Monday, September 19, 2011
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Responses to Merrill
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Responses to Merrill
Wordle Response to Classroom Managment 3
My most memorable experience was in my junior year of high school. Our assigned reading was "The Last of the Mohicans" and it was a boring book at best. One day our teacher told us that he was going to get approval for us to have our class periods (there were 2 full hours due to a co teaching setup)at the Mines of Spain right outside Dubuque. He told us that the next day we were to report to a particular parking lot at the time class would be starting normally and we would hike to a place where we could have class. We ended up at the top of a cliff, which was distracting, but at the same time it was the perfect situation. Where better to read and learn about a Native American tribe than someplace with untamed nature?
ReplyDeleteThis whole situation has made my recall of that book better than any other book I read that year. Being outside helped to put me in the story, more than I could have managed otherwise. I understand that this would definitely not work for young children (or even some high school age students) but what I took away from this lesson was that sometimes just shaking up the scenery will make something you teach that much more memorable.
One of my most memorable experiences that came to life for me was in fifth grade when my classmates and I were learning about President Herbert Hoover. This topic was a subject that was very dry for us fifth graders to stay engaged. Our class compiled information about President Hoover's back round, family, etc. and finished many projects and activities over the topic. What made this experience so exciting and brought to life was the day we took a field trip to see President Hoover's one bedroom house. That visual and hands on experience made me realize that all of the information we researched was actually very real. It's one thing to read about his one bedroom house; but to actually walk in the house he lived in was a whole different story.
ReplyDeleteI would agree with Sarah on what she said about "shaking up the scenery." I think for many students, that when you can create a realistic learning environment by taking a field trip related to the content; that the information being taught is much more likely to stick. I think just being in a different learning environment other than the classroom is a strategy that automatically engages students to what is being taught.
ReplyDeleteOne of the most memorable experiences I had occurred in kindergarten. My teacher, who happened to live on a farm, brought a lamb into the classroom. For two weeks, that lamb would come to class everyday. During that time we studied about lambs, fed the lamb with a bottle, and were allowed to play with it. Though I was only in kindergarten,this real hands on experience that our teacher provided for us caused us to be intrinsically motivated to learn. We wanted to know why the lamb was doing what it was doing and everything else there was to learn about lambs. We also had a piglet in our class for a time and we hatched chicks. To this day I can still remember the things we did and some of the things we learned about these animals. I think using hands on real life experiences truly bring learning to life. Though reading books, watching videos, and being taught through teacher instruction and peer collaboration can be fascinating and allow learning to occur, I think life long learning occurs best when students are actively engaged in real life experiences and responsibilities (in this case caring for animals) as well as traditional learning.
ReplyDeleteAs Katlin mentioned, I also believe that actually experiencing what is taught in class brings the material. Field trips are a great way to do this, and when they incorporated into the curriculum properly, can provided students with the best learning experiences. Field trips provide a hands on learning experience allowing students to expand upon what they have already learned in life and put it in concrete real life situations.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was in sixth grade, I remember learning about caves and the different terms that went along with it. After we had studied caves awhile, we took a field trip to Maquoketa Caves. On this trip, we were able to go off on our own as long as we had either a teacher or supervising adult with us. While we were exploring we also had a scavenger hunt we had to complete about the caves. We were able to explore the different caves and get dirty while we were doing it. I remember this really helped me to not only learn about caves, but also see the different parts of a cave first hand and help the information really sink in.
ReplyDeleteAs Aynur said, they were able to remember an event that happened back in kindergarten because it was hands on and something out of the box. If the class had only been studying animals and never got to see the animals first hand, they probably would not have ended up with the experience or a memory of these animals that they have today. The teacher was able to help students learn and remember by incorporating live animals into the classroom.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was a junior in high school, we were assigned several books to read throughout the year for my Advanced Literature. For our final project, we were to create a youtube video or a documentary about our favorite novel. We were able to work with a group of people or individually. My group decided to reenact the novel "And then there were none." This helped us recall information from the book as well as work together as a team.
ReplyDeleteI would agree with Katelin, field trips are a great way to get the students involved. Although there are several hoops to jump through such as funding and transportation, it would totally be worth it in the end. This can not only get the children into the situation, but it can also benefit their learning by putting the places you visit into perspective. It is different to read about a place in a book, but to actually visit it and understand the lay out, would be much more beneficial.
ReplyDeleteIn elementary school, we were learning about farm animals. Farm animals was like our Thematic Unit, and we had this topic incorporated in our math, science, language arts, all areas. My friend's mom decided it would be fun to bring their farms animals to the school. They were outside, each in gates. On each gate their were facts on the animal's cage as well as story problem we needed to solve. There were goats, horses, ducks, chickens, and rabbits. It was so much fun to learn about farm animals and concepts of math.
ReplyDeleteOne of my favorite memories from school was in my 11th grade advanced composition class. We came to a very lengthy poetry unit, which is usually very hard to keep students engaged because it can be quite boring. Instead of reading multiple poems and interpreting them in boring papers, we did a collaborative project. Our teacher provided multiple choices of poems to hand out to us. We got into groups of two or three and sat around the room and started to read the poem out loud to our small group. After a couple lines of reading we realized we all recognized the "lyrics." Instead of using classic old poems, which can still be beneficial in poetry units, the teacher used modern day song lyrics. She chose the songs very carefully so they were all school appropriate and had some sort of in depth message that was open for interpretation. After we were done interpreting the songs and had a class discussion about them, we were assigned to write our own song lyrics. She modeled what good songs included by using examples of the songs that we had just interpreted. After we learned about the aspects of lyrics and poems we started writing our own lyrics. Again, this was in small groups. At the end of the poetry unit, we all had created a quality poem and put the lyrics into an apple program called Garage Band which is a music production program. So instead of reading and interpreting a bunch of boring poetry, she made the unit personal to us by using modern poetry and technology.
ReplyDeleteI like what Hope said about her experience. I think students learn the content better and quicker if the unit is integrated into multiple subjects. This way the students are constantly learning about the actual content in a plethora of ways. And also doing something fun at the end of each unit, like visiting live farm animals, is something to reward kids with and gives them something to look forward to while they are doing the actual work.
ReplyDeleteMath has always been my weakest subject, and I never had a teacher who could help me understand it well until I was a senior in high school. My 12th grade math teacher put things into perspective for me so well, that I ended up with an A as my final grade, which is something I never thought I would see with math. All my years of school up until 12th grade, no one took the time to thoroughly explain things, especially if students weren't understanding the problems.
ReplyDeleteWhat was different about my 12th grade math teacher, was that he saw how his students struggled and he would back into the problem from a different perspective. He would go over problems we had questions on until we understood them. He was very approachable, which made it easier for me to ask questions without feeling stupid. Lastly, he always suggested peer assistance in his class, which is something I had never experienced, but found to be very helpful.