One moment in my life, I’m working to be in Jr. high then to High school and now college. In those many years I have learned a lot and learned how I particularly like to learn. Here are some of my experiences with learning from the last six years.
My favorite teacher in high school was my art teacher. I have learned a lot from him not only content, but how I want to teach when I become a teacher after I graduate. He taught art seriously with a lot of seriously funny voices or interpretations of other people. Meaning he would hold us accountable for our work and would want us to produce art work that could wow ourselves. He taught me how to make everyone want to create great work.
Photo by: Courtney Lyon
Then there were the other classes in high school that taught a different way, such as copying notes off of the board. These were my science classes. Though it may sound boring to just copy notes the whole class period, I thought it was interesting and that’s how I learned that material best. This also is happening in my art history classes in college. This does not only help me study having notes galore, but it is also helpful because of the examples that would be given.
Photo by: K Whitford
Here I am in college ready to learn about new things for my major, but during one of my classes my sophomore year I had a teacher that would not teach us much at all. The teacher would give us a reading, talk about something different in class and quiz us on something different. I don’t remember much about that class. This experience has shaped me to try to learn and form to what the teacher expects.
Photo by:Sabrina Schleifer
The classroom isn’t the only place I learn. I also learn at work in the summers on the farm. I live in a town and work on my friends farm that is 15 minutes out of town. I was introduced to working out there and showing cattle my sophomore year of high school. Starting out, I learned a lot in a little amount of time. Then learning a little bit more everyday. This learning formed through fixing and breaking things. Learning in a different environment about livestock, crop fields, pivots and machinery. I learned that I would have to have them show me how to do the task first before I would do it alone, or if they were telling me something to do I would have them repeat it for me so I would remember what it was and how to do it. Though I couldn’t have them do this all the time, when times got a little too crazy and we had to do things quickly, it was a new way of learning as well.
Photo by: Courtney Lyon
In a way of putting this altogether, my last experience that I still am learning and teaching myself is that I still have to try. I am not saying I have to try everything in the world, I am simply saying that I have to try even when I think it is impossible. This goes in my work and in classes. At work if there is something to heavy and think right away that I cannot lift that and let someone else do it, when I should try instead of just giving it over. Then in class when there is a teacher that seams impossible and don’t try either on the homework or on the test, then it would be my fault for not trying and possibly failing the class.
Photo by: Steven Depolo
Courtney18's understanding 
Courtney, I think the greatest thing in life is trying. Where would we be if we didn’t try? I have had quite a few teachers that were into having us take notes. At the time I was unappreciative of this learning style, but then once I got to college I hit the ground running in making sure I had everything that was on the board written down. I think in previous years before college I took advantage of how important note taking was. I’ve also had some teachers who would teach us one thing and than when we’d get the homework or have quizzes it would be totally different. It threw most of the class off and would be very stressful and frustrating. I think there’s a lot to learn from our experiences and we have to take this knowledge and our experiences and either use it or change it. I think our experiences will help us apply and demonstrate to our own students and hopefully help us avoid the frustrations.
Shania 🙂
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Thank you Shania for your input. Experience is a big thing that we can take with us as teachers. Though many people learn differently we can only give suggestions and help them the best that we can.
Courtney.
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I feel like sometimes the best thing a teacher can do is mix up how they teach their lessons. I have had numerous teachers that choose to show 1 or two examples, have the assignment as something else, and have the exams as something else as well. It’s hard to understand those teachers at first but the best thing you can do, and the best thing you can teach is to give everything you do 110%. This goes well into work life for preparing students into their future, your boss may say one thing and expect you to do another. You have to be prepared to handle anything and I think it’s a very valuable lesson to teach our students.
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For the students to understand should be the main think you are looking for as a teacher. If they don’t understand one part then they can loose the whole subject. To get them to understand and enjoy learning is huge can mean a great impact in their life. Understanding people is a different thing, that takes time, just like understanding out students when we first meet them.
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