What is learning?
Should learning be meaningful? Should what we learn in our classes have meaning in our everyday life? I have been pondering these questions this week. As I mentioned in my last weeks blog, I am a strong believer in generalizing what we have learned into other areas. The more 'connections' we have with the content we are learning the more we will internalize what we learn. Learning is being able to connect with prior knowledge, other content areas, and future adaptations.
How can a teacher best effectuate learning?
I think in some skills it is hard to help students connect with experience, but it is extremely important. For example, I am taking a class where we are required to make a website using HTML, I have never used HTML, I have no previous experience with anything close to HTML, as a result, it is like learning a foreign language. However, my good teacher, has helped me out be comparing HTML to dictating a document. I have some experience with this, so it has given me some connections. These connections have helped me see the big picture of HTML. I think the more we can connect past experiences to learning new content, the better students will grasp what they are learning.
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I think that teachers sometimes teach the small details and forget to tell or show the students how this new information connects with the big picture. This is easy for me to do when I am teaching. I try to schedule in days where we cover material they have learned, or will learn, so that they can see how it all fits together. This is important just like connecting it to their previous knowledge. Other wise, it is just random information the student is learning without any purpose.
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