I enjoyed reading this article. It made me think about what really goes into the planning and execution of teaching.
I liked how the learning principles matched up with the teaching principles well. Students learn based on their background knowledge, which can help or hinder learning, and teachers need to teach based on student's' background knowledge. Students need to make connections between new information and old information and teachers need to teach them how to make these connections. Learning goals need to be explained to the students so that they know what goal they are moving towards and teachers need to use these goals to create activities that move them towards these goals.
I found it interesting that I never thought about teaching the individual steps of a process and how we, as adults or experts, skip steps disregarding that fact that students need this information to connect or move from one idea to the next. I also found it interesting how the article talked about teachers roles. I think all to many times teachers forget to choose the appropriate role to get the desired outcome from students.
In my teaching, I know that I do not do a great job of explicitly explaining the outcomes of the lesson, unit, course, etc. I have been working to change that and it's a daily struggle to make sure I am letting the students know what I expect because they can't read my mind! I think it helps put a lot of pressure off of students when they know what is expected of them.
I too liked that the learning and teaching principles clearly complimented each other.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with you in regard to the fact that as adults we sometimes skip steps of a process that students need to make connections. I find I do a better job of helping students with this in the classroom if I explictly state, "If I were a 7th grader..." Then I know that I am walking through the steps and NOT thinking as an adult who can smash numerous steps together to get to the desired point, thought, etc.
The awareness that you have as an educator about yourself is awesome! Good for you!
I also was reminded of the need to break down process into steps when teaching. I think this is very difficult to do sometimes because as we become an expert on something (technology or otherwise) we lump steps together and forget what it is like to be at the beginning.
ReplyDeleteGood luck with your goal of being more explicit in explaining outcomes. That is something I also am working on.