This chapter highlights key words that I describe as meaningful elements to achieve a good understanding on our learners. I mean: a learning plan , learning activities, engaging and effective and the Whereto elements.
Firstly, a learning plan will work if it is covered with activities that foster understanding, knowledge, skill, student interest and performance goals. This aim continues being a challenge for us when thinking less about teaching and more about learning with the time constraint that impedes to devote our time on getting the feedback our learners need to revise and improve their learning .
Secondly, what helps a learning plan be more engaging and effective? Apart from planning appropriate activities, it is relevant to take our sts to different intellectual levels that must be centered on either big ideas and challenges or an interesting and motivating work. In order to be effective, both teachers and learners must be aware of the unit goals and the activities must conduce our learners to be more competent and productive in skills, knowledge, understanding, intellectual power and self-reflection.
Therefore, the emphasis is constantly focus on interesting ideas meaningful feedback , clear goals and explicit challenges. Again, a hard task to be performed by teachers nowadays?
Finally, the Whereto elements will probably guarantee an apropriate learning. These elements emphasize the student's performance obligations and the criteria by which sts work will be assessed. Moreover, it helps sts to create interest in a subject making use of different issues and mysterious and funny stories.
Besides, the teacher 's responsibility is to make our sts explore and experience the big ideas and essential questions, adding scaffolding and graphic organizers for the sake of a meaninful learning. What can teachers of English do to make it applicable?
You correctly mentioned that "A learning plan will work if it is covered with activities that foster understanding, knowledge, skill, student interest and performance goals" in my opinion I think that some cognitive levels are missing in this list that were not clearly described in this chapter. Levels related to higher mental processes such as analysis, synthesis, and evaluation
ResponderEliminarAs I read Carolina's entry I started to thin about cognitive skills....like the cognitive skills our students currently have and those they are lacking....
ResponderEliminarIn order to make our students explore and expereince the big ideas and essensial questions for the sake of meaningful learning, I think both teachers and students need to get familiar to a new set of cognitive skills..
On the one hand, students need to develop true critical, free and intelligent thinking..how? By teachers and a new set of acitivties and ways to apporach a lesson that go beyond the classical way of carrying out a lesson
I agree with what Karla states. Cognitive skills and critical thinking are not developed on a regular base. In my opinion those aspects should be the core of our lessons, and the contents we teach should be only the means to develop them. But as it was said, this requires a new way of teaching which sometimes may not be familiar or comfortable for us. The question is, then... Are we willing to try?
ResponderEliminar