also 9/24/2002:
so, with all this talk about the critical/inferential thinking and "new" pedagogic approaches now i'm confused. read the lesson above [roots, shoots and leaves]. i did no lecturing – well, little to no lecturing. group work. students knew all the material or could get at it with a little guidance. just ask the right questions. and i've been doing all this since...
sometimes it works. sometimes it doesn't. either you pull it off, or the students are left confused and asking "where are the notes?" at least the rest of the staff is trying now. or trying to try.
the lesson note above [types of soil] is a sample i wrote out during a meeting for our seminar tomorrow. on the NPA, of course. what's difficult is following the structure of the system. technicalities and semantics!
i know how to write a lesson that engages, encourages critical thinking, is interactive and builds upon what students already know (and students know a great deal). i don't know how to pigeon-hole the logically fluidity of that process into these stages they propose. i just do this naturally... i think it's how my mind now works.
i find myself struggling to categorize steps/questions. is this hypothesis or research? research or synthesis? observation or what?... i think the semantics confuse me, that's all. i'll learn and be more familiar with them than i'll ever want to be soon enough, with teaching practice and lesson note marking.
IMAGE: page 1 of a one and a half page lesson note on types of soils, in which i attempted to strictly follow the structure (or framework) of the new pedagogic approach.
ReplyDeletethis post is about my frustrations with feeling like this structure is imposed on what i think is my more fluid style of generating and outlining lessons, as described above.