Our first blog post for Enhancing Learning Materials Through Technology is geared around commenting on two educationally progressive articles. The first article, entitled "Principles of Teaching and Learning," focused on seven different principles for understanding the framework of each essential facet (teaching and learning) of education. In regards to the seven principles for learning, the main themes involved prior knowledge, student motivation, application of knowledge, and flexibility. The principle that I found most interesting was that of motivation. I believe it is paramount that a student be motivated in order to efficiently retain information. I had a professor in college who once told us, "Trick yourself into believing the content is interesting." Whereas I don't believe someone should devote an immense amount of time to something they dread, sometimes in life we close informational doors without giving them a chance. Motivating one's self, intrinsically or extrinsically, allows for much better knowledge retention. The principles involved with the teaching aspect of the article centered around understanding one's pupils, prioritizing, thorough instruction, and constant adaptation to course structure based on student needs. This last theme stuck out to me as being the most true. I don't believe in a "one size fits all" approach to education. A teacher should always be looking to make a class work for the students, not the other way around.
The final article we were to examine was "A Meta-Analysis of the Effectiveness of Teaching and Learning With Technology on Students Outcomes." This information thick research piece essentially stated that the overall effects of technology on student learning may be greater than initially anticipated. Along with several directly observable outcomes that can be linked to technology, there may be several different indirect, unmeasurable positive outcomes that can possibly be traced to technology. However, the article did stress the importance of increasing the research on technology's effect on learning (both in quantity and depth).
I very much agree about your comment on motivation. Being a teacher of learning disable students, I find that motivation is one of the biggest hurtles with my students. A lot of it comes from a lack of background knowledge, so they have nothing to relate the information to. Motivation is something that I constantly try to pull from my students, though it does not always work with some students. Overall, however, I feel I do a good job and can get most kids to be interested in the topic at hand (I teach Civics, so many times I impress myself :) )
ReplyDeleteI like your previous professor's comment. I recently talked a student into going on a field trip to see a play. He'd never been and had no interest. I told him before he rules it out, he should at least give it a try. He went and really enjoyed it. I think all of us are guilty of this at times. I also agree with the class not being a one size fits all. I never understand teachers that teach the same lesson every year in the same exact manner. I don't teach the lesson the same within the same day, or even within a classroom. I think part of the fun, and challenge, of teaching is differentiating the instruction. Each of us learn different and we need to be mindful of that all day, every day.
ReplyDeleteI too do not believe in a “one size fits all” approach to teaching, as do almost all experienced and qualified teachers. You might have 25 students in your class, each of them with different learning styles. From the very beginning of our formal training in college we learned that no two students learn the same, and that lesson plans must be adaptable to fit the needs of your students. What really frightens me now is that recent political developments allow for inexperienced adults with no formal training in education to step directly into the classroom and teach. While these new “teachers” may be experts in their specific subject, they will be jumping into the deep end with no knowledge or training in adaptive lesson plan writing or diversified instruction techniques, thus leaving large quantities of students to flounder as they lead a classroom with that “one size fits all” approach to teaching that the trained professionals know has limited effect in a real classroom.
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