Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Instructional Strategies
In the late 1990’s and early 2000’s indicated that hands-on-learning was a very effective teaching strategy yet teachers seldom used the approach. What could be the reasons for the lack of use of this strategy? For approximately the last decade, it has been indicated that an effective teaching strategy in the classroom is hands-on learning. However, some teachers seldom use this type of instructional strategy. What could be the reasons for not implementing this teaching?
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I think a major reason for not using hands-on learning is because it is time consuming. It takes time to plan and implement a hands-on project into the cirriculum. It takes more time to have students work on the project during classtime as compared to a worksheet or normal test. It takes a lot more time to grade because it is not a cut and dry answer. Teachers don't always have a lot of time as it is so when they are faced with having to do even more work it may be less appealing.
ReplyDeleteI think for a lot of teachers it comes back to doing things the way you were taught. For me personally, it is hard to learn about new ways of teaching when none of my teachers used any of those strategies.
I think hands-on learning is believed to take teachers more time in preparation and assessment. However, I think this may be construed because a teacher that lectures most likely spends more time re-teaching since hands-on learning is so effective. It does take more effort to gather and prepare materials rather than photo-copy a worksheet. However, the more times a hands-on lesson is implemented, the quicker it takes to implement it. The teacher will know what materials are needed, where to acquire the materials, and possibly have some saved from previous lessons. The assessment may require more “brain power” because the teacher isn’t simply making check marks. They need to establish an authentic rubric or evaluate the learning process/outcome of the child’s experience. But again, less time is probably spent re-teaching with hands on learning, which makes me question the time debate.
ReplyDeleteAlthough it takes more effort and possibly time to implement hands-on learning, in the end it is not about the teacher. One should go into teaching to enrich the minds of children-not to take short cuts. (Sorry I got on my soap box)
I agree with Samantha when she mentioned teachers going back to the way they were taught. This is human nature and understandable. However, part of personal and professional growth is taking into consideration new effective strategies and implementing them. Learning never stops and by using the same strategies when new ones are found effective, is putting a damper on your own growth; not just the students.
ReplyDeleteI think teachers don't use hands on learning as much because they feel it takes more time to prepare these lessons. I understand why one might feel that way because I even feel this way. I feel there is a lot more research that goes into planning a hands on lesson instead of just giving the students a worksheet or an assignment out of the book. However, I feel it is important that it is remembered why we teach. We teach for the students and every decision we make as a teacher should be what's best for the students.
ReplyDeleteI agree with what Samantha says about it being hard to teach ways that you never learned from. I feel this is very true because if you never learned from it you have don't truly know what to expect.
I agree with Amy. I think that the main reason why we don't use hands-on learning is because it takes too much time. It is hard to spend time researching, planning, and grading an assignment when there is a million other things that you could be doing. I think it is very important that we work hard to incorporate this type of teaching into our instruction becasue it will help our students to learn better.
ReplyDeleteI think that many teachers do not use hands-on learning because it can be more difficult to implement than other strategies. It takes more planning time for the teacher and sometimes the hands-on activity can become hectic or hard to manage. Hands-on activities are also harder to grade because the students didn't just complete a worksheet or write a paper, so this causes the teacher to think more about how to assess the students. To most teachers, it is simply easier to avoid these kinds of activities.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Sam. Growing up, I rarely did hands-on activities in my classrooms, so trying to come up with these activities and be able to implement them with my own students is difficult. It takes even more time and effort on my part to come up with activities and also manage the class and the students while they participate. However, I am very passionate about hands-on activities because I know that I learn better visually than to just do a worksheet or write a paper.
ReplyDeleteI believe that for some teachers hands on learning is not implemented because they don't feel competent to control that within their classroom. It is also possible that they don't have the proper resources available to implement this strategy within the classroom. I know that it's very common for teachers to teach how they were taught as well. It used to be that students were taught in classrooms sitting at their desk completing worksheets and working on their lessons silently at their desks. It's very possible that teachers have continued to teach how they were taught even though research has proved something different.
ReplyDeleteI agree with what Samantha said as well. Hands on learning takes time both to plan and inplement iwthin oyur classroom. It also takes trust that your students will act responsibly within the hands on activity. I know that the lessons and activities that stand out the most to me included a hands on activity. I hope that students will take the tiem to step out of their zone of comfort and try a hands on approach to learning in their classrooms.
ReplyDeleteI think there are two reasons that teachers don't use hands-on learning as much. One is because it is very time consuming and it takes a lot of planning and classtime to work out the activity. Another reason I believe that teachers don't use hands-on activites is because they might not always have all the materials they need available to them in their classroom. Some projects that teachers want to carry out might not be possible because the school can not provide enough materials for every student to have their own. I know as a student, I ran into this a lot in high school. There were not enough materials for everyone in the classroom, so we would either have to share or half would go on this day and then the other half would do it on the next day. This took up even more time for the lessons to be carried out.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Samantha when saying it is hard to teach something when I have no idea on how to teach it. If I was taught a certain way, that is how I am going to teach it. I believe teachers today don't use a lot of hands-on activities because they were not taught using this technique. In a way I don't blame them, but then again we should all try to incorperate something new into our teaching styles.
ReplyDeleteI think that a major reason as to why hands-on teaching is not used very often is because of the time that it takes not only for teachers to prepare for it, but also the amount of time that it takes in class to carry out the actual lesson. For hands-on activities, the teacher needs to do much more planning than they would if they simply gave the students an assignment out of the book. Depending on the lesson, they may also need to spend some of their own money to provide the supplies needed for the lesson. Often teachers may be unwilling to spend their own personal money on supplies to be used in the classroom, and they also may not want to spend the extra time necessary to plan for these lessons.
ReplyDeleteI agree with what Brianna said because it does take more time on the teachers part to plan for hands-on activities. Also, it is more difficult for the teachers to grade hands-on activities because unlike worksheets or problems out of the book, there are no set answers for hands-on activities. Because of this extra work and difficulty in grading, I would agree that this plays a part in why many teachers avoid hands-on activities.
ReplyDeleteI believe that teachers have a hard time implementing this type of lesson because it is very time consuming, not only to come up with and perform, but to assess. The biggest part that would be difficult for me, as a teacher, is trying to figure out how to assess different hands on activities. Creating a rubric is one way but, again, it is time consuming. Many teachers comment on how little time they have to do things outside of the classroom as it is, so doing activities that are going to take a lot of time planning, preparing, and assessing isn't something that many teachers are looking for. Also another reason I believe is a financial one. Either the teachers themselves don't have the resources, or the teacher has the students purchase the resources needed to create this type of assignment. Money is a big deal to many people, and asking families to spend money on projects can be a lot for a teacher to ask.
ReplyDeleteI agree with what Adrianne said. Teachers not feeling in control of their students is something I never would have thought about for reasons why they don't use hands on techniques, but it is a very good reason. Also, teachers not knowing quite how to run a classroom set up like this because they were never taught i this manner, like Adrianne said, is another very good reason for why teachers don't use hands on activities.
ReplyDeleteI feel that teachers shy away from using hands on learning because it is very time consuming. Lesson planning is a long process, but when planning extra activities with it; it can take much longer. Teachers have other tings going on as well, and sometimes need family time. This can cut out time to be planning for lessons.
ReplyDelete