Being pro-active in planning for communication across all learning and the disciplines we teach may feel like a lot of work, but it the long run it will only make an educator’s job easier as it helps facilitate valuable comprehension and retention in our students.
"Just because they did well in English writing hikus doesn‘t mean they can write the lab report.“ - Allan Luke
Reflecting on my experiences as a student in high school, I can confidently confirm that my best learning moments were facilitated by lesson plans and activities that got us thinking in different ways, but that additionally encouraged comprehension over memorization. There are two classes that particularly stand out in a more negative sense and that would be both my grade 11 and my grade 12 math courses. Both of these courses were of great difficulty for me as and up until now, I have always left the blame to my inability to memorize material that I don’t fully understand. While this is true and math is simply not a strong suit of mine, I now understand that if my teachers had approached lesson planning in a variety of ways, rather than appealing to one single learning style, I may have found more concepts easier to grasp. As an educator I will strive to never leave a student in a position where they feel they could have done better if a concept had been presented differently.
Especially as an aspiring high school educator, I understand that not every student in my history class will be fully motivated to learn what I am teaching them, but I will make it my duty to make history appeal to as many students as possible and in as many ways as possible. I see a higher value in students comprehending the significance of a single concept fully, than temporarily memorizing a string of words that will fade away from memory.
”Although these funds of knowledge were demonstrated as culturally, socially, and cognitively complex, it was pointed out that educators were not using them as a resource to enhance their students' academic progress.”
One important thing we learned this week was the Funds of Knowledge. As a history major, my discipline touches upon and encapsulates almost every content area within it, and I find this to be a very beneficial thing for being a well-rounded member of society. Through history I am able to learn about a variety of different cultures, countries, disciplines, etc. For example, I may not enjoy math as much as other subjects, but learning about the history of math or important mathematicians is something that draws me in and gets me thinking. This is something that teachers should be encouraging, learning and making connections in every way possible. Because teachers are educated in a specific discipline, they may view material from their particular lens. Although, a business student will understand and digest a history lesson in a different way than an English student would. Therefore, we must understand that a variety of perspectives are valid and crucial to any form of society, and encourage this connection-based learning to help build-up well-rounded students.
Overall, I can conclude that my mission as an educator will be to create valuable thinkers and learners that are encouraged to dive deeper beyond the surface level of information and understand true significance. Learning should never be about a memorization of details or words but an overall understanding of concepts that students can make connections to and take with them throughout life. While this is a lot easier said than done and time is often not on a teacher’s side, I will always strive and do my best to make sure my students have learned valuable information that they can use to more forward in their own lives.
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