Thursday, October 4, 2012
My Students Learn Because...
I feel like my students learn because of many things my cooperating teacher and I do in the classroom. For each lesson I teach I try and make the objectives clear for students at the beginning and end of the lesson so they know what they are learning about. I also try to check for understanding many times throughout the lesson and sequence the lesson in an order that makes sense and releases knowledge gradually. I really like data as well so I enjoy giving pretests, or activating background knowledge in some way,to see what students know. I like to assess how my lessons went by giving a post test as well to see what still needs to be taught or reviewed. I try, but am still working on, asking higher order thinking questions during lessons to challenge students. Making the lessons engaging also ensures more learning. If a lesson can include a game or a hands on activity students learn better as well.
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The language you use is so different from what you'd see teachers use 20 years ago--and that's a good thing. When I started teaching (yes, about 20 years ago!), we knew about objectives, but assessment wasn't really on the radar (at least, not assessment as an every day tool to guide instruction). Now you explain that your students learn because you understand cognitive theory (that's the fancy word for "how students learn") and you let that theory inform your practice. I don't like to think of teaching as a science, per se, but it's fascinating to be more purposeful about the way we plan, organize and assess our teaching and students' learning.
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