Episodes
Thursday May 29, 2014
Episode 23: Teaching Kindergarten with Jean Mixon
Thursday May 29, 2014
Thursday May 29, 2014
Jean Mixon has been teaching for 32 years all as a kindergarten teacher. She teaches at Pulaski County Elementary School in Hawkinsville, GA. This year she is retiring. She says that kindergarten has changed over the years. I hope that you will take time to listen and learn from her many nuggets of awesome teaching practices!
I had the pleasure of watching her work with her kids. As you listen, you will hear us talk about classroom management techniques like becoming consistent in what you do, developing procedures and routines, and practicing what you want the kids to do in class. Mrs. Mixon reflects, “We have to practice… The first two weeks in Kindergarten are so important…they are learning procedures and routines.” She also talks about the importance of using their names to connect... “You have to build that personal relationship.”
By the way, she has this very cool rug that helps her establish that consistency…I think that you will find that discussion very illuminating and also just cool.
We also talk about instructional strategies and her use of formative assessment, modelling and getting the kids to doing.
She always is with kids… “Just part of good teaching, be right there with them…”
Her favorite resource is the SMART board!
She was fun to watch and is an amazing teacher!
I am sure that you will learn much from her!
Enjoy!
Length: 33:01
Thursday May 15, 2014
Thursday May 15, 2014
Allen is currently the superintendent of schools in Quitman County, Georgia. He has 39 years of total education experience. He was a teacher, a coach, an assistant principal, a principal, and worked for five years as a GA Department of Education School Improvement and Redesign Specialist.
He feels that he is very fortunate for his opportunities to travel across the state and get to know educators in many different regions of Georgia.
Allen is familiar with the needs of the rural school systems. He has created a rural school system learning group that is comprised of educators from rural systems. He sees this group as providing an opportunity for the different systems to learn from each other on how best to use their limited resources.
As a principal he instituted one of the first ninth grade academies in the state. We talk about his thoughts and lessons learned.
We also talk a little about the challenge of teachers working with kids who have access to incredible amounts of information through Google and other web based solutions. We talk about how when we were kids the teachers had the information or it was in books that they could direct us to, whereas today, the kids can study beforehand and actually know more than the teacher about some topics. This becomes a challenge in that the teacher is often trying to keep up with the kids, but another challenge is that all kids don’t have access. It is quite possible that in the same class there will be those who can and those who can’t access web based information.
I enjoyed talking with Allen and I think that you will enjoy your time listening!
You can find out more information about Allen at www.allenfortga.com
Length 33:27