Edward Sprenger

Education 114 Course Paper

During my two weeks observing at Hidden Valley Middle School under the watchful eyes
of Mr. Shepherd, I saw him teach two things, Early American History and Civics. As he taught,

Mr. Shepherd used a variety of methods to focus his students attention on him, as well as the
information itself, and the students digested it all eagerly. Amongst these methods were notes,
clear speaking voice, snark (another term for sarcasm), brain teasers, and most importantly of all,
a deep understanding of how to talk to each student. While most who are not teachers would
scoff at the last one, it is my belief after watching Mr. Shepherd interact with three very different
classes of children; one sixth grade class, one co-taught eighth grade class, and one eighth grade
class of PRE-AP students, that it is the most important.
Every pre-college student is familiar with notes, as are all teachers; they are an essential
part of the educational process but at the same time, there is nothing worse then a teacher who
lets the notes teach rather than doing it himself. Mr. Shepards method of preventing that was one
that I have seen often; in fact, I still see it now and then in college. Partial notes, just enough to
give the students a good place to start on a topic before he continued talking, adding more
information onto the heading and trusting them to follow along with him. By doing this, he
engaged their ears while their eyes took in the information and it led to them following along
naturally with what he was saying.
The effectiveness of the notes was boosted by Mr. Shepherds vocal skills. Each and
every word was delivered smoothly yet loudly enough for the entire class to hear it and had
enough presence to stay in the students ears as he spoke. Working together in partnership with
his, Ill call it stage presence, Mr. Shepherd employed quite a lot of snark when speaking with
his students. At the same time, none of the snark was derogatory and it devolved into playful
banter with each of the classes. None of the students seemed in the least bit put off by this nor
did it disrupt the learning environment. Instead, it seemed to bolster the learning environment
and it was only because of the use of snark and vocal skills that Mr. Shepherd was able to

captivate his students the way he did. Of course, in order to get them into a state where their
attention could be captivated in the first place, Mr. Shepherd had another method.
That method was brain teasers, questions that are intended to make the students think
about things in a different way. For example, one asked them to find a pattern in a group of
numbers. Many of his students tried to solve it by using math, or by looking to see if there was
just a pattern of numbers. Each and every one of those was wrong; instead, all that was required
was for the students to count the number of circles used in each number, for example 8 has two
and so on. By doing these types of brain teasers, Mr. Shepherd opened up the students brains to
take in new information as well as showing them a new way to approach a problem and that
theres more than one way to do things.
Of course, none of those methods could have truly worked if Mr. Shepherd could not do
one crucial thing, connect with each of the students. He knew just what to say to each and every
one of them in order to get the best results, who to snark at, who to talk with, who to take aside
for a moment for a one-on-one lesson, and most importantly, who needed his support. Thanks to
this knowledge of how to connect with every student, Mr. Shepherd was able to get all of them
interested in what he was teaching and motivated towards learning. That is what every teacher
should strive for and thanks to Mr. Shepherds example, it is what I will strive for too.