Week 3

I would like to continue on the ideas of last week's post. There were so many great comments that brought new thoughts to my mind. I talked about some questions that I always ask my students, but what if my original question doesn't make sense? I think one thing that helps me with the "wait time" is during the thinking time, I rephrase the questions or sometimes repeat the question. I know that sometimes when I am in a lecture setting and a question is asked I didn't hear or understand the question, so I just give up thinking about whatever they want me to think about. I have found that it is helpful to me and my students if they hear the question over and over again, or perhaps asked in a different way.
The key here is to develop a safe classroom setting where the students feel comfortable to share their ideas, even if they might be wrong. That's the hard part!

Week 2

Today I want to talk about how learning can be best effectuated by a teacher. I think far too often teachers don't let students stop and think about something. They either feel there isn't enough time or there would no possible way a student would come up with an answer on their own. In my opinion, I think learning can be best effectuated by a teacher by giving students time to think. In my class I ask a lot of questions throughout my whole lesson. I ask questions like, "why do you think...", "what do you think happens when..." and so on. I always give my student time to think, I'm not afraid of the wait time (which can be kind of scary!). I think the wait time is extremely important when it come to student learning. The time you give your student to think is processing time. Many students need that time to get through the information that you just delivered. I would say most students don't completely understand a topic right after you explain it.

Learning... today

Today I think I might be slightly jaded when it come to the question, "What is learning?." Today my students are taking the math core test. As I walked around the room I kept wondering to myself if my students are really showing what they have learned. I don't think they are! I feel frustrated that students are forced to regurgitate information that they may or may not remember (and that specific information my not be that important when it comes to their math career!). I personally feel that learning isn't a specific piece of information that a person can recall at a drop of a hat, but a process that can be applied in different situations at different times in ones life. Learning is the ability to process information and link it to other situations to help make sense of the given information. I wish there was a more accurate way to really see what my students have actually learned!

Set-Up

I just set up my very first blog! On this blog I will be discussing what is learning? and how can learning be best effectuated by a teacher/trainer? I hope to gain a lot of insight while doing this.