Here is the key: "literacy skills increase the likelihood that a student will retain the subject and have a deeper understanding of it." Even if the majority of your work does not come from a textbook, having increased literacy skills will help the students learn and understand the material.
This assignment must have been much easier for someone who is teaching a class on reading and writing since your content area is exactly what they are talking about. You talk about Goodman saying that the student needs to hear things more than once or read them more than once and it is so true. Sometimes the most annoying teachers are the best ones that just pound information into your head repetitively. I remember in Spanish class my Freshman year in high school my teacher would make us sing these stupid songs in class over and over, but I can still remember a few to this day.
As teachers, are there some good ways to get students repetition of information in a way that does not seem annoying or repetitive?
Good literacy skills help in all areas. A student cannot do a proper javelin approach if they cannot do a short sprint...if they are not in good physical condition. Literacy translates to all content areas.
Learning is language based. A realization that needs to be made is that students speak several different languages...written english, spoken english, math, the language of sports, the language of sciences, etc...
Are you hinting at long-term memory encoding via elaborate rehearsal?
Excellent discussion everyone! First..."learning is language based." This is so important for content area teachers to grasp. If learning is language-based, then we need to look back at how we acquired language. So, if you think about the language development content and how we learned to talk, i.e. through a need, through a desire to learn because we wanted something or were curious, through caring adults modeling for us as we were ready, by being surrounded by print in real contexts, etc. If we then translate that to our content area teaching (or any teaching as aaron points out), we need to model that process in our classes. We need to surround our students in print and images related to our content, give them a variety of texts to read (formal and informal), relate it to their lives, have them talk a lot, create experiences where they are asking questions and motivated to look for answers. Of course, I am describing an ideal world of education, but it is possible to integrate some of those processes into our teaching in order to support their learning. Thoughts?
Hey! Not "everyone" yet. :) You always beat me to the punch Jill.
I like that Sarah talked about texts that tap into their interest and KNOWLEDGE. Assuming that you must teach something brand new and outside of students realm of educational experience is a bad assumption. Taking something that students already know a little bit about will give them the context (as we've heard a lot about in our reading) to be able to really participate. Repitition is not without benefit and something new can be learned from the "old". How many times have you re-read a book and forgotten what seemed to be a critical element? What about a movie that you've watched more than once, but you discover new things?
I just wrote a fabulous long reply and then lost it at the touch of a button....
um, basically, I was saying in reply to Jeremy that repetition is usually not boring or tedious if it like you still have something to learn or if you are still haven't "quite" got it. I think it is at the point that you feel like you "know" something but then are not given more challenging or additional information to "build" on that knowledge, that you start to dislike repetative learning. For instance, if you memorized your times tables but then spent another week doing them over and over...you might perceive that the teacher is treating you like an idiot by not giving you more to do and then the repeated work suddenly grows boring. I hope that is what you were getting at.
And, yes, Jill, to integrate some learning language processes into our instruction is possible (if I understand your question correctly). I was thinking about the way my hs teacher helped us get through Chaucer's text in Middle English. In a way, you are learning a new language when you are looking at older English texts. We learned to trace word meanings in the text and we spent class time discussing what was happening in short excerpts. Then, she helped us link it to what was "relevent" to us by taking key concepts and structure from the tales and making our own "canturbury tale."
Here is the key: "literacy skills increase the likelihood that a student will retain the subject and have a deeper understanding of it." Even if the majority of your work does not come from a textbook, having increased literacy skills will help the students learn and understand the material.
ReplyDeleteThis assignment must have been much easier for someone who is teaching a class on reading and writing since your content area is exactly what they are talking about. You talk about Goodman saying that the student needs to hear things more than once or read them more than once and it is so true. Sometimes the most annoying teachers are the best ones that just pound information into your head repetitively. I remember in Spanish class my Freshman year in high school my teacher would make us sing these stupid songs in class over and over, but I can still remember a few to this day.
ReplyDeleteAs teachers, are there some good ways to get students repetition of information in a way that does not seem annoying or repetitive?
Good literacy skills help in all areas. A student cannot do a proper javelin approach if they cannot do a short sprint...if they are not in good physical condition. Literacy translates to all content areas.
ReplyDeleteLearning is language based. A realization that needs to be made is that students speak several different languages...written english, spoken english, math, the language of sports, the language of sciences, etc...
Are you hinting at long-term memory encoding via elaborate rehearsal?
Excellent discussion everyone!
ReplyDeleteFirst..."learning is language based." This is so important for content area teachers to grasp. If learning is language-based, then we need to look back at how we acquired language. So, if you think about the language development content and how we learned to talk, i.e. through a need, through a desire to learn because we wanted something or were curious, through caring adults modeling for us as we were ready, by being surrounded by print in real contexts, etc. If we then translate that to our content area teaching (or any teaching as aaron points out), we need to model that process in our classes. We need to surround our students in print and images related to our content, give them a variety of texts to read (formal and informal), relate it to their lives, have them talk a lot, create experiences where they are asking questions and motivated to look for answers.
Of course, I am describing an ideal world of education, but it is possible to integrate some of those processes into our teaching in order to support their learning. Thoughts?
Hey! Not "everyone" yet. :) You always beat me to the punch Jill.
ReplyDeleteI like that Sarah talked about texts that tap into their interest and KNOWLEDGE. Assuming that you must teach something brand new and outside of students realm of educational experience is a bad assumption. Taking something that students already know a little bit about will give them the context (as we've heard a lot about in our reading) to be able to really participate. Repitition is not without benefit and something new can be learned from the "old". How many times have you re-read a book and forgotten what seemed to be a critical element? What about a movie that you've watched more than once, but you discover new things?
I just wrote a fabulous long reply and then lost it at the touch of a button....
ReplyDeleteum, basically, I was saying in reply to Jeremy that repetition is usually not boring or tedious if it like you still have something to learn or if you are still haven't "quite" got it. I think it is at the point that you feel like you "know" something but then are not given more challenging or additional information to "build" on that knowledge, that you start to dislike repetative learning. For instance, if you memorized your times tables but then spent another week doing them over and over...you might perceive that the teacher is treating you like an idiot by not giving you more to do and then the repeated work suddenly grows boring. I hope that is what you were getting at.
And, yes, Jill, to integrate some learning language processes into our instruction is possible (if I understand your question correctly). I was thinking about the way my hs teacher helped us get through Chaucer's text in Middle English. In a way, you are learning a new language when you are looking at older English texts. We learned to trace word meanings in the text and we spent class time discussing what was happening in short excerpts. Then, she helped us link it to what was "relevent" to us by taking key concepts and structure from the tales and making our own "canturbury tale."