PRINCIPLE #4: The teacher understands and uses a variety of
instructional strategies to encourage students’ development of critical
thinking, problem solving, and performance skills.
KNOWLEDGE
Learning
is a lifelong experience that draws upon several diverse cognitive processes that
the learner employs to make meaning.
From skills associated with creative problem solving and cooperative
learning to invention, memorization and recall; the student learns to employ
these many and varied techniques in their quest for understanding. The teacher, a prime component in this search
for knowledge, must have an underlying understanding of how these processes
work. For instance, in the task of learning
about fractions and proportions, the learner employs a process known as accommodation
and assimilation of equilibrium states.
In cooperative learning scenarios, the learner is encouraging the growth
of interpersonal communication skills.
In the acts of problem solving, the learner functions in a state that is
very much like trial and error. That is,
the learner recognizes and understands that to uncover the solution may require
several attempts, yet, in the long-run an answer is oft discovered. The same is true of discovery learning, where
the learner is responsible for stretching their own, and others, zones of
proximal development.
It
is the practitioner’s responsibility for ensuring that the classroom is a place
where many of these techniques are practiced and monitored in a sustainable fashion. The students are inherently responsible for constructing
understanding; the teacher is the component that monitors their growth and
guides it to the appropriate levels. As
the learning progresses, the teacher should be aware of the problems associated
with each technique employed. For
instance, the cooperative learning scheme should not be solely used because it
does not ensure that each student is arriving at their own meanings. Likewise, the forms of learning associated
with memorization and recall are merely developmental skill and should not be
solely relied upon as adequate methods of instruction and assessment. The notion of merely throwing back
information that is studied is not learning the information, but rather,
learning what the teacher wants to hear.
This is detrimental to the student who is struggling to become an
achiever. Whole group instruction is a
fabulous way of sharing ideas and points-of-view. It should be buttressed with individualized
reflection through writing, in order to achieve a balance in the understanding
process of the learner. Furthermore, the
benefit of interdisciplinary instruction encourages the students to recognize
the interplay among disciplines, yet, the student must become aware of those portions
of the curriculum that must stand somewhat alone.
As
the teacher explores the various methods by which students can reach
understanding, the variety of mediums available today should not go
unrecognized. The Age of Information, of
which we have now completely entered, must be utilized as fully as possible by
the teacher. This is to say that the
educator needs to be aligned with those avenues that allow for the use of
technology. The Internet, the
WorldWideWeb, etc are tools that should be opened and maintained for the
students and for the teachers.
Electronic Mail services and the wide variety of information that can be
obtained by the students must be part of any study of vital and sustained
inquiry. Additionally, the teacher must
engage in the collection of resources that delineate the various videotapes and
disk information available. The teacher
should be able to keep abreast and be
willingly disposed to seek out such information. The ability of these types of media to
enhance knowledge is capitalized upon by the teacher, for the wealth of
knowledge that can be gleaned by students in the Age of information is
tremendous. This is certainly a
generation raised on the use of the television; they are a primed group waiting
to learn the power of communication. Libraries,
which are accessed via computer communication, are vast in number and rich with
resources. Text, reference catalogs and
books and databases, literature as well as other printed resources are found
with the related methods in this field of research.
The
teacher should be aware of how these types of technologies can strengthen any learner's
skill in critical thinking, independent and group problem solving, and
performance abilities. I have encouraged
students to invest time in learning the techniques required for the user-end of
these technologies. For instance, I have
discussed various search and recovery methods for researching via the
WorldWideWeb with students. The sixth
graders with whom I have worked are able and willing to learn about the various
types of searches that can be performed.
They revel in the notion that they can do research from their home
computers and are readily skilled to operate in the logical frameworks
required. Developmentally these students
have sharpened fine motor skills associated with typing and critical thinking
skills necessary for engaging in Boolean logic sequencing and structure. The students sharpen skills in the use of
computer, as their skills in other subjects like English, Math, Science, and Social Studies increase
in tandem. The framework by which they
structure meaning becomes infinitely more logical in structure as their
knowledge base of structured languages develops.
An
assessment that might highlight the growth of these skills is one that utilizes
the structure of the computer generated and maintained universe of
information. One experience that
challenges the intellectual, performance based, and abstract thinking and
operations of the learner might be described as: a project that incorporates any research
topic with the gathering of materials by which a formal/informal paper be subsequently written that describes the
topic and the search. These types of
papers are called 'I-search' and
challenge the student to choose and reflect upon the knowledge gained from the searching
process, both by interpersonal and intrapersonal methods. This experience
challenges the learners to understand the processes by which they think. It encourages them to initiate decisions that
immediately affect the situation. The
lessons gleaned from this type of study compels the learner to ask questions of
themselves in an effort to solve the problem.
A cooperative learning component can easily be built into this type of unit, and the learner is now
responsible for helping others to understand what might be complicated
information. The teacher is then freed,
by the use of the students as their own framework of support, to engage with
materials or information, and to monitor the types of areas in which the
searches are conducted. Additionally,
the teacher is freed to explore the methods and techniques by which the
students explore their worlds and make meaning.
Students prior knowledge of curriculum areas is engaged and the
developmental stages of each individual are assessed and expanded a priori. Each student is responsible for tapering
their own learning styles to fit the type of unit that engages the learner with
current technologies and modes of knowing and learning.
EVIDENCE
Lesson plans that detail the use of various computer programs to
highlight scientific
theory.
Use of Art class to engage learners with
various media to create a globe.
Final stories from theme unit: Ecology.
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