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What we need is students who WANT to learn. It's really hard to teach those who don't want to learn in any model. We need parents who understand that learning is more important than grades (we need a society that accepts this) and who understand that education isn't a race.
And I have to disagree about needing to change the way we teach. The basics of reading, writing, science and math have not changed and people have not changed (referring to how the brain works and people learn). I think we're headed the wrong direction here but we won't realize that until we actually do this experiment and it fails because trying to teach someone tho think critically before you've taught them the basics is like trying to write music when you can't play it. You have to learn a lot of what others did and thought before you'll come close to having an original thought of your own.
The problem today is too many think that we can use technology to bypass learning that is neccessary foundation material (hence kids with calculators in elementary school). You can't. In order to understand technology, you need the basics. We're trying to throw them out. We have this crazy idea that we can teach kids to think critically before we teach them something worth thinking critically about. We can't.
Last edited by Ivorytickler; 03-01-2013 at 06:49 PM..
What we need is students who WANT to learn. It's really hard to teach those who don't want to learn in any model. We need parents who understand that learning is more important than grades (we need a society that accepts this) and who understand that education isn't a race.
And I have to disagree about needing to change the way we teach. The basics of reading, writing, science and math have not changed and people have not changed (referring to how the brain works and people learn). I think we're headed the wrong direction here but we won't realize that until we actually do this experiment and it fails because trying to teach someone tho think critically before you've taught them the basics is like trying to write music when you can't play it. You have to learn a lot of what others did and thought before you'll come close to having an original thought of your own.
The problem today is too many think that we can use technology to bypass learning that is neccessary foundation material (hence kids with calculators in elementary school). You can't. In order to understand technology, you need the basics. We're trying to throw them out. We have this crazy idea that we can teach kids to think critically before we teach them something worth thinking critically about. We can't.
This is a huge problem in schools today. I had a discussion with a social studies student teacher the other day who has been indoctrinated in these concepts. He has been taught that students should be using source documents to study history, and students should be taught to think critically about the how, why and social aspects of history. How are students supposed to think critically about a topic such as World War II when they don't know what century it took place and who was involved? He was taught to teach a topic like WWII but giving students assignments like the following:
Imagine you are a soldier fighting in the war. Write a journal of what your day is like. Describe how you feel about the war and being away from home. Describe your typical day.
This is a huge problem in schools today. I had a discussion with a social studies student teacher the other day who has been indoctrinated in these concepts. He has been taught that students should be using source documents to study history, and students should be taught to think critically about the how, why and social aspects of history. How are students supposed to think critically about a topic such as World War II when they don't know what century it took place and who was involved? He was taught to teach a topic like WWII but giving students assignments like the following:
Imagine you are a soldier fighting in the war. Write a journal of what your day is like. Describe how you feel about the war and being away from home. Describe your typical day.
The writing prompt makes sense, but only if the actual facts have been taught before hand. Does the material need to be taught as a 'direct teach' with a teacher standing up to lecture? Probably not, but there does have to be some formal method of teaching facts, especially in a K-6 level.
The writing prompt makes sense, but only if the actual facts have been taught before hand. Does the material need to be taught as a 'direct teach' with a teacher standing up to lecture? Probably not, but there does have to be some formal method of teaching facts, especially in a K-6 level.
How long would it take to teach the actual facts to provide enough background to write about a topic like this?
What I have seen from education programs is a minimal use of textbooks and a bias against lecturing. This student teacher was lecturing for part of a class period and using the writing prompt for the remainder in a 9th grade history class. He said his student teaching supervisor expected this type of activity in each of his lesson plans.
The writing prompt makes sense, but only if the actual facts have been taught before hand. Does the material need to be taught as a 'direct teach' with a teacher standing up to lecture? Probably not, but there does have to be some formal method of teaching facts, especially in a K-6 level.
Yup. Prompts like this only work if you have enough knowledge to write. I could give the prompt to discuss why water is liquid at room temperature while other similar sized molecules are not but you can't answer that question, with any depth of understanding, unless you know how to do a lot of chemistry.
The basics still need to be taught and given that previous generations learned them better than our kids are learning them today, perhaps we need to look to the past to move forward.
How long would it take to teach the actual facts to provide enough background to write about a topic like this?
What I have seen from education programs is a minimal use of textbooks and a bias against lecturing. This student teacher was lecturing for part of a class period and using the writing prompt for the remainder in a 9th grade history class. He said his student teaching supervisor expected this type of activity in each of his lesson plans.
Teachers are supposed to "guide" now as students "discover" the facts on their own.
Active learning is the way to go where the responsibility to learn is on the student
Give them some laptops, an assignment and let them loose to "learn".
And let me tell you, some of them come away with a warped sense of "facts".
It's not a bad enrichment activity, providing there has been sufficient covering of the background material.
Nobody expects high school students to become subject matter experts on particulars, as if they were graduate-level researchers, but you don't really need to be in order to complete a creative writing assignment using a rane of factual information that has been presented as the basis. There are a lot of methods of teaching/presenting the information, and a lot of ways to reinforce it. You can write a simple imaginative journal entry without being a WWII scholar. I would also imagine that the content is not the only thing being assessed by such an assignment. Were I to make such an assignment, it would also incorporate assessment of grammar, spelling, mechanics, flow, sentenc structure, etc. It's an opportunity to assess the generalization of a whole host of necessary skills, not just the application of factual information specific to the content at hand.
It's not a bad enrichment activity, providing there has been sufficient covering of the background material.
Nobody expects high school students to become subject matter experts on particulars, as if they were graduate-level researchers, but you don't really need to be in order to complete a creative writing assignment using a rane of factual information that has been presented as the basis. There are a lot of methods of teaching/presenting the information, and a lot of ways to reinforce it. You can write a simple imaginative journal entry without being a WWII scholar. I would also imagine that the content is not the only thing being assessed by such an assignment. Were I to make such an assignment, it would also incorporate assessment of grammar, spelling, mechanics, flow, sentenc structure, etc. It's an opportunity to assess the generalization of a whole host of necessary skills, not just the application of factual information specific to the content at hand.
This was a social studies class though, not ELA.
I don't think you want "creative writing" coming into play when you are learning about WWII from a social studies class.
Teachers are supposed to "guide" now as students "discover" the facts on their own.
Active learning is the way to go where the responsibility to learn is on the student
Give them some laptops, an assignment and let them loose to "learn".
And let me tell you, some of them come away with a warped sense of "facts".
And also provide the content, materials, instruct on methods of research and inquiry, and monitor for understanding.
You seem to be complaining, but there is a lot of merit in increasing student accountability and focusing on research and inquiry. It obviously needs to be monitored and guided, but retention is far more effective when students seek out the information when given the resources/tools to do so, versus be spoonfed it through no effort of their own.
Taking ownership of one's learning isn't a bad thing.
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