When presenting material to a class, how do I know if they understand it? First off, my method of instruction does not in any way involve reading the lines from a textbook or reciting key concepts, I may as well put on a Phillip Glass album. Today I subbed for a fourth grade class who are currently reading the book My Side of the Mountain and the lesson today was being able to understand action verbs and key adjectives that are based on the main character's emotions. They had to create T-charts and write down proper words for each column. The way I would have integrated technology into this lesson would have been to have them create a chart on the computers in the lab, and then come up with a visual presentation demonstrating the various action verbs or emotional adjectives they listed. A useful program for this would have been Bubbl.us where they could create mind maps instead of T-charts. Visualizing the terms they listed will allow them to apply what they have learned and be able to remember it much easier as opposed to just simply memorizing it.
The way I can tell that students have misconceptions on key terms is by observing their application of the material learned whilst doing a project. Especially if it involves creating a proper visual of the lesson that was taught. Like in the class mentioned above, some of the students in the class didn't quite understand the concept of the main character running away from and trying to get on by himself. Now this isn't something that's applied everyday, my point is trying to understand the key concepts of the book. Why did he run away from home and how can they manage these thoughts with a graphic organizer? The book has so many different emotions going through the main characters head, he was very three dimensional, and it can be difficult for some kids to understand why these emotions are important. So with a graphic organizer they can list the various emotional adjectives in the book that are going through the main characters head and list them and try to visualize how and why these are important (Inspiration Software 2014).
Transcribing thoughts and brainstorming into written words can be difficult for some students, because many students nowadays are visual learners (Teacher Tap 2007). Therefore it is the duty of the educator to adapt to the way a student is able to learn, retain and apply information. Some people/students have an easier time typing out there thoughts on a computer screen, whereas some, like me, feel more comfortable with a pen and paper. There's nothing wrong with either method. In a student based classroom, the teacher needs to learn and adapt to a child's needs. All children are able to grasp the knowledge and material that is presented in the classroom, the best teachers are the ones who are able to figure out how to assist the students in being able to retain that information.
Bibliography:
Johnson, L. and Lamb, A. "Graphic Organizers" updated June 2007 on Teacher Tap. retrieved from: http://eduscapes.com/tap/topic73.htm
Inspiration Software "Teaching and Learning with Graphic Organizers" 2014. retrieved from: http://eduscapes.com/tap/topic73.htm
No comments:
Post a Comment