As I began researching my question I came across an abundance of information. Some of the information suprised me and some I expected to see. Many articles and websites mentioned that as a teacher and always a student who is constantly learning, teachers have to put themselves in the position of their students. They must understand what the students are going through and question themselves often on whether or not they would be interested in the topic and how it is being taught. This is an important issue I have not spent much time thinking about, but is one of the utmost importance. How can we ask our students to engage in an activity if we would not even want to participate or care about it ourselves?
Many other articles mention that students often focus on their grades rather than what they are learning. In order for students to really want to learn and participate in a lesson/activity, we must emphasize the lesson itself, not the assessment and grade. Students spend a great deal of time focusing on how to get the best grade possible or how to just slide by, when they are forgetting the true meaning of what they are being taught. By keeping lessons and activities exciting and hands on, we keep students engaged and interested. It is also important to have them be involved and ask questions of them often.
Another important idea brought up in numerous articles was to make the information being taught relevant to their lives. I know it is a daily question of students to ask their teachers why they have to do something or why they need to know something. By making the information connect to their real lives, it allows them to go further in their thinking and analyze how it can relate to their world.
I was interested in this subject to, I think that grades are made into a bigger issue than they need and they often hurt learning.
ReplyDeleteDesiree-
ReplyDeleteI agree with you and Will about the emphasis on grades. If you remember, we read a bit about that (Dweck - mastery vs performance) for our 3rd class. It might be interesting to explore how to develop a classroom community that is focused on learning over getting a good grade.
I would encourage you in future posts to include links (and even quotes) from the sources that you are reading. It is a great way to share resources with everyone else.
I was thinking about researching this topic myself because it is definitely one that can be prevalent in the classroom. I am not getting a science endorsement and when I was in grade school and high school, science was not my favorite subject, so I can sympathize with students who would be struggling in science. I think that the more science can crossover into other subjects, the more students can not only link subjects together, but see how they are related. Maybe they will like science after they see how math fits in, etc. I also think the more hands on science is, the more students can get actively involved in their learning.
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