In this week’s reading of instruction strategies, I read about cues, questions and advanced organization and summarizing and note taking. Both of these instructional strategies can be utilized in the cognitive learning theory.
Cues, questions, and advanced organization can allow the students to focus on the important information that is being presented. As questions that have clues are asked to the student, the student can reflect on information that they have stored and create a network to the new information. This will help the student’s link information together. In math many times if I ask a student a question that they have mastered and connect that information to what is being learned, the students have a better understanding because they are remembering what they did in the past and creating a new connection.
Summarizing and note taking allow the teacher to control what the students are hearing and seeing. I try to limit the notes for the student to the information that is most important. If I have my students take notes for a whole period many of them will stop taking notes and nothing will be accomplished. If I can control the amount of information that the student is learning and the next day link new information to the old information, the student will have a better understanding of the information. Many times I try to find ways to relate information that is being learned to something that the student enjoys. They remember more this way then if I tell them just to work on the work.
I feel that students do better when they can see the link from one topic to another. Math allows me the freedom to do this with many different topics. I can always be building on what was learned previously by the students.
Rick Orr
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I agree with you that math is nice in the fact that everything relates to everything else. One of my faults is not making as many connections as I could. I see how the whole picture works, but I have not always taken the time to show my overall vision. It might be that I was not sure how too either.
ReplyDeleteIt is good hear that you are working with your students to see all the connections. I think being aware is half the battle in itself. I know I am going to get better at showing the overall picture. The recent graphic organizers that we have been learning about will be a nice way to aid in this vision.
Hi Rick,
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with you about students taking notes studiously in the first part of class but slacking off toward the end! It is important that they learn that they really only need to take down all the important notes. If I were to take as many notes as they do, I would quit before the end of the period, too! It's our job to teach them how to take the notes and make the connections, and in both situations, technology can be the link that's missing!
Rick,
ReplyDeleteIt's good that you limit how much time you spend doing notes with the kids. If as adults, we have a limited attention span, usually no more than 30 minutes. Plus, too many notes will just cause students to hate a class.
I try to mix up notes and projects with my lecture based classes. If there is a day where there are more notes than usual, I try to throw in some humor just to keep kids on their toes.