Week One-reading Comments

Week One comments:
It seems funny, to me, that a student has to learn how to learn. Don’t we just learn naturally? Unfortunately it seems that those that need to be more in tune with learning-the lower academic level- are the very ones that don’t understand what they need to do to learn more efficiently. I like the line in the Australian study that said student’s awareness of learning strategies was “less than optimal”. Since I was one of those over-achievers in HS, some of the strategies listed seem logical and old hat. On the other hand, I have never thought consciously about some of those strategies, and do I use them for optimal learning?

I think schools of education spend way too much time on teaching us what to teach, rather on how to teach.

Comments on Theory and Research-based Principles of Learning

1) Prior Knowledge-I often struggle on how to direct students, without shutting them down, when they answer a question or provide a comment that is totally off the wall. What I usually do is say “Yes” and then rephrase the information in a correct manner. I remember when I started my education classes, having no prior education training, how hard it was to understand the information. But as classes went on, with that base from the first educational philosophy class, how much easier it got to understand. Prior Knowledge is important to build upon.

2) Organize information-Baseline; students have to have accurate information to begin with before they can add to their knowledge base.

3) Motivation-As far as I am concerned, this is the key to learning. Be it intrinsic, teacher motivated, or parent motivated, a student is not going to learn if they do not want to. That said it is our job to present information in a way that the student wants to learn. We can be sneaky about it. I just recently learned some Kagan strategies of teaching, and it is unbelievable how focused and directed you can get students just by structuring the lesson in a different way

4) Mastery-We have to show the students how to think and how to apply this thinking. It is not always natural.

5) Goal-directed practice, targeted feedback- As a Library Media Specialist, I have the students for a half-hour at that time, in which I have to teach a lesson and check out books to 25 students. I bet we all feel that there just isn’t enough time to disseminate information, let alone give constructive feedback. One of the education classes that I think had a lasting effect on me was curriculum design. She pounded into us the fact that we have to have an objective for the lesson. Without an objective, you shouldn’t be teaching it. And along with that I am a true believer in rubrics. Rubrics take out the bias and give the students a clear idea of what is expected of them. For example, I substitute taught HS-CD for one year. I gave a poster project to the students. One student that I would have clearly given a higher grade, because I liked her and she was a “good” kid in class, did not do very well on the project because she didn’t follow the rubric. It was my fault too, I should have more clearly explained the assignment and rubric. I could never teacher anything below 3rd grade because I tend to assume way too much prior knowledge and am not good as laying out ground rules.

6) Student development-Students are all over the board in their development, and that is at any level K to 12th grade, so we need to provide a positive, stable environment that they can count on to be the same day to day. I am not the greatest at this sometimes. I do let the kids get to me sometimes. But am getting better at putting on my “game face.”

7) Become self-directors-It is our job to model and teach effective learning strategies.

Teaching principles

1) Acquire relevant knowledge-I feel the greatest factor that works towards you being an effective teacher is learning to get to know the students. What motivates them, what are they interested in, what is their home life like, their social life. One of the best Jr. High teachers I know knows all of that, and her students know that she know that, and because of that, her classroom atmosphere is great. I know she does not like some of the students, but that has never gotten in the way of her dealing fairly with all students.

2) Learning objective, assessments, instructional activities- I think I have addressed these in the prior comments, accept assessments. Parents like grades, which makes it hard for teachers. Authentic learning is often project based which takes a long time to do. Parents are checking in on parent access daily and wondering why the teachers are not putting in grades. So teachers are between a rock and a hard place. I think technology is going to help in respect to classroom assessments. Students will be able to answer a question in class without other students knowing the source, like with wallwisher, yet the teacher can easily see if the concept is being understood.

3) Expectations-My answer Rubric, rubric, rubric. Clear expectations.

4) Focus-We’ve been told coverage is what is wrong with the educational system of the US. We try to cover everything. That’s what I love about being a LMS, I don’t have to focus as much as a classroom teacher. Often times, I deal with enrichment. And I love it!

5) Effective teaching- “…and so we often skip or combine critical steps when we teach.” That has me written all over it. I try to go too fast and cover too much.

6) Adopting appropriate teaching roles to support learning goals- What is the objective and what role should you take on to meet the objective? Many teachers are still in the mindset of “teacher”, stand up in front and lecture. Doesn’t work for most students. I am trying to be more reflective on how I “teach.”

7) Refection and feedback-I think I am pretty good at this, after each lesson I write down if the lesson “worked” or didn’t and how I might change in the future.

A meta-analysis of the effectiveness of teaching and learning

As a regards to this article, statistics was not my favorite class. So weeding through this was interesting but basically, the research shows, even if it is a little old, that students learn more when using technology. And like Homer Simpson says, DAH. Of course they are going to learn more, you are trying something new and engaging. One of my HS-LA teachers did a wiki last year for one unit, she didn’t ask them to do anymore than before, except report it on a wiki. Interest was way up on this unit. That said, and this may be the most important thing I say the whole class, technology is not the answer to education’s problems, it is just one of the many tools that good teachers use to disseminate and organize information. How and why a method is used, and is it used correctly, are more important questions. At our school there is this technology blitz. Basically we are to become technology savvy or risk our job. There is all this technology being thrown at us without training or suggestions of how to use it. That is why this class is so important to me. I need to be a facilitator to the teachers as to how and why to use technology in their classroom.

If you made it through all of this, I commend you, and I promise I won’t be so long winded next time!