Mr. Fassnacht’s CTE Computer Lab Elizabethtown Middle School

Philosophy of Teaching Having come to the teaching profession after a twenty five year career in the textile industry, my objective in teaching would be to prepare students to be able to function in an information age society by introducing them to the computer as more than just an elaborate play station. My endeavor is to facilitate the acquisition of skills that will allow the use of the computer to become a necessary preclusion rather than an after-thought of what could have been. I have been in the real world and I know the expectations, the timelines and the necessity for students to come into the working world with the knowledge already in tact of how to design a spreadsheet, how to type a meaningful, legible letter and more over how to express a thought that might influence others to your own decided opinion. I will teach students respect; not only for each other, but for themselves. I have a curriculum for each of the mandated classes I teach to three grade levels in a middle school. I mandate the use of the computer in almost every lesson I teach. Students that are required to use any type of tool will find their way to learning to use it and will adapt to using it. If they see applications and exercises of how to use a computer in everyday life, they will creatively find ways to adapt it into their own lives. I do not give them a worksheet with a check register already drawn. Make them create their own and then use formulas to do the computations. I do not make them type “Dick and Jane” stories. I get out of the box and create my own lessons that involve history, places, people of recognition, and along with it add the use of tables, columns, bullets, margins, cut and paste, charts and graphs. By using Experiential Learning, “learning by doing”, I bring a world of excitement into my classroom by allowing students the opportunity to challenge themselves both in knowledge and in the fulfillment of going at their own pace. Although the curriculum is followed and the activities do fall in line with the prescribed methods, my mandate is to make the students ready for a job in the business world. None the less, as a business education teacher, all eyes also fall on me when the scores are tallied for computer competency. The success then is measured two fold: by the annual VoCats testing and by the computer skills Therefore, it is up to me, as the teacher, to hone a means to accomplish both objectives. Decisions and plans must be made early on to incorporate computer skills into daily activities that not only teach how to “type”, but also how to understand the software applications that the business world uses to succeed. My goal is to be a passing thought in my student’s minds as they are typing up a term paper for a college course and decide to put a chart or a table in it for clarification, not because it is mandated, but because they know how to. It is to be a model by which the students can gauge their humility, their honesty, their integrity, and finally, their computer competency.

Keyboarding – Sixth Grade CTE Class 6511 Apply touch method of operating the keyboard Understand computer fundamentals Proofreading Formatting features in document processing

Computer Technologies – Seventh Grade CTE Class 6400 Roles of hardware and software Technology Issues Keyboarding reinforcement Software applications (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access) Database applications Multimedia/presentation graphics software

Business Tech – Eighth Grade CTE class 6208 The Principles of Business Economics and Economic Systems Entrepreneurship Business Activities and Careers Business Procedures Employment Leadership