Ensuring ALL Students Learn

           In response to Professor Drakes blog this week, I completely agree. Schooling really has been about the grade we have received, not about what you’ve learned. What are grades if we don’t really learn? This is something I have often noticed in my upper year physics classes at Brock University. There are many things I should know from previous classes that I received a decent grade in, but the reality is I really don’t. I did at the time, I completed my assignments and studied for tests and in the end got a good grade, but what did I really learn? I learned how to be good at the “game of school” and give my professors the answers they wanted.

            I hope to see changes away from this with twenty first century education. But how does a teacher assess, and give out grades based on what a student has learned? Will higher-level thinking really help students to remember things in a couple years after they have taken a certain class? I guess it’s worth a try. I do think higher-order thinking skills (HOTS) are a good end goal for the twenty-first century curriculum and will lead to success if mastered. From experience in tutoring jobs, I have noticed that a lot of times the things students will lack are problem-solving skills. They have all of the facts needed to solve the problem, but don’t know how to think abstractly about them to apply them to real life applications. Without a skill like this, what is the point of knowing facts? You need to be able to apply them, and I think this is an extremely important part of education and curriculum.

            When it comes to Erickson’s structure of knowledge, I don’t really think that you can rank those things in an order; they need to all be of equal importance. You cannot do one without the other, so remembering and understanding are just as important as analyzing and creating. I think a flow chart manner would represent this better.

            Knowing your students is something I believe is extremely important and I don’t think a lot of teachers realize this. You cannot teach to just one type of person. Each student is just as important, and everyone obviously has his or her own way of learning. I think a good way of getting to know your students and assessing where they are at is through pretests and portfolios. I always remember having to fill out these surveys at the beginning of classes, but I never really understood the importance of them. I think a diagnostic assessment is a great way to figure out where all of your students are at, and see what you may need to review. You cannot start every year or semester in the same way. Your lessons, especially at the beginning, need to change with your new students. Learning styles will change, background knowledge will change and the overall environment of your class will change from semester to semester.
            I know that in my future, as a physics teacher, there will be some semesters that I will need to and be able to do a lot of labs and hands on activities, while other years there will need to be a lot more in class practice problems and lessons. These are things that will depend on each class and group of students. In the end my goal is that each student learns important things, not just receives a good mark. I want to be able to prepare my students for university, not just give them the marks that they need to get in. In order to be successful at this I will have to know my curriculum and instruct it based on the different students I will have in my class.

source: http://pjmcclure.com/blog/learn-love-learning/