Week 1 Reflection

Image from DitchThatTextBook.com http://ditchthattextbook.com/2014/10/20/lessons-learned-from-30-days-of-pirate-teaching/

I am really enjoying the text for our course, “Teach Like a Pirate”.  As I read through the section containing the hooks for engagement I found myself saying things like “that’s a great idea”, “can’t believe I didn’t think of doing that”, “I need to remember that”, etc.  Of course my introvert personality said “I can’t do that” to a couple hooks but like Dave Burgess said “Get over it”.     I am not sure how many hooks Dave Burgess included in his book but there were a lot in there.  As I was reading I soon realized I need a cheat sheet or reference list of all the hooks.  I was going to go through part II and type them out but then I remember the power of the Internet and I thought I should check online first and sure enough the internet is full of “Teach Like a Pirate” resources for teachers.    Pinterest and TeachersPayTeachers both have hook reference sheets that are great for keeping near your planning book.  As I was reading I also realized that primary teachers like myself typically already build in hooks with our lessons.  We have to; our students have short attention spans.

This week I also started thinking about my mentoring project.  I am a tech mentor at my school.  I help teachers with interactive whiteboards.  I also have the added duty of teaching my building how to use our new learner management system “Schoology”.  It would make sense to choose one of those but I decided to focus on showing someone how to incorporate MinecraftEdu into their classroom. It’s something I can put P.I.R.A.T.E into practice with.   All this talk about mentorship has me wishing I could have a mentor to help me incorporate programing and coding into my classroom.