Week 12: Best Lesson
After 12 weeks study, learning has multiple meanings for me. It is not as simple as it was. I mean after learning so many relative theories about learning, I understand learning much better than before. Certainly, learning has different definitions according to different theories, but all the theories told me that learning could be facilitated when we select appropriate ways in learning process.
Learning can be facilitated by teachers. We have to admit that sometimes students (especial some kids) are forced to learn, they consider what they are learning as boring and meaningless. In that situation, we teachers should figure out students thoughts and connect what we teach with their experiences. In a word, we should do everything we could to arouse students’ curiosities, so that they will be active in learning process.
Nowadays, education is oriented overwhelmingly towards helping students pass exams, entertainment is about the least on the mind of an average teacher or principal. In the progress of pursuing higher grade of exams, the purpose of education is lost all too often. The curriculum is limited to subjects covered by mandatory exams. Students are seldom encouraged to come up with original ideas. It is high time that fresh approaches were brought in. I think we need more advanced theories and methods to be used in teaching, so that students will learn more easily and fun.
It is the last week of this semester. I have learned so much in this period, my view about learning and teaching has changed. I want to say thank you to every member in this class, they gave me so much useful advice, and we had pleasure communication about learning theory. And also, special thanks to Dr. Brian Belland!
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Submitted by Ting Song on Mon, 07/27/2009 - 10:11pm
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I also have frustrations
I also have frustrations about learning being passing standardized tests. That is not learning in my book. Standardized tests shows me how good a students memory is, not necessarily how much they learned. This coming up school year my school is going to experiement with a modified block schedule. I'm really excited about this because I think it will allow me to make math more interesting for my students. My goal this year is to use as many of the learning theories we've been learning about as I can in one week. In doing this I hope that I will be able to make my subject more interesting and (hopefully) fun for more of my students.
I agree
Learning also has multiple meanings for me. It is very multi-dimensional. I like how you were able to find a commonality among all the theories that we studied this semester because learning can be facilitated when we choose appropiate methods. It is also fun to see someone excited about change and encouraging more active learning ideas.
Best of luck to you in your future!
Here! Here!