· I feel that I am not doing enough to
engage my students in their own explorations of topics that interest them and
that probably I am hindering their learning about other things, related or not
related to my subject.
· I am sure that because of the nature
of the curriculum a section of my learners are not catered for as I would have
loved to and at this moment I cannot particularly say that I am proud of
myself. Why? The section of the students that is not catered for is probably
the section that is also failing and I am somehow to blame for their failure.
It has opened my eyes to the fact that my learners have multiple intelligences and I need to put this into perspective for effective learning. Therefore I need to know my learners multiple intelligence mix
· The constructivist approach
encourages group activities and I find that at times I have gone on and on
about some topics yet students would have grasped them better in group
activities.
· Not all aspects of my teaching
subject can be subjected to group work. Some of them require individual tasks
for instance writing, spelling and phonetics among others.
· In some way the course has
challenged me to engage my students more and more into exploring on
their own and in groups, and I agree this would be very effective in literature
in English where critical analysis is expected. Students can easily come up
with different meanings and points of view about a piece that could be quite
enlightening. As they share ideas, they register understanding of the texts and
actually learn from them.
· I need to give them more time to
recreate the scenes in the novels/plays/poems through getting them to act or to
rebuild the entire scene from the descriptions given in these books.
Good ideas Margaret. I What about the idea of using the texts to link the themes and characters to real life , or to aspects of the students' own life?
ReplyDeleteI agree with you Nellie. That is one of the ways of showing the relevance of the texts to our contemporary society and I guess as they recreate the scenes, they will also identify with most of the aspects of those texts.
DeleteHallo Margaret, I shall surely come to watch when your students recreate scenes from your novels.Can we have the Lion and the Jewel?It has always made me laugh .Iam sure however, the students would love it and you are already active in Inter house drama.
ReplyDeleteThanks Pross for the vote of confidence, and you being one of my immediate bosses I hope I shall have your full support in this.
DeleteMargaret I totally agree with you that constructivism is not practical to all parts of our syllabus but let's give it a try where it is applicable.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you Twaha, but that should not stop us from seeing the short comings of the approach as well.
DeleteMargaret, I hope you liked Pat Gray's classroom.
ReplyDeleteI did. Very much so!
DeleteGiving them time to recreate the scenes. I like that point Margaret. It works for me in Physics also . Thank you.
ReplyDeleteThank you Julius. It is good to know that we share the same sentiment here.
DeleteYou have good ideas Margaret. This course will surely make us better teachers.
ReplyDeleteThank you Patricia. I envision us leading the education revolution in our country. I already feel 40%a better teacher than before. Lets keep our fingers crossed.
ReplyDelete