(my video response)

 (The Video on Power Teaching)

My Opinion on the Video...

Chris Biffle’s method of Power Teaching is one that is effective and ineffective in different aspects of the teaching theories. It is important for children to keep their attention by making sure to motivate students. Power Teaching rests upon the principle that teachers at every level share the same difficulties: students lack discipline, background knowledge and fundamental problem solving skills. From kindergarten to college, teachers face students who have difficulty with reading and writing. Nonetheless, our students respond to challenges, enjoy well-designed learning games, and can make, in the proper setting, astonishing educational progress. (http://classroompower.com/) It is a system designed to be a high-energy method so the students are excited and enthusiastic about learning because they are able to teach each other instead of the regular teaching method that we are now accustomed to where the teacher lectures and the students listen. It is sometimes hard to keep all the children in the classroom motivated because different children are motivated my different things, but in the video, it seems that all the children are motivated. Chris goes around this typical classroom setting by introducing a subject and teaching the children with hand motions and giving them time to get in groups of two and being the teacher and switching roles. The hand motions are important for the powerful teaching method of modeling which is the best way for students to learn because they will reciprocate what they see but not necessarily what they hear. This method also applies to the theories that we have discussed in class retaining to the importance of long-term memory. The way that you can see if your students have learned the material and not just have it in working memory is by applying what they learn. They must recall the lesson and when Chris puts the children into groups of two, they do compare and contrast exercises between unrelated material like parallel lines, used in mathematics and similes, used in language arts. Lastly, Inclusion is used in Power Teaching because any student can benefit from it regardless of their strengths or weaknesses. Other students that know the material better can scaffold the child.

The way that I disagree with Chris Biffle that Power Teaching is an effective method of teaching in a classroom is that over stimulus in the classroom can be distracting for students, especially students with special needs that you can find in any grade level. If the classroom is too loud, like how the teachertube video displays then the student’s cant hear over each other and cause distractions. When the room is over stimulated, sometimes the students will shut down and have to disengage themselves from the activity.

Now I would like to hear what you think about my written response and your opinion of the video!  Please feel free to comment, I'd love to hear other peoples views!