Chapter Four had a plethora of great information. One of
the first ideas that I connected to was in regards to why it is okay to deviate
from the age-old methods of teaching, such as the reading and regurgitating of
text. Changing these methods to better suit learners needs is not resorting to
cheats or less than practices, it is the goal that should remain intact not our
methods to get achieve it. In correlation to this, another valid point
expressed in this chapter was in our perceptions of students who possess fewer
capabilities or content knowledge than the majority of our students. Our
approach towards them should not be to dumb things down or offer a weaker workload;
our focus is quality not quantity. Again this brings us back to goals, it is
important to reach the goal and that can only be accomplished if we help the student
find the right path, by the end we have all made the journey no matter the
factors we encountered along the way.
Within
my own personal thoughts, the talk of DI and ranging levels of content
knowledge and ability has brought to light the ideas of peer perception on how
others are learning. I remember being called into the gifted and talented
program as an elementary student and I recall times when I was not, those
feelings impacted me greatly. How we encourage and promote the learning of each
of our students without making them feel less than or without increasing their
ego to the point of implied hierarchy is so important. The outlined suggestions
on page 46 I purposefully marked so as to find it in the future. Creating a
safe and comfortable learning environment while also stressing the importance
of respect and camaraderie is a lesson that should be included in every class
no matter the concentration.
No comments:
Post a Comment