Personally, I understand the difficulties of confidence in academics. As written, failures can turn into confidence breaking times in a students life and the best method for gaining back that confidence comes from peers and instructors help and support. I really liked how the article went over students thinking for themselves and working to their own conclusions to present to the instructor, whether right or wrong, as being good ways to retain knowledge. I believe anything that promotes being more active in a course is a good thing. Obviously, not everyone is going to love chemistry, but they should find aspects about it or learning methods to it that spark curiosity and progress forward and help them reach the ultimate goal of a good grade. Reading this article, I view the ability to learn as a very broad topic. Everyone has their own style to learning and it's best to find out what that is and find others that strengthen the weaker parts of your learning process.
From the learning point of view, the fact that concepts need to be encountered in a variety of contexts and expressed in a variety of ways to be truly embedded in a student's knowledge system has changed the way I view learning. It helps me understand the importance of practicing a little bit every day, and really thinking critically about the concepts to understand why things are the way they are instead of just memorizing. It makes me realize that it takes a considerable amount of time and effort to be able to gain knowledge and retain it. From the teaching point of view, the fact that teachers should strive to make students, especially the less confident ones, aware of their progress and encourage them to continue studying really spoke to me because I can be easily discouraged when I don't do well. It changed the way I view teaching from a boss telling an employee what to do to more of a teamwork approach between teachers and students.
This is kinda of an interesting topic for me because I do plan on receiving a teaching degree. This is a kinda big thing for me because if I am going to be a teacher I want my students to pass and do well but I don't want it to be easy. I want they to learn what i am teaching and i want them to expand on this knowledge. The question that kinda spoke to meis what are we teaching are we teaching the answers or the principles and skills of the subject. Let me elaborate are students learning that when they get a question that asks to convert grams to moles of a substance all you due is plug it into to this formula and out pops the answer.Or are we teaching them the principles of the subject that when asked to convert from grams to moles they understand what this is asking on a base level or should I say atomic level. I am so sorry. Now I like the ideas this paper has presented on how to due teaching I have seen them before ( this is a subject I have researched a lot). But they missed out on a really cool teaching method that I found and that's teaching classes like a video game. Now the only thing this really changes is how assignments and tests are graded. You still use are out test are out of 100 points homework is like 10 points but that's not how you present it to your students. For every test and homework completed you will receive XP (experience points) so simple put you will never fail. you will simple not get as much XP and as you gain more XP you will level up and gain benefits. So students instead of students doing just enough to pass they will try to get as much XP as possible. This way of teaching has been tested at several collages with resounding results.
After looking through them, the passage about Expectations Affecting Performances really stood out. It is an excellent example of the power of the mind. A student, as in myself, really can have their learning affected by past experiences from themselves or others. We students go into things with heavy hearts and discouraging minds based on the topic itself. We can just hear the title of a section, and based off of past learned experiences though others we recognize the difficulty in learning such a subject. Therefore, with even the slightest doubt in our mind we may not learn the material well, if at all. For a student to bypass this problem, we really do need to go into each experience with a clean slate of mind. We need to clear our minds of the stress put on it by others. The people surrounding us don't realize what they are inadvertently doing, but it affects us nonetheless. Looking through the eyes of a teacher, one must break down this harsh barrier. Not easy of course, but results would be nothing short of fantastic. The subject must be taught in easy chunks. Try teaching the students how to do each part of a problem then combining them, rather than throwing a huge confusing word problem and expecting the student to put two and two together. We won't. It is expected that the student try hard, but the second they realize the problem is foreign to them, they will spiral down into an abyss of apathy. "What's the point of trying if I can't even figure out the first simple step?" I ask myself this more often than I wish, as I'm sure others do too.
The concept that stood out to me most was the section about people learning to do well only in what they practice doing. That's exactly how I think about things for my plans for graduate school. Fortunately, chemistry is partially involved in the profession but not mainly. It's almost annoying how much insignificant material (by no means this course) is initially required in the early stages of a master's degree. I do understand that the university has likely deemed the material a stepping stone for advanced material but it just gets frustrating with all the time you put in for something you don't feel is necessarily essential to your future profession.
Personally, I understand the difficulties of confidence in academics. As written, failures can turn into confidence breaking times in a students life and the best method for gaining back that confidence comes from peers and instructors help and support. I really liked how the article went over students thinking for themselves and working to their own conclusions to present to the instructor, whether right or wrong, as being good ways to retain knowledge. I believe anything that promotes being more active in a course is a good thing. Obviously, not everyone is going to love chemistry, but they should find aspects about it or learning methods to it that spark curiosity and progress forward and help them reach the ultimate goal of a good grade. Reading this article, I view the ability to learn as a very broad topic. Everyone has their own style to learning and it's best to find out what that is and find others that strengthen the weaker parts of your learning process.
ReplyDeleteFrom the learning point of view, the fact that concepts need to be encountered in a variety of contexts and expressed in a variety of ways to be truly embedded in a student's knowledge system has changed the way I view learning. It helps me understand the importance of practicing a little bit every day, and really thinking critically about the concepts to understand why things are the way they are instead of just memorizing. It makes me realize that it takes a considerable amount of time and effort to be able to gain knowledge and retain it. From the teaching point of view, the fact that teachers should strive to make students, especially the less confident ones, aware of their progress and encourage them to continue studying really spoke to me because I can be easily discouraged when I don't do well. It changed the way I view teaching from a boss telling an employee what to do to more of a teamwork approach between teachers and students.
ReplyDeleteThis is kinda of an interesting topic for me because I do plan on receiving a teaching degree. This is a kinda big thing for me because if I am going to be a teacher I want my students to pass and do well but I don't want it to be easy. I want they to learn what i am teaching and i want them to expand on this knowledge. The question that kinda spoke to meis what are we teaching are we teaching the answers or the principles and skills of the subject. Let me elaborate are students learning that when they get a question that asks to convert grams to moles of a substance all you due is plug it into to this formula and out pops the answer.Or are we teaching them the principles of the subject that when asked to convert from grams to moles they understand what this is asking on a base level or should I say atomic level. I am so sorry. Now I like the ideas this paper has presented on how to due teaching I have seen them before ( this is a subject I have researched a lot). But they missed out on a really cool teaching method that I found and that's teaching classes like a video game. Now the only thing this really changes is how assignments and tests are graded. You still use are out test are out of 100 points homework is like 10 points but that's not how you present it to your students. For every test and homework completed you will receive XP (experience points) so simple put you will never fail. you will simple not get as much XP and as you gain more XP you will level up and gain benefits. So students instead of students doing just enough to pass they will try to get as much XP as possible. This way of teaching has been tested at several collages with resounding results.
ReplyDeleteMaybe not phrased in quite the same way, but don't you think that this is like the optional points available in my class.
DeleteNow that you point that out I do see the similarities
DeleteAfter looking through them, the passage about Expectations Affecting Performances really stood out. It is an excellent example of the power of the mind. A student, as in myself, really can have their learning affected by past experiences from themselves or others. We students go into things with heavy hearts and discouraging minds based on the topic itself. We can just hear the title of a section, and based off of past learned experiences though others we recognize the difficulty in learning such a subject. Therefore, with even the slightest doubt in our mind we may not learn the material well, if at all. For a student to bypass this problem, we really do need to go into each experience with a clean slate of mind. We need to clear our minds of the stress put on it by others. The people surrounding us don't realize what they are inadvertently doing, but it affects us nonetheless.
ReplyDeleteLooking through the eyes of a teacher, one must break down this harsh barrier. Not easy of course, but results would be nothing short of fantastic. The subject must be taught in easy chunks. Try teaching the students how to do each part of a problem then combining them, rather than throwing a huge confusing word problem and expecting the student to put two and two together. We won't. It is expected that the student try hard, but the second they realize the problem is foreign to them, they will spiral down into an abyss of apathy. "What's the point of trying if I can't even figure out the first simple step?" I ask myself this more often than I wish, as I'm sure others do too.
Let's now put a positive spin of the topic, when you do understand the material despite a small negative outlook, that makes it all the rosier!
DeleteThe concept that stood out to me most was the section about people learning to do well only in what they practice doing. That's exactly how I think about things for my plans for graduate school. Fortunately, chemistry is partially involved in the profession but not mainly. It's almost annoying how much insignificant material (by no means this course) is initially required in the early stages of a master's degree. I do understand that the university has likely deemed the material a stepping stone for advanced material but it just gets frustrating with all the time you put in for something you don't feel is necessarily essential to your future profession.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your responses
ReplyDelete