I began using Digital Teaching Aids my first year of teaching grades 7–12 of English in a Christian school. I had students in every grade, and although I had been trained in PowerPoint and could make slides up pretty fast, there weren’t enough hours in the day to prep a good PP presentation for each grade. And all it took was the administrator asking me to teach Science 7 last-minute as well—I began to crack. The first couple days, I was going to bed around 2 a.m. with six good grammar PowerPoints for the next day. But it wasn’t sustainable. (In English class alone, I still had Spelling, Poetry, Literature, and Composition to prep for!)
Read More
I complained about my life to one of my friends—who, coincidentally had been one of the developers of Abeka’s first English DTAs. She sent me some links, which I practiced with that night before pitching the idea to my administrator the next morning. With DTAs, all I had to do was figure out how the tech worked at the beginning, familiarize myself with the material the night before, then in class—just drag and drop. I had my life back.
If I’d been teaching fewer English classes, or had a mentor teacher sharing materials with me, maybe I’d have had a great first year without the DTAs. But English is the jumbo jet of the subjects. It’s the big hybrid. I needed a way to lighten my load, to simplify the process. Using DTAs in grammar did that for me.
Read Less
Lauri Lou J., English 7–12 and Science 7 Teacher