what you learn to do, you learn by doing

This week the reflection quote is “What we learn to do, we learn by doing”. I find this quote to be very interesting. I feel like this quote relates directly to the speaker that we heard on Monday night. He stressed that the best way to get kids to remember things is to put it in a context that will mean something to them. Many times actually experiencing something hands on is the best way to learn. Kids will remember a science project that taught them about osmosis better than reading about it in a text book. Having an actual experience usually sticks in people’s mind better than just reading about it in a text book. Sometimes things are impossible to learn unless a physical act is done. A child could read for days about how to ride a bike, but until they actually try to ride a bike they will never learn. It takes the actual physical sensation of trying to balance while peddling and steering for someone to learn how to ride a bike. It also may take more than a few tries. This goes for everyone. College students (and graduate students) who are learning to be teachers, they spend time in a classroom reading and hearing lectures, but they also spend time in a classroom. You can sit through a million lectures but nothing will give you the sense of what it is like to teach until you are actually standing up in front of the classroom. You learn what to do, by doing it. Sometimes things may not make sense in your head, but as soon as you actually start doing something and instinct or whatever just takes over, you learn. First hand experiences stick with you. In 8th grade we learned about the Holocaust and obviously there was no way to actually experience it, but we were then taken to the Holocaust museum in Washington D.C. and spending an hour in there hit home for the students harder than doing a month’s worth of lessons on it.
This can be related to assessment also. In the most basic form, by assessing the students they are forced to do the assessment with the material that they learned. It forces the students to actually do the problems. Math is a good example, they can see it in the text book and see examples on the board, but until they actually do the math problems on their own, they may not learn how to do it. Another way this quote can be related to assessment is that assessment can be given in different forms. Sometimes a paper and pencil test isn’t always the best method. Maybe after learning a science lesson for example, it would be best for students to show what they learned by a science experiment in front of the class or another form of alternative assessment.