It's been a while blog, but it's nice to be back.
I stopped into my placement on Friday for various reasons, and ended up talking with my mentor teacher for a few minutes. She told me about an incident that happened in class that day where one of the students randomly called out, "WOW! That poster is HUGE!" Needless to say this was very disruptive. My mentor teacher had an interesting tactic for dealing with this issue. She went back to her lesson, then in the middle of lesson she randomly said, "Look at that A on that poster; it's so big and purple!" The students were stunned and thinking, "what just happened?!?" She used tactic to ask the students how they felt when she randomly said something not pertinent to the lesson. They realized how distracting it was and how she, as the teacher, must have felt when the first student made her comment. I thought that this was a really useful technique, particularly for a middle school classroom like ours. I wonder, though, if it would be equally effective in a high school classroom or if it would be almost too childish maybe.
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Definitely an interesting approach. It might work with high school students. When I taught middle school (many many years ago), I found the students to be much more like elementary students than high school students. My middle school students seemed to prefer drawing, center, and more "play" type learning activities. They really struggled with organization and note taking. I learned the best strategies to engage them over a long period of time. It sounds as though your mentor has many learned ideas that she could share with you.
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