Chapter 3: Digital Badge C

Chapter 3: Digital Badge C

In chapter three, I learned their different approaches and methods when  teaching, engaging and work together with your students. There were many important concepts throughout the chapter. However, the three main concept I found more interesting were:

Teacher- Centered and Student- Centered Approaches

Both the teacher-centered approaches and the student centered approaches have great aspects to them, but one is clearly better than the other. The teacher-centered approach expects students to learn from their class notes, their textbooks, worksheets, quizzes and tests. I find this approach irrational because every student learns differently and at their own pace. Furthermore, this “one size fits all” approach is only going to cause confusion and prevent students from taking advantage of the resources that are available outside the classroom. However, the student centered approach is much more beneficial. This approach allows students to take a more “hands on” approach, in which students encouraged to think outside the box. In other words, teachers are not telling students to memorize fact after fact, instead students are being challenged to think critically, participate with any class discussions and learn from their own personal experiences.The image below elaborates more in this approaches and their benefits.

 Instructional Methods to Engage Students

There are four instructional methods to engage students while teaching. The first method is one- to-one tutoring. Teachers need one-on-one time with their students to know how much they have learned and where they are struggling in class. The second method is learning groups, through this method the students get together in groups and interact with each other. The third method is inquiry learning in which students are asked to work actively in a project and investigate related questions in a subject field. The last method is metacognitive thinking, through this method the student examines their own learning methods through self-explanation and self-evaluation. By incorporating all four of these methods into our classroom we are giving our students the opportunity to learn more and discover hidden abilities. As future teachers, we need to be conscious of what methods work for each of our students.

Group Work and Collaboration

Its important for students to develop their own persona, but its also important for the students to learn how to interact and adapt to the personality of the classmates their working with. When you put students into groups as a teacher you can see the role of each student takes, the strengths and weaknesses of each student and slowly but surely students who were once shy and timid develop the confidence to take charge of a group. This leadership is crucial because when every students finds a job they have to be able to work alongside others in a way that is not only pleasant but in a way that an ultimately allow students to climb to the top.

Reaources:

Maloy, Robert, Verock-O’Loughlin,Ruth-Ellen, Edwards, Sharon A., and Woolf, Beverly Park (2013). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. 2nd Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.

Teacher versus Learner-Centered Instruction. (2012, January 1). Retrieved from http://silkweb.com/sst/The University Experience/screen2.html