Thursday, October 4, 2012
my students learn because
My students learn because I always try to challenge them to think a little deeper. I work hard to help my students make the connections and do the thinking that will lead them to discover the concepts I'm trying to teach. I like to think of our learning as a community endeavor that I am in with the kids. This probably sounds super cheesy, and often times it probably doesn't work as well as I want it to, but I want the students to feel ownership over their learning. I want them to ask questions and I am comfortable saying that I don't know (well to be honest I usually turn the question back to them rather than just say I don't know). I understand that I am the teacher and the authority figure, but I like to think that we are all learning together, me included. I believe that this creates opportunities for students to think deeper and learn more than if I simply told them everything straight out.
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One outcome of your "learning community" philosophy is that the students see you as a genuine learner, too--which you are! When I read your lesson plans and watch you teach, I see where your planning has been informed by external resources, but also where you've found places to emphasize the thinking you refer to in your post--those "deep thinking" opportunities, as you call them. And I'd say you're successful at giving kids control of their learning, or as we say using educational jargon, "a sense of agency". For example, instead of responding to a student's answer with "That's right!", I often hear you say, "How did you figure that out?" or "What makes you think that?" The outcome of that kind of feedback from a teacher is kids coming to see, "I'm the kind of person who can figure out answers because I (fill in the blank) . . draw pictures to understand concepts, make connections to what I already know, use observations, etc." Once we help kids see WHY they were successful, rather than just THAT they were successful, we're giving them a sense of agency (control) of their learning.
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