The Role of a Teacher is Not to Cover, but to UNCOVER! Chapter 21 & 22

In chapter 21-22 Mr. Wong covers topics that all fall under the main idea of being an effective teacher. "There is no right way[to be a teacher]", states Mr. Wong, but there are "fundamentals and understandings" that teachers must know. Just as much as teachers work hard, students must correspond in the same way. Now in the United States students seem to perform poorly when it comes to academics. " Fewer than one in five students think it is important to get good grades", performance in school is not being set as a priority for students in America. All reasons for low performance sum up to equal: lack of interest in education.

There exist two types of teachers, one who ask themselves, "What am I going to cover tomorrow?" and the other who ask themselves, "What do I want my students to learn?" One focuses on themselves and the other one focuses on the students, which will probably be the question that will lead to outstanding student performance. Ineffective teachers give broad assignments compared to effective teachers who give detailed instructions to their assignments and establish what should be learned at the end of the lesson. A textbook has two purposes, one being the use of it as a resource to finding additional information and the other being the replacement of the teacher. For example, a teacher may hand out a packet for the whole week that is based off of the book, the students are expected to complete it by Friday and be prepared to quiz over it; the students have had to rely on the textbook to learn something, rather than learn with the teachers explanation of the topic being covered by the lesson plan. Most lesson plans have objectives, an objective benefits both the teacher and the students. The teacher is able to plan ahead and establish what is to be done by the students. The student benefits from an objective by having a sentence as a reference to guide their learning through the lesson. An objective must begin with a verb to state that an action will be taken in order to accomplish the assignment.

Effective teachers set their students on a path to where they master each topic taught; mastery is when a student can "break down, reorganize, and evaluate what is known and understood." There is many ways to check for mastery in students, one being test. A test is designed to evaluate what the student obtained from the lesson and define what was taught effectively and what wasn't. Many test are taken throughout a school year, which also combine with worksheets and projects to result in a grade for every individual student. Grades are very important to those students who work hard and are responsible. Grades serve as a motivation for those students who strive for even a better grade, therefore resulting in more interest in lessons as well as more completion of assignments. The higher the grades, the brighter the future! " The world rewards people who are successful."

As for my pre-k class a good objective would be: "Give an example of a word made up of two syllables." The mastery of this lesson can be tested with a question like the following, "What two syllables is the word 'Papi' made up of?" Now testing in my classroom will not be my main priority, they are important, but they do not determine the intelligence of a student. Especially at such an early age like pre-k students, their learning has to do more with their fine and gross motor skills. I personally do not like standardized testing, the reason being that students all have different learning styles and standardized testing do not take that into account. Curriculums have to be modified in order to cover all topics presented in those test. If it was in my hands I would definitely eliminate standardized testing or at least change the way they apply to every need of a student.
http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/mar99/vol56/num06/Why-Standardized-Tests-Don't-Measure-Educational-Quality.aspx
https://learnandteachstatistics.wordpress.com/2013/07/01/objectives/