Student Involvement

picture: pintrest.com


Happy New Year!

I mentioned yesterday that I would be announcing a new challenge. At the time I wasn't sure what to do. I thought about just doing the 30 day challenge again. Then I saw a post from TeachThought about a blog challenge they are doing.

"REFLECT AND RENEW IN 2015 - The January Blog Challenge!"

So I got my answer I will be participating in this challenge. Each day they have a different prompt for the blog post and you can follow the posts on twitter using the hashtag #reflectiveteacher. 

Today's prompt is: What are my beliefs about how students learn best?

That's a easy one. 

Students need to be involved and engaged in the learning process. The famous quote of Benjamin Franklin comes to mind; "Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.”

Students need to be involved and be empowered to be part of the learning process. There is a difference between teaching and learning. A Teacher may teach but that is no guarantee that students will learn. Teaching by nature is teacher centered where as learning is student centered and requires the involvement of the students. 

How can students learn if they are just lectured to and spoken to all day? 

What meaning does the 'Teaching" have if the students aren't part of the process?

How can learning take place or be meaningful without student involvement?

The answer is obvious learning only take place with the students being involved and engaged in the process and requires students to buy into it and own it. 

This is all very nice but how do we accomplish this? 

I have often said one sizes doesn't fit all and there are a number of different ways this can be accomplished in my opinion. Here are some:

• Technology is a great way to make the learning real and engaging. Learning about the moon of the solar system, you can now  virtually explore the moon. That's just one example 
• Using problem or project based learning offers very real and hands on experiential learning to take place
• Asking questions. Teachers need to allow the students to think and ask question and not just give them the answers. 
• Talk less. I read a book in which the author suggested that teachers need to talk less and allow the students to play a greater role in both the teaching and learning process. 
• Learn together.  The same author suggested that what if a teacher asked a question that the teacher didn't know the answer to and the class together with the teacher had to explore, discover, and find the answer together. 

I look forward to hearing your thoughts and comments 

Happy New Year!