Educational Issue: Classroom Management

You guys did a great job with your presentation, and I liked how you gave us a couple of different teaching styles to think about--it sort of fits nicely with our latest work defining the different philosophies. In particular, I thought your explanation of the Laissez-faire style was interesting because you gave so many examples of the kind of teacher who might employ that style. Not only did you help us make comparisons, but you gave a few pros and cons to keep our ideas on the teaching styles fair and balanced. It's nice to talk about teaching styles every now and then, if only to help remind us that there are more styles and methods involved with teaching than learning styles.

I thought that the classroom activity was also fun. Another thing that I've gotten used to is thinking about my teaching career in hypothetical terms, since few of us have had the kind of experiences that will really test our decision making skills. Your activity helped put things in perspective for me, anyway, and any opportunity to get us teachers thinking about what kinds of decisions we will have to make in the future is good exercise.