What do you think we can do as we are driven toward teaching for tests across curricular? The testing methods (multi choice appears to be the favored son) lend themselves toward capture and regurgitation of facts over a short period of time. There seems to be little incentive to develop students with higher level learning skills that Bloom describes, or to build upon current knowledge in a student centered approach. DI is becoming king as students age toward high school/college.
The current situation reminds me of a quote from an old professor in England who said, "Stop thinking original thoughts if you want to pass, you only have one line at the end of your BSc thesis for that, followed by the line more research is needed to confirm." He said it with a smile and a wink!
Jill, I love this. Having a summary in your own voice is a nice way to tie in the topics of the week as well as get an overview of the comments shared by the rest of the cohort. Good addition to the online experience...
thanks Jill for the reminder of how to help students acquire new vocabulary and how just saying and having them copy the word does not mean they are learning it.
you said" teaching vocabulary of the content is essential" I have a fresh example from this morning's 2nd grade Two Way Immersion Social Studies Class I teach. I caught myself while assuming that students would naturally know some words.
This morning I had visitors from Ecuador. In order to teach each South American country I have been inviting parents and friends from every country to do a presentation. Today our guests were the parents of one student. We co- taught an amazing lesson on the country of Ecuador. They are very proud aboriginal people and came dressed with their original hand made attires, brought seeds, fruits, fabrics, objects and musical instruments. They played Andean live music. We listen and danced, and the kids took notes for their writing assignments. It was magic!
I facilitated the lesson as a dialogue with students, to elicit "theme focused" and "rich" questions and connections from them. I also am learning to take notes on a big white paper in order to help visual learners, and us all for the job of writing about the visit.
My visitors brought Bananas for all the kids and said: "Ecuador is a big exporter of Bananas to the world". As I'm writing "export" I asked, just checking for understanding. does anybody know what "exporting means?". Nobody knew what "exporting" meant. Ding!!!! I have to always check!!!!!!!!!
We had a mini-lesson of 3 minutes where kids looked at their own shoes and garments and read the labels "made in China", "Vietnam", etc. They then made the connection that those clothes had been made in a country and shipped over to the US.
Thanks for the reminder to help the students construct meaning, question, synthesize, sort, categorize, compare and contrast.
For the writing activity, I'll make sure to have the group read the notes out loud and go over such words as:
Aboriginals - Indigenous people - Mestizos I might still be assuming, and i want to make sure that they connect, every people and country in South America we are learning about.
I don't know how to blog. This is too long, sorry.
I'm feeling better about how things are going now that we are 3 weeks into the work. It's also nice being able to immediately apply some of the information I am learning while working in a school. I also like the variety of assignments - using audio, creating concept maps, writing our own responses and reading others responses. Many ways we can learn on here!
Thanks, Jill. I like how you point out that taking chances and making mistakes are part of learning. I agree that it is an important part of learning. If anything, you learn what doesn't work. This can be really important if you are working with students who tend to do the same thing over and over without changing what they are doing. My son's bass teacher once told him that practice doesn't make perfect...perfect practice makes perfect.
In my work today, I am constantly having to teach the vocabulary of the content. Teaching technical content to non-technical people has its challenges, and even more so when they don't understand what the technical term means. They need to be able to connect it with something in their everyday lives, and this is what I try to do. All in all, I like the challenge, and hope to bring this into my own classroom someday.
Thanks Jill. I liked your point that we need to create an environment where students feel comfortable making mistakes. Children learn through taking chances and sometimes making mistakes. I'd like to create a classroom environment where students feel comfortable taking chances in front of their peers.
I agree that to learn it takes a lot of mistakes. In posting this weeks Yodio I only had to use 2 computers and tried copying it about 4 or 5 times instead of dozens like in the first week yodio posting. I too, continue to learn. Not fast . . .but am. I appreciate you taking the time to share your knowledge with us- it's invaluable. Have a great week. Becky
Since I am in agreement with everyone else as above (and especially enjoy the way that "export" was taught!), I just want to add. . . has anyone mentioned, Jill, that you have an incredibly relaxing voice? You could do relaxation tapes. :) Trefethen S.
Dr Bryant
ReplyDeleteWhat do you think we can do as we are driven toward teaching for tests across curricular? The testing methods (multi choice appears to be the favored son) lend themselves toward capture and regurgitation of facts over a short period of time. There seems to be little incentive to develop students with higher level learning skills that Bloom describes, or to build upon current knowledge in a student centered approach. DI is becoming king as students age toward high school/college.
The current situation reminds me of a quote from an old professor in England who said, "Stop thinking original thoughts if you want to pass, you only have one line at the end of your BSc thesis for that, followed by the line more research is needed to confirm." He said it with a smile and a wink!
Cheers Mike
Jill, I love this. Having a summary in your own voice is a nice way to tie in the topics of the week as well as get an overview of the comments shared by the rest of the cohort. Good addition to the online experience...
ReplyDeletethanks Jill for the reminder of how to help students acquire new vocabulary and how just saying and having them copy the word does not mean they are learning it.
ReplyDeleteyou said" teaching vocabulary of the content is essential"
I have a fresh example from this morning's 2nd grade Two Way Immersion Social Studies Class I teach.
I caught myself while assuming that students would naturally know some words.
This morning I had visitors from Ecuador. In order to teach each South American country I have been inviting parents and friends from every country to do a presentation.
Today our guests were the parents of one student. We co- taught an amazing lesson on the country of Ecuador. They are very proud aboriginal people and came dressed with their original hand made attires, brought seeds, fruits, fabrics, objects and musical instruments. They played Andean live music. We listen and danced, and the kids took notes for their writing assignments. It was magic!
I facilitated the lesson as a dialogue with students, to elicit "theme focused" and "rich" questions and connections from them. I also am learning to take notes on a big white paper in order to help visual learners, and us all for the job of writing about the visit.
My visitors brought Bananas for all the kids and said: "Ecuador is a big exporter of Bananas to the world".
As I'm writing "export" I asked, just checking for understanding. does anybody know what "exporting means?". Nobody knew what "exporting" meant.
Ding!!!! I have to always check!!!!!!!!!
We had a mini-lesson of 3 minutes where kids looked at their own shoes and garments and read the labels "made in China", "Vietnam", etc. They then made the connection that those clothes had been made in a country and shipped over to the US.
Thanks for the reminder to help the students construct meaning, question, synthesize, sort, categorize, compare and contrast.
For the writing activity, I'll make sure to have the group read the notes out loud and go over such words as:
Aboriginals - Indigenous people - Mestizos
I might still be assuming, and i want to make sure that they connect, every people and country in South America we are learning about.
I don't know how to blog. This is too long, sorry.
I'm feeling better about how things are going now that we are 3 weeks into the work. It's also nice being able to immediately apply some of the information I am learning while working in a school. I also like the variety of assignments - using audio, creating concept maps, writing our own responses and reading others responses. Many ways we can learn on here!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Jill. I like how you point out that taking chances and making mistakes are part of learning. I agree that it is an important part of learning. If anything, you learn what doesn't work. This can be really important if you are working with students who tend to do the same thing over and over without changing what they are doing. My son's bass teacher once told him that practice doesn't make perfect...perfect practice makes perfect.
ReplyDeleteIn my work today, I am constantly having to teach the vocabulary of the content. Teaching technical content to non-technical people has its challenges, and even more so when they don't understand what the technical term means. They need to be able to connect it with something in their everyday lives, and this is what I try to do. All in all, I like the challenge, and hope to bring this into my own classroom someday.
Thanks Jill. I liked your point that we need to create an environment where students feel comfortable making mistakes. Children learn through taking chances and sometimes making mistakes. I'd like to create a classroom environment where students feel comfortable taking chances in front of their peers.
ReplyDeleteI agree that to learn it takes a lot of mistakes. In posting this weeks Yodio I only had to use 2 computers and tried copying it about 4 or 5 times instead of dozens like in the first week yodio posting. I too, continue to learn. Not fast . . .but am.
ReplyDeleteI appreciate you taking the time to share your knowledge with us- it's invaluable. Have a great week. Becky
Since I am in agreement with everyone else as above (and especially enjoy the way that "export" was taught!), I just want to add. . . has anyone mentioned, Jill, that you have an incredibly relaxing voice? You could do relaxation tapes. :)
ReplyDeleteTrefethen S.