Put your baseball cards away. It's time for math.
posted by Sarah @ 1:25 PM
13 Comments
Friday, February 27, 2009
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13 Comments:
“finding opportunities to teach in butterflies, Barbie dolls, rocks, and baseball cards.” is extremely important; I smiled to myself when I thought about how many teachers at our school are doing just those things plus using other techniques. I have seen children exhibit more self-responsibility when they are allowed to share from their life experiences.
Yes, pulling in life experiences and personal interests is extremely important. I know we all do it whenever feasibly possible. But sometimes it's not. The reality is, when you are one teacher with 28 or more students with different interests...how do you manage the learning? I thought this chapter was a pie in the sky expectation. It sounds wonderful, but...
I agree with Linda. I "Love" to teach from the child centered thematic approach! I also love to be in a school where so many teachers operate this way!
I try to teach by drawing from student experiences whenever posssible. However I am quilty of telling the students to put away any toys they may have on their desks. I tend to find them more distracting then the students do. After reading this it made me think of the importance of these toys/objects to the individual children and how I might incorporate them into a lesson- perhaps a writing lesson.
I pull in familiar interests and experiences every chance I get. It really keeps the kids' attention and they grasp the concepts faster when they are tied in with a personal interests or something they can relate to.
I wholeheartedly agree with the concept of child centered education. Anytime we can use additional tools to get across a point and reinforce a lesson is invaluable. When these "tools" belong to our students, then the point is reinforced even further. Unfortunately in my classroom of unique learners I need as much of their attention as I can get. The use of "tools" or manipulatives during a lesson, only further distracts them. We do spend ample time afterwards discussing how it relates directly to them.
I think ownership is the key for me - kids need ownership of their learning. It's that same concept that tells me "don't write on a student's paper" it must remain their work. Learning is a responsibility, students either learn to own their learning or they must ultimately wait and hope that someone engages them. Ownership comes in many shapes and sizes, in baseball cards, vacation trips, catalog entries, etc. it isn't easy and it takes time. BUT making those connections can be the key that opens the ownership learning door for many kids.
Any opportunity that the student has to make their own learning by experience through using familiar objects is wonderful. We are all guilty of getting the students' attention while they are trying to communicate something about themselves. Perhaps, stopping and thinking, hmmmm... how can I turn this into a learning experience? is a good thing.
For me, this chapter evoked mixed feelings. My first thought was how if I completely opened our days up to students being able to bring in any toy, book, or story that they wanted to share, we would spend every minute doing just that. I'm assured that we could certainly tie various standards in to these items, but my greatest concern is that there would be a lack of cohesion. We do monthly "themes" in Kindergarten, which mentally helps me organize our curriculum through all content areas. I already feel like we spend so much time having students share stories, pictures, etc.! While we all love to talk, these youngsters could chat the day away! My second thought was that with major revamping, we could do easily do monthly themes based on students' interests. For example, our show and tell schedule is student-centered and they have opportunities to bring in items of their choice. Anyhow, food for thought!
I agree with Karen. It is important that the student takes ownership of his/her education. As a teacher, I definitely see the students who are self motivated and those who need constant reminders. I am guilty of having students put away distracting things. I need to be aware that some students need tactile/visual things - that's what makes them tick.
I find that balance is important here. Ownership is vital to a students learning AND we have standards that we are legally obligated to teach. Sometimes they (standards) work with baseball cards and sometimes because of the situation, timing, or whatever they don't. I like to integrate student interests whenever possible and make connections in different (and unexpected) areas. For example how does a butterfly relate to social studies, how does a Barbie relate to math, or even, how is a rock like a baseball card?
In my class I do have the opportunity to teach using the students personal interests. In some instances it is the only way I can get the students attention, focus,and excitement about the particular area we may be working on. I do think this would be much more difficult in a large whole group setting.
This is the first chapter that I think shows the age of this book! I think most teachers these days know we do not need to rely solely on textbooks and ditto sheets for our curriculum! We are competing with too much in the outside world to have boring classrooms!
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