WK2 T2P

Since this was the second week of classes, the teacher did not need to establish her authority in the room at the beginning of the day. Instead, the first 10-15 minutes were spent getting to know more about the students and the teachers just through a simple act of finding out what they had done over the weekend. What this does is create a more comfortable environment for the students to learn in because they knew that there was mutual respect in the classroom.

Something else that is done in this class that I believe is very beneficial to student learning is timing. Everything about the class is timed down to the minute. There are many benefits to this. One is that it is very difficult for students to become distracted and be off topic. Two, the students know exactly what they should be doing at any given time as well as what they are going to be working on next. This allows them to start thinking ahead to ideas or writing topics as they finish the previous assignment.

The teacher also demonstrated a new way to assess students in a fun, engaging activity. Comparing concept maps from the beginning and end of a unit or chapter is a useful way for the teacher to see what information the students have gathered as well as a way for the students to organize everything they have learned in a single, cohesive fashion.

Another effective learning technique that occurred today was a sort of role-playing. At several points during the class, the teacher asked all the students to ‘pretend’ they were teachers. Although this did create a laugh among the students, it is a really useful tool. Making students think about an idea from a different perspective than they are used to, for example, looking at something as a teacher rather than a student, can greatly improve how much of the information is learned because this style allows for more connections to be made.

A final way that learning was being encouraged in the classroom was through participation. The teacher would call on people who raised their hands, but would also look for students who had not said anything for a while and call them out. Most of the time, those students actually did have something intriguing and thought provoking to say, but they had just been too quiet to speak up previously. Those students who could not come up with an answer were allowed to ‘pass’ which I firmly believe is a good thing. If a student is called on and doesn’t know the answer, they are going to be forced to sit in the spotlight of the class, with their confidence dropping and embarrassment growing, until they say something. All this does is negatively reinforce participating. A person will be less likely to offer their opinion when they do have something to say if all they can remember is being embarrassed every other time when they didn’t know what to say.

T2P Fill-in from the Wiki

2. If a learner needs specific and detailed directions for each task, but does not receive them from the teacher, then … because …

If a learner needs specific and detailed directions for each task, but does not receive them from the teacher, then successful learning for that particular student is unlikely to occur because the teacher is not providing the student with an essential tool he/she needs in order to complete a task and therefore, learning is stalled.