Most students do feel they are stuck in some type of jail throughout the 7 hour school day. They can't wait for the dismissal bell each day and have countdowns until the closest break. I can remember when I was younger, I was so excited for the first day of school. I was eager to learn. But, by the second or third week I was ready for summer break. What happened throughout those two weeks to make me lose my interest in school? Simple answer, but a complex solution. The learning was not relevant to me, however, I do know that making learning relevant to all students each day is a lot of work!
As I was reading Keene's chapter, my main question was. "Are comprehension strategies really extra content?" If we start teaching these comprehension strategies with our current curriculum, then the students would understand more and be better equipped to build their pyramids of knowledge higher. As teachers, our goals for these students should be for them to "remember" or better yet, apply, the knowledge from the first day of school ON the last day of school. Right now, I feel the majority of students are just memorizing and repeating. It seems that even the students who are "A" students, lack the ability to apply the same as the "F" students. In my opinion, if the students knew the comprehension strategies and if the learning was relevant to them, we would have a higher percentage of "A" and "B" students.
It is up to us to dive into our content areas and to find new and exciting ways to make our students WANT to learn and COMPREHEND what we have to teach them. It might be a lot of work in the beginning, but in the end, it will be worth it!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
I like how you talk about how students need not just remember, but also need to be able to apply their knowledge. I agree with that so much. It seems like the majority of students really do just memorize for the test and then forget. If there were more engaging activities, maybe kids truely would get more out of school.
Post a Comment