TeacherToolbox-OzarkaCollege.docVIP

The Teacher Toolbox Ozarka College Compiled by Bettie M. Estes Introduction The principal goal of education in the schools should be creating men and women who are capable of doing new things, not simply repeating what other generations have done. -Jean Piaget The Teacher Toolbox arose out of a desire expressed by a number of Ozarka College’s instructors to be able to access information, strategies, and practices (tools) that could help them to be better teachers and their students to be more successful learners. The Teacher Toolbox is a compilation of general information, strategies, practices, and references for further study. It is not meant to be an academic treatise, but only a fairly concise guide that shares with our colleagues tools that have helped us. The Teacher Toolbox is just that – a toolbox. It is full of ideas that we have found to be useful. These ideas are not “right” in the same way a hammer is neither right nor wrong. It is either useful in certain situations or it is not. A skilled carpenter carries an assortment of tools because no single tool works for all jobs. Not all the ideas in The Teacher Toolbox will work for you the first time. Please don’t throw away a tool just because it didn’t work in one situation. Later on, in a different setting, it may be just the implement you need. Experiment with the techniques found here. As we each discover what works for us in diverse situations, our repertoire increases and we develop our own unique style of teaching. The concepts and strategies found in The Teacher Toolbox are not original ideas. They have been garnered from a variety of sources in a variety of places over a number of years. If credit is not always given, the mistakes and omissions are unintentional. What does it mean to be an instructor in Ozarka College? What is our purpose in this setting? Really, shouldn’t students at the college level be able to learn from