A Simple Use of Technology

Although an overhead projector has many uses, there is one use that I found for it to be particularly useful for. When I was doing my student teaching, my college observer gave me an idea on my first observation. As we learned all throughout my college experience, it is very important to give students an idea about what they would be learning in the lesson to come. It would get them prepared and focused. I found it difficult to constantly remember to do that before each lesson, and found the delivery of my introduction to always be unorganized, until my college coordinator gave me an idea.


Prior to each school day, I would write out an introduction to what we would be learning in each subject on an overhead sheet. I wrote a separate sheet out for each subject. I would write just a few sentences on the sheet about what we would be covering for that subject and what we would learn and the activities that would reinforce the lesson. Since I had them all written out prior to the day, I would put the sheet in with my lesson materials. It made it easy to remember to use it, and it eventually became second nature for both me and the students. I would put the sheet on the overhead and allow a different student to read the introduction. I really found that this kept the students focused on what was coming up each day. What an easy way to keep them attentive and to use a simple piece of technology every day!