In class we read the book Why Don’t Students Like School? By Daniel T. Willingham. Throughout the reading we learned about many different learning concepts and ideas that can be helpful for teaching. I have went through my notes and found some concepts and ideas that I found very important. I will definitely be taking with me these concepts and applying them to my teaching career.
One concept that I learned and found important was in chapter 1, there is a section that gave implications for teachers to use in the classroom. One was “keep a diary- keep track of things that worked to do it again and to change the things that didn’t” (pg. 21). I found this to be very helpful because as we know teachers are always changing their teaching and ideas. As a teacher, we are learning and growing just like the students are. It is important to keep track of what went well and what didn’t go so well. So then as a teacher, we are able to go back and learn from what didn’t go so well and change it. A journal is a great way to keep track of this.
Another concept that I learned from the text was from Chapter 2. It says “when you require critical thinking, be sure students have enough relevant knowledge to succeed.” This ties into what was mentioned earlier in the chapter about background knowledge. It is easier for students to learn new content if they already have some sort of background knowledge about the topic or a familiar topic. Another key point is that “shallow knowledge is better than no knowledge.” It is better if students are able to understand some information, or basic concepts rather than not understanding any part it at all.
Another concept from Chapter 4 says that “the best way for helping students understand abstraction is to expose them to many different versions of the abstraction.” This makes sense as we know each student learn at a different pace and in different ways. For example, when giving a student an example to explain the lesson for them to understand better, it may work for that one student but not the other. So being able to have a variation of different examples will help a variety of students understand the lesson that you are teaching.
The last key point from the text that I found interesting was from Chapter 6. It says “Novice teachers typically jump right into trying to solve the problem, but experts first seek to define the problem, gathering more info if necessary.” (pg. 150). I agree with this because I know that new teacher who aren’t as experienced as teachers who have been teaching for awhile, will just jump right in to try to solve a problem. I think this is because we are taught as teachers to be quick on our feet, always be ready for whatever and when a problem happens, we are supposed to be quick to come up with a solution. That is true, but with more veteran teachers who are experts in teaching, are able to figure out what the problem is, gather more information and find the right solution. It is all about experience when it comes to this with teaching.
I found that the text that we read in class had great points, concepts, thoughts and ideas for pre-service teachers as well as teachers who are in the field right now.
