learn by doing

Even though I have spent the last 18 years of my life sitting in a classroom watching other teachers teach, I still have no idea how to be an effective teacher myself. I think this shows much truth in Aristotle’s quote, “what we learn to do, we learn by doing.” I know I am capable of teaching, but will not be completely comfortable doing it until I have had some kind of experience.

I will be starting substitute teaching sometime this week and I am extremely nervous but I know that the only way of becoming more comfortable with my teaching abilities is through having experience and learning by doing. This will be a helpful learning experience for me because I will be able to work with all grade levels. I will learn how to take charge but also gain respect from the students.

I think learning by doing can create confidence in students that might not be gained if they didn't actually "do" something. If a student is confident in their abilities they will be more likely to continue using the skills they have learned.

Using “doing” to assess students not only will give the teacher a better idea of where students are, but it will allow students to become more comfortable with the materials and with their abilities. Being creative with the different types of assessments used would keep students interested instead of being bored with the same type of assessment over and over again.

Assessment for Lesson Plan Presentation

In looking at the lesson presentation as an opportunity to grow from trial and error…can I do a presentable presentation?…sure, I hope I can, I am a business major but, can I present a lesson to a class of 5th graders using all the techniques and knowledge that I’ve learned in class…I hope so…but, I don’t think one time around with a fictitious class will make me great at it.

I’m looking to be assessed, yes but, more so, I am looking for constructive feedback, not only from Dr. Scott but, from my classmates. Should I attempt to include as many teaching techniques as I can to make my lesson more cohesive…yes…should I include all of them…no, that would be ridiculous and obviously forced.

Time management should be looked at…present ability…professionalism…use of course content…effort, yes, effort…creativity should also be included but, for those of us who are not necessarily creative, this may be a challenge until, again, we begin challenging ourselves this way on a regular basis…appropriate standards and benchmarks for the presented lesson should be assessed, as well.

Reflection of “What we learn to do, we learn by doing.”…Aristotle

This quote makes me think of all that we are learning in class right now. We are laying the groundwork and enhancing our knowledge base so that we can begin “doing” what we are learning about and, in turn, learn to “do.” We really won’t receive the full benefit of what we learn in this course until we apply it and begin doing it.

We will begin this “doing” process when we present our chosen lesson to the class. This will culminate into a long “doing” process in regards to real life teaching application. Trial…error…evaluate…change…over and over again.

This reflection also makes me think of what I do with 5th & 6th graders to get them to begin thinking about realistic career options. We take a group of students from JVS and we set up a mini career fair within the school building. The 5th and 6th grade students alternate booths every 10 minutes. There is a hands-on activity relating to a specific program area such as, Culinary Arts, Auto Technology, and Web Graphic Design, just to name a few.

The students learn about these programs and the careers that culminate from these programs. The 5th & 6th grade students learn by doing. This opportunity turns on light bulbs for some students, others it sparks interest in an area of two. Some may take the day’s activities and reflect; others will take their excitement home to share with their parents and maybe begin helping their mom or dad with cooking dinner or helping mom or dad to fix the car. They may even begin to think more about the games they play with their Wii or their Playstations in regards to how those games were created and the possibility of them creating a new game someday.

Lesson Plan Using Technology

In a lesson on writing for my English Language class, grade 5, I would use and allow my students to use technology as a research tool. I would instruct them in regards to proper writing and sentence structure. I would group them in twos and give each group a topic to research. There would not be extensive research needed for this project, just enough for three to four paragraphs of writing.

I would require that they type their papers in Word and I would also require that they access spell check and grammar check. Finally, I would require that they print it out and turn it in for a grade.

Reservations I would have in regards to is having 5th graders surfing the web is the possibility of them happening upon an inappropriate website. With that being said, I believe that school computer networks offer the highest monitoring system available and I would have to rely on that to keep my students safe.

The challenges that would be involved with the use of technology within my writing lesson plan include assisting 10-12 groups of students during a class period. Also, there may end up to be too many computer-related questions from the students so that the lesson that is supposed to be learned is getting lost in the mix.

Things that I would take into consideration when creating a writing lesson around technology is again, not allowing the lesson to get lost in the mix of computer inquiries. Also, I would have to take into consideration the diversity of computer skills among my students. This is not the way I would teach this type of lesson all the time because handwriting skills should be enhanced with this age group.

Learning by Doing (RIGHT NOW!)

Class,

First off, I hope you all enjoyed the seminar this past Monday evening! I was unable to make it because I am at training for a new job so I look forward to hearing about it from you when I return. The quote to reflect on for this week is defintely hitting home from me in the sense that I am doing this exact quote right now. I'm at training for a new job that I haven't even started. I know we are all different learners, but learning by doing is the best way I learn. I do need to know background knowledge first, but then I can't role play or fake it, I need to dive in and do it to learn. It is a sales job in which I am learning our buying/ sales process and different techniques to be successful at it and overcome objections etc. I feel as if I have learned all of these things and my brain is on overload and I just want to get home start my new job and learn as I go and do it! Our students might feel this way sometimes and if we don't offer up the chance for them to learn by doing, some may never actually learn. Some students need the opportunity to learn by doing and it benefits every student to do it.

I thought it would be interesting to share some of the learning techniques that the instructors have used here to compare to what we have learned in our class thus far. First and foremost, the instructors I have here at this training are doing a great job at differentiating the instruction. The first day of my training they did a module with us on explaining the different learning styles and we took an assesment in which we identified what are learning styles are. Throughout the training they have accomodated to all of these learning styles in that they have us role play with others, do independent work, watch videos, listen to lectures, gain hands on computer experience etc. Every morning we have assesments from the day before in which have also been differentiated as well. It was a relief to see that differentiated instruction and assesment was important to these instructors. I can tell when my peers feel comfortable with certain methods and when they don't, but I have realized that students need to be pushed out of their comfort zone at times because this is a true way everyone learns by doing. We gain valuable informaton and experiences when we are pushed outside of our comfort zones and to me this goes hand in hand with learning by doing. Role playing the sales techniques we are learning has been something new to many people here at my training. They have never done it before and you can tell. They get extrememly nervous and it seems they don't know the information, but they do! They just are being pushed outside their comfort level and are learning when they don't even realize it. As teachers we need to do this to our students so they can truy experience learning by doing. This teaches explicit, implicit and null instruction. Think of how many null lessons are taught by pushing students outside of their comfort level and forcing them to learn by doing. They are learning the feeling of being challenged, learning to feel comfortable in their own skin, learning to present themselves and present information on the spot. They are learning to deal with being nervous about the information they know. Pushing students teaches more than just learning by doing. It is an important life lesson!

As I mentioned above, we are having assesments every morning at this training to test our knowledge. Some are written, some are verbal. It is interesting to compare these assesments to the outline of Chpater 7. The Goal--> Teach--> Test cycle is defintely implemented here at my training. The goals are consistently laid out, both at the beginning of the day and at the end of the day at class end. When I leave training every day, I am aware of and understand what will be on the assesment and how it pertains to the goals of the training! I feel good when I leave the class and comfortable that I have the knowledge to succeed on the assesment. Students should never feel like they don't have the appropriate information to do well on the assesment. It should be up to them on whether or not they put the energy and focus into it to do well. My assesments have been inclusive of me (the learner) in the sense that I know what's going to be on the assesments and I even engage in the some assesments with the teacher (role playing, answer questiosn out loud etc.) I have realized that differentiating assesments is also important because students are experienceing different ways to capture the learning in which they are more likely to truly understand the material when it is evaluated in different ways. Sometimes things have hit home when I write it (on a paper assesment) or when I hear a peer say it aloud (on an informal group assesment).

Sorry to keep babbling, but I am truly learning by doing right now when it comes to being a teacher myself someday!

do due

Topic: "What we learn to do, we learn by doing." Aristotle

I have been involved in education, athletics and activies my entire life. There are people with exceptional gifts such as the Savant that just do. There are gifted students who absorb knowledge and there are musicians who simply pick up a guitar or sit down in front of a piano and just play and there are kids who pick up a baseball or football and throw it further than anyone else. These people are exceptions to the rule (our quote). The rule is truly about the student of academics, music or athletics and the professional teacher/coach who instruct them. These people who with a passion or desire apply themselves and learn the rules for participation and activity. Then through hard work and perseverance learn to do the object of their desire and become technically proficient or maybe even subject matter experts. But there is also a whole group of people that don't know what to learn or that learning is advantageous because they have no experiences to guide them. These persons need someone to guide them where they need to go and give them the needed experiences along the way. This is the professional teacher, the mentor and guide whose first duty is to prepare a student for life.

This is where a true teacher can change the landscape for many students. I spoke with a teacher recently, who says Content Standards be damned, she teaches her students some life skills within a unit on Economics. This lesson has been taught for the past 15 years. She teaches her students the hands on of household budgeting, bill paying and balancing a checking account, and along the way also provides a healthy dose of "reality check". She relates going to school with going to work. Every student begins with a job that is part time in that there is no sick leave or vacation pay and raises or bonuses are earned through hard work. In your magical checking account you get paid based on how many days you came to school during the pay period. Students had to decide the kind of car to buy and actually afford it, rent an apartment, check insurance rates and MPG for cars they purchased; they get bills for utilities, phones, car repairs and other items. Students have to grocery shop and bring in a receipt or they pay the same as the teacher's bill at the grocery for the week. Students have to go shopping with a parent. They learn that food doesn't just appear in the refrigerator. They have to buy gas and they are assigned mileage and then pay gasoline based on how many miles they drove/mpg of the vehicle purchased. The teacher listens to her students talk during the week and assigns them recreation bills for going to a movie or buying a new game or going to shopping mall. I could go on and on.

To this teacher these students need to be prepared and they cannot be prepared by being lectured to. If they don't come to school for a day they don't get paid for that day. Students will not walk out of any Senior High school and walk right into a well paying job with a boss who won't care if I stayed up all night playing Halo and didn't make it to work or if they woke up feeling bad and got to school 3 hours later than the start time. She believes this reality check about life needs to be intentionally learned and is only learned by doing. She is firm in that the only way to learn to do is by learning through doing.

Isn't that the most important and truly authentic assessment- That the student can and does use appropriately the information you the educator is trying to impart.

Learning+ Doing= Experience

Assessments help teachers to monitor the progress of our students but also give us a feedback about our own instruction. Either we receive a positive response or need to address some possible changes on the process of our lesson.
As I work on my lesson plan ("Calendar", foreign language) , I consider the information that we received on Monday's conference and methods of assessment. Understanding how our brains work and how we can help our students retain information was fascinating. Assessments as applied to my "Calendar" unit will be active participation during instruction time. This will help to engage students on the lesson, it will give me an idea of the student's abilities, and where they are in terms of skills required to effectively participate on the unit.
Also working in small groups, I can use oral methods such as accountable talk where students interact with each other and teacher will be able to evaluate if a lesson is being understood.
Learning a foreign language can be frustrating for many students, small groups will allow me to be attentive to facial expressions and body language. Smaller group allows for more questions to be asked, without fear. And, my lesson can easily be "chunked" because when we work on calendar time, students already were introduced to concepts of numbers, months and days of the week.
Having this calendar time in this structure help students to practice day by day.
This brings me to the quote "What we learn to do we learn by doing" (Aristotle), which I have applied to my lesson plan. When working in small groups Spanish students get more comfortable as we practice the calendar components day by day. This could be a year around activity, where students can master many concepts taught during the school year.
As adults we know that is our nature, we learn by doing. Everyday needs to be a learning experience where we can identify what we did right or wrong and later integrate our experiences, guiding them to a personal and professional growth.