In my methods class, we had a
lesson about teaching for understanding. The professor talked about what he
referred to as the Twin Sins. That is, being coverage-focused and being
activity-focused. The first, coverage-focused, is when you are blasting through
information, covering one chapter after another. It doesn't matter if the
students actually get any of it, but you have to keep moving. The other,
activity-focused, is doing those “time honored” projects. The kids don’t know
why they are doing them; you don’t know why they are doing them. It is simply
what was always done, so you do it. It is having an activity just for the sake
of having an activity. I felt that was important because it leads to a process
of focusing on what the students need to learn and developing activities that
support those learning objectives.
The other
thing that I will point out from that lesson is about misconceptions. But
before I go any further, you need to watch this video. Not the whole thing,
just through the mirror portion. Scroll down and click the VoD box that is by
the “can we believe our eyes?” paragraph.
Crazy
right! There is teaching knowledge, and then there is teaching understanding. I
feel that we can no longer present the information and have that be enough. We must
teach students how to apply it in their life (hey that sounds like Bloom’s Taxonomy
stuff). One thing that stood out to me was what they said about teaching kids
based off their experiences vs. teaching them like they are a blank slate. “It
seems obvious”. It is amazing to me how we can go through life confident that
we know what is going on, when it turns out, we don’t even know how a mirror
works. The main reason we were shown this video is so that we would understand
that we have to identify and correct misunderstandings of our students.
Remembering back to high school and even here in college I can say that I have experienced the "twin sins" a few times. One class that was coverage focused was on a subject that I really enjoyed but the teacher was so focused on getting as far into the curriculum as he could that each class was a whirlwind of information being thrown at us with every student writing and highlighting as fast as they could all hour. There was no time to process the information or to try to apply it to other concepts to increase understanding. That had to be done after class and on our own time. There was hardly time to ask questions during the class and the few that were asked at the beginning of the semester became even fewer by the end. I was motivated to learn the material because I love the subject and it wasn't entirely all new to me but what about those students who are hearing the information for the very first time? It is no surprise to me that this course is considered extremely tough and that a large amount of students have to take it multiple times or they arrange to take it somewhere else. The professor of this course argues that the depth and coverage of the curriculum is essential to the class, and maybe it is. But that doesn't change that a lot of students aren't grasping the material and feeling that they can develop an understanding of it with the way that it is taught. I have also been in classes where everyday is a new activity and while these activities can be fun, the students aren't entirely sure why they are completing the activities and at the end of the day can't say that they learned anything.
ReplyDeleteAs a future teacher I think the answer is moderation. It is important to cover everything that is expected and required to be taught and activities are great ways to break up the monotony of a lesson but these things should be secondary to actually helping our students learn and understand. And that, I think, is connected to the second point that you brought up about teaching to kid's past experiences and finding ways to link to and expound upon that knowledge.
I think that one great way to teach for understanding is through some pre-reading activities. For instance, you could give students a statement "the mirror works in such-and-such a way"--they could say whether they agreed or disagreed, and then you could explicitly clear up their misunderstandings through a discussion, written text, or video. So that way you bring their misconceptions to the forefront, and you make sure you know what they are so you can address them in your teaching. Thanks for your posting.
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