Can a good teacher teach anywhere?

            In the article, "It's People, Not Programs", the two teachers, Mrs Smith and Mrs Jones, taught their classes in an old beaten down gym. Because they knew how to use the environment they were given to the best of their ability, the students did  not even notice that their class was being held in an old gym. The main reason why this type of an open classroom can work is because of the teachers' experience with classroom management. A good teacher must know how to handle students in certain situations.
            While I observe I notice that the worst thing to do to get your students to be quiet when they are getting too loud, is to say, "Shh!" twenty million times. This simply does not work and the students will just ignore it. A couple of ways to get students to simmer down is to have a signal such as putting your hand up in the air, giving a stern look and remaining silent, or shutting the lights. Writing students names on the board is not going to get them to stop misbehaving, it simply is going to make them disrespect the teacher, as seen in Mr. Lewis' classroom.
            Another reason why these teachers succeed in such a lacking environment is because they know how to constantly get the kids motivated by doing creative projects instead of having them remain in six rows of five. Kids need to move and they need to keep their minds moving as well as their bodies.This is why lecture does not work as seen also in the article.

Why should we teach differently in the 21st Century?

Connecting the Lonely Profession

The article states, "Education in the 21st century should be all about differentiation. That means customized learning to match interests, experiences, and purposes of learners—including teachers." This is stating that students need to learn through connections to their own life and current events going on in society. As a teacher you cannot expect a student to learn an event in history without relating that event to their life now in some way. The idea of using a wiki for students to write and revise their work is a great way to get them to understand that not everything they write is finished the first time they write it. When using technology to teach the students about writing it encourages them to actually participate and want to learn as well as allow other students to give them their comments.
The idea of collaborative work encourages students to not only participate, but understand the consequences of not doing their job. If the leader doesn't lead, everything is unorganized and if the researcher doesn't research, their will be no evidence. Working as  team helps not only the students, but the teachers as well. Teachers can collaborate with other teachers and try to do the same Big Idea (Umbrella Topic) and their students will actually want to learn in other subjects because they have background knowledge of the topic from their other classes.