I think areas that I need to improve in are incorporating more traditional learning for things like vocabulary building and grammar in order for ESL students to build a strong foundation.

[Austin]

Traditional. I am able to help the largest number of students when I use a traditional approach, but I know there are some students who benefit from other approaches. I need to tell more stories and I need to incorporate more Bible stories into my lessons.

[Austin]

I teach art so my overall approach to teaching in my classroom varies. I like variety and the wonderful thing with art is there is so much hands-on done by the students, so I would have to say the majority of my teaching is constructivist. This approach does work well, but I know I need to improve by having more focus on the content that I am teaching. My middle school and high school students do not want to hear about the elements or principles of art, they just want to start on their project. I know I need to discipline myself to include the not so fun parts too.