A good plan for learning must have important qualities, such as engaging and effective. In order to accomplish that the goals should be based on interesting and relevant work that can develop students cognition, understanding and achievement of content.
I noticed that in this chapter the author mentions that "students need to experience the big ideas as real, and they need to be equipped for their final performances." (pg 208)
But...How can students experience those big ideas as real? The author responds to that by developing the idea of exploring through experience, which is similar to student-center type of learning. What about the use of authentic materials and tasks in a teacher-center teaching environment? It is possible to achieve as well engagement on big ideas and essential questions through a techer-centered learning using mainly authentic materials and activities for the students, so that students feel immersed in a more real learning environment and not an artificial one.
That is a really hard point to get through. Students are not used to this type of learning style. Moreover, English is an issue for them, in all ages. I'm getting tired of reading books about "how the class should be" and not "how to make it work in real situation".
ReplyDeleteI definetively agree with you, I'm tired too, what about to make it in real situation. As I said before one thing is the theory and another very different is the reality that we face day after day.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, the lack of guidance has resulted in our disbelief about what we are reading.
ReplyDeleteI think we are all fed up with this book that try to instruct teachers on "how to be good effective teachers"....sometimes I find myself wondering how many of this authors have been teaching in a typical Chilean classroom.
ReplyDeleteIt is a matter of imitating foreing models of instruction? does it really worth to try them?
I think that the idea of experiencing from part of students refers directly to student centered approaches rather than teacher centered. However, I do believe that the latter can do a lot for students if teachers have authentic materials. Probably, the experience will not be the same as experiencing by themselves but it will show them a glimpse of what actually can be experienced.
ReplyDeleteI agree with all of you when reflecting about this curriculum in our working place.I think we are aware of the importance of learning-centered method and try to do our best to help our sts understand and use the language in real-life situations.However, we cannot do it alone, in other words we need to integrate most of the subjects with those essential questions, big ideas in order to work with the same criteria with our colleagues fostering an effective learning.
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