Motivating and
engaging students is the goal of most teachers–priming them to receive instruction, or otherwise align themselves to a pre-set process you’ve sketched out that you hope will yield a learning goal you selected beforehand. But I’ve also been thinking recently of how learning actually happens–the causes of learning. Learning events, maybe? Eh. So I came up with 60 (of millions) of these ‘learning events’ (for lack of a better term)–circumstances in which students seem to learn effortlessly. They can learn when they are coerced–to start, to increase the pace, to finish, to revisit. But what kind of conditions or contexts promote effortless learning? Learning when they don’t even know it’s happening? When they’re (essentially) tricked into deep understanding? How does this happen–especially when you have a very specific daily learning target you’re trying to meet in pursuit of an academic standard? That’s where curriculum mapping, learning models, and lesson design come in. For now, consider the following events as examples. Templates. They may not lead to the precise mastery of the standard or objective in your Carnegie unit or Hunter’s lesson plan, but they’re thinking. And in these cases, rather than following your trails of breadcrumbs, they’re actually thinking for themselves. That’s a critical shift in the learning process. The more common approach is to ask a question in hopes of perhaps causing thought, or eliciting an accurate response. There may also be projects, where students–over time–combine skills and both concrete and procedural knowledge to create and or fulfill the requirements of a project. These all require thought, but it’s all within the framework or under the scrutiny of the teacher and the planning. It’s a matter of sequence. A more direct approach is the essay, where students have to take a position and defend it carefully. (And is part of #10 on the list below.) In the essay, students have to think about what they think, and then clarify why they think it. That’s definitely a student ‘thinking for themselves.’ But it also depends on the craft of writing–another kind of knowledge in and of itself–which can both reveal and obscure the thinking. What about something more precise? Tidier? Something that can be done moment by moment in any classroom? Used in almost any lesson? Those are the ideas below. Below are some ways to help students think for themselves. 60 Ways To Help Students Think For Themselves
60 Ways To Help Students Think For Themselves 60 Ways To Help Students Think For Themselves Which one of the following statements most accurately describes Vygotsky's theory of cognitive development zone of proximal development )?Which one of the following statements most accurately describes Vygotsky's theory of cognitive development? Children progress, in part, by working on difficult tasks with the assistance of more competent individuals.
In which one of the following ways are students most likely to benefit from knowing the instructional objectives of a lesson?In which one of the following ways are students most likely to benefit from knowing the instructional objectives of a lesson? Objectives enable them to predict how their teacher will teach the lesson, so they know what to expect.
Which one of the following best illustrates the use of base groups in cooperative learning?Which one of the following best illustrates the use of BASE GROUPS in cooperative learning? Students in a history class spend the last five minutes of each class session in small, semester-long groups in which they can compare class notes and help one another with sources of confusion.
Which one of the following teaching strategies is the clearest example of how a teacher might scaffold complex cognitive processes in instruction?Which one of the following teaching strategies is the clearest example of how a teacher might scaffold complex cognitive processes in instruction? Make sure students have mastered the basic facts and skills taught in one unit before proceeding to the next unit.
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