Dear Teacher,

This academic year I’ve had the opportunity to work with many teachers.  But the teachers aren’t coming to see me; rather, a great portion of my day is spent visiting the teachers’ classrooms.

As I go from classroom to classroom, students sit at their own desks amidst familiar surroundings.  I am a guest in their home.  A portion of my day is spent demonstrating how to behave as a guest.  Such demonstrations include introducing myself, asking permission to use their things, requesting information on how I might find a tissue or the light switch, learning how to use the classroom equipment such as the projector or speakers.

It’s not always comfortable being the guest.  For me, I’ve always been more comfortable inviting others into my familiar spaces.

As an instructional technology coach, I am learning how to behave as a guest in the classroom. It’s been one of many interesting discoveries and challenges for this new year: working in various places, moving from the media center to the teachers lounge or even to a quiet hallway for lesson planning; packing my belongings into my bag and moving from school to school…wondering what I might have forgotten at my last stop.  Was it my jacket?  My power cord?  Where is my banana?  Did I leave it at home?  No, it slipped under the car seat. I won’t find it for weeks.

Yes, these are a few of my new daily challenges.

I’m learning, as a guest, I don’t need to visit long.  Sometimes my best visits are only 5 or 10 minutes.  Perhaps I will just use the flip camera and record the class looking at a real, live, disgusting, leech under the document camera…a view that is 100x’s bigger than life! Do we really need to see a leech that big???  Just ask a third grader….they’ll tell you!

Perhaps I will spend five minutes with them and we will read a book. What I really mean is, we will project the pictures from the book onto a screen along with bouncing words for them to read aloud. And perhaps we can present it in sign language as well…all at one time.

Or maybe I will wheel the laptop cart along with me, and the students will smile and greet me in the halls with “Do we get to use the computers today?  Pleeeaase….can we use the computers today!”

This blog is part of a staff meeting presentation, in which we will take a few minutes and explore a few ideas using a basic projector and/or document camera. The resources and tools allow us to consider ways we might motivate students to change or understand or develop behavior associated with learning.

Thank you for allowing me to be your guest in your school and in your classroom.  Continue to explore exciting ways to connect with your learner; I too will continue to learn how to connect with you, the t-e-a-c-h-e-r.