T2P: If a teachers beliefs, about how students learn and how to teach, don’t directly translate to progress in the students competency of that field, then the teacher may have a class which at first glance comes off as very well structured and having an environment inductive to learning, but actually overlooks the understanding the students are coming away with because teaching requires more than just a subjective interpretation of how a class should function.
Week 2 Essay:
During week 2, we analyzed two articles, one by Yero and another by Hansen which both discuss the idea of morals in the classroom. Using these two articles we learned that a great deal of what a teacher brings to the mix in a classroom isn’t just what they know form their content area, but also the subconscious actions they go through in the class. These subconscious actions direct the class without necessarily being spoken but rather are reflected by how the teacher presents themselves in the classroom.
Yero believed that teachers should educate their students through ideas of critical reflection and discourse. She states that metaphors that are commonly used in classrooms may actually hinder learning by creating preconceived notions about how either a student or an entire class may act. Hansen felt tat students should direct their own learning and that the goal for educating students is to have respect between teachers and students, and have clear expectations, which the students could meet. After the readings we watched clips, which illustrated how other teachers modeled their classroom, and derived how they best felt that learning and teaching occurs. We also examined how well these ideas about how to teach and structure a classroom lead to competency in their fields. Meaning whether it really helped students to better understand or increased their appreciation for the subject. These models helped to define my T2P by allowing me to understand that what may initially come off as a good way of teaching (Whole Brain Teaching 6th Grade Math Class), may actually lack the ability to help students with competency. Also, what may be an unconventional way of teaching and seem absurd (Dead Poet’s Society), although exaggerated, may be a good way to approach a topic. The real indicator of how good or bad a way of teaching or a lesson plan is cannot be judged by merely looking at the class, but rather investigating what the students can get out of a lesson such as this.
We also discussed some of the key concepts in human development, which a person might by experiencing (i.e. social, physical, ethnic) and how a teacher guides their students to explore these dimensions. A good teacher does not only allow a student to explore one path all of the time. Instead, there are many different contexts to learning and the teacher must allow students, and encourage students, to explore the different avenues in life. By touching upon the many facets of development and allowing a safe context to do so, the teacher is providing an education, which extends beyond the curriculum and educates students about the realities of life outside the classroom.
The class flowed smoothly; we transitioned from one topic to the next without dragging out any concepts. Everyone was on the same page and we were able to share out own ideas about what learning was. It was really interesting to see how one of the Intel groups had reinvented the concept map and it worked out really well.
Matt,
ReplyDeleteYour week 2 T2P left me wanting more "... because teaching requires more than just a subjective interpretation of how a class should function." What more does it require?
GNA
When I think of teaching a classroom, I think of the expression, "you can't judge a book by it's cover." Often we are conditioned to believe that if the class looks like it is designed well, then it must be conducive to learning. An example is with the classroom in the video where all the students were reciting the math properties out loud and sharing them with their neighbors. In this clip, every student seemed to know their math really well, and they could communicate these ideas. To the average person who looked at this class, they would believe that this class excelled and the teachers methods were very effective. And while I'm not arguing that her methods were ineffective, instead I am just saying that we can't take the knowledge these students are learning at face-value. Understanding how a class functions requires understanding your students at every level, their abilities, their tendencies, their environment at school and at home. If every student comes from many different backgrounds, then we can never expect one learning style to work for every student. This is why it is important to look at what the class does on a daily basis and assess if it is really meeting the needs of the students, or if they are only being required to learn information and spit it back out, without ever digesting the content.
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