What we teach in school is what’s
meant to be with the students after they learn, what they will take with them
to the real life is what they really learn. How we make this learning useful in
student’s real life is our job as teachers. For this particular reason we must
teach for economy and practicality, along to teaching for transferability. To
teach for economy means that we dedicate the time we use in teaching for the
essential core ideas that we think are worthy of remembering once we finish
teaching them., whereas to teach for transferability means that we should teach
things and make them related as much as possible to real life experiences using
real examples, problems, and make the learning as much as applicable in real
life as possible. The problem is that teachers most often focus on
transferability that they forget to focus on the important ideas they should be
teaching, on top of that they give unrelated examples instead of focusing the
idea, they tend to send their students on mind mazes. This can be a real
problem for un-experienced teachers which brings us back to the planning part
that helps also plan the examples and materials that would serve
transferability best.Monday, April 28, 2014
Meaningful Learning
What we teach in school is what’s
meant to be with the students after they learn, what they will take with them
to the real life is what they really learn. How we make this learning useful in
student’s real life is our job as teachers. For this particular reason we must
teach for economy and practicality, along to teaching for transferability. To
teach for economy means that we dedicate the time we use in teaching for the
essential core ideas that we think are worthy of remembering once we finish
teaching them., whereas to teach for transferability means that we should teach
things and make them related as much as possible to real life experiences using
real examples, problems, and make the learning as much as applicable in real
life as possible. The problem is that teachers most often focus on
transferability that they forget to focus on the important ideas they should be
teaching, on top of that they give unrelated examples instead of focusing the
idea, they tend to send their students on mind mazes. This can be a real
problem for un-experienced teachers which brings us back to the planning part
that helps also plan the examples and materials that would serve
transferability best.
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A problem we face in schools is the great material that should be covered at the end of the year. It's better as you mentioned to aim for economy and practicality. We could teach fewer lessons and cover more important ideas that students will remember later on because they are related to their real lives. This makes learning meaningful since students can build on what they already know. On the contrary, your efforts will be in vain if you try teaching ideas that have no relation to students' lives.
ReplyDeleteWe teach students according to a given curriculum and we try our best to cover everything there whether it is meaningful or not. It is very crucial that we connect students' teachings to their real lives and behaviors. Students would remember better a certain objective if they experienced it in their real lives and not just as an abstract concept.
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