Saturday, June 7, 2014
Letting Go
A recent article that I read really got me thinking. The article talked about learning and the two lessons that we can learn from learning. When I walk into my classroom, I do not want my students to only walk away with the knowledge of what I have taught them that day, but I also want them to walk away with how to apply that knowledge in the outside world. I do not want them to learn how to use a protractor on a piece of paper to draw angles, I also want them to be able to take the protractor that they know how to use and use it to help build a chair with the knowledge of how to appropriately measure the angles. (I recently helped build an Adirondack chair and had to remember how to use a protractor.) I want my students to TRANSFER their knowledge. This is taking all that you have learned and applying it to a situation. When a student gets to a test and has to talk about angles, I do not want them to only be able to do problems similar to the ones that we did in class. That is too scripted. I want them to be able to think about the problem, what they know, and say "hey, I think I can take this and apply it here and it will work out." That is transferring knowledge. Sometimes we as teachers are too scripted. We expect to teach by the book and expect our students to respond like the book says they will respond. In reality that happens 0.8 percent of the time. We need to be teaching our students how to live in the everyday world with the knowledge that we are giving them. We do not need to them to freeze-up when a situation arises because it was not exactly the way we taught it. They need to be flexible and we need to be flexible. We need to let it go. I need to let it go. I need to allow my students be creative and use the skills they have in a variety of ways. This ties into inquiry-learning. They decide what they want to know, we hold their hand for a little while to get them steady on the right road, and then we let them go. This ties into instructional technology. I can guarantee their brains are more high-tech than mine. They will be able to do far greater things than I will ever be able to do with technology. I will help them for a little while, and then I will let them go. They will have the skills they need to be able to soar. This makes for great teaching (or at least I hope it does). I will give them the skill set they need to be able to do what they want to do, and I will let them go and watch as they flourish. First, I need to let it go though.
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Sarah,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading your post and I could relate so well. We do need to not just show kids how to use or do someting but we need to also help them transfer that knowledge into other areas. I have been trying in my classroom to support children when they make those connections and expand on what they are showing me each day. Since I teach kindergarten the learning is at the basic level but the kids do make connections. The one that jumps to mind right now is when I teach them a new phonics skill and then when they are reading a book they bring it up to me and show me that they found that skill in another book. It makes me feel good when they are able to transfer that knowledge even at the beginning level.
Thank you for sharing,
Leslie
What a wonderful post! I agree we need to ensure we teach the content but that we also let kids explore that content with real world application. The transfer of knowledge is often lost when students are bombarded with memorization of facts and spewing those facts on a standardized test. We as teachers do need to let go and let these kids explore and learn in a meaningful way!
ReplyDeleteChasity
Sarah, I enjoyed reading your post. I agree that I want my students to be able to do more than just memorize dates and facts and choose answer sheets. I want my students to be able to take what they have learned in class and actually be able to apply it to current events and real life situations. Unfortunately, because all this generation of students has ever known is standardized testing, they are really lacking the critical thinking skills needs to transfer to real life application. Instructional technology, in my opinion, can play a big role in helping to bridge the gap between memorization and regurgitation and thinking critically.
ReplyDeleteLeAmber
I liked you transfer of knowledge with the protractor and chair. I faced a similar issue when ordering wood floors for the house. We have several bay windows, thus creating several trapezoids. I know that formula and found the areas. I use that transfer example with my classes all the time.
ReplyDeleteYou are right about letting go and letting the students decide what they need to do next. It really works. I gave a ticket out the door to my students, gave feed back, and returned them to the students the next day. I let the students group themselves. They could choose: remediation, more practice, or acceleration. It gave them ownership of their learning and it really worked well. It was easy for me to move between groups, and often the acceleration students would jump in and help their peers.