MSU, Bozeman, Montana
Today’s schedule was more or less like yesterday’s. It started with Prof. Rick’s class. I felt as if I had turned back time to when I was an English major student years ago. As an English teacher, it’s important to always look for something new in language. New things in language can be new words, new idioms, new expressions, etc.
After Prof. Rick’ class, we went to Dr. Brody’s class of active learning. Today was quite special because we had a chance to attend his classroom. We had learnt a little bit about “inquiry method” and today we actually saw how it was applied to the classroom. Dr. Brody’s students acted as teachers, while we acted as students. It was a very interesting class; though I had very little background knowledge related to the topic; magnetism. The class started by an interesting demo (a demonstration of an experiment). Students were asked to do experiments themselves by following the instructions from the clear and well-organized handout. The teachers acted more like guides or facilitators since they let us do the experiments freely without interference. Students were also asked to apply their magnetism knowledge to something related to their real world such as bird migration, and speakers. We learnt about Active learning assessment with Dr. Art after that and ended our day with blog creating.
What I’ve gained today is that in learning, students should also have fun doing activities. Another important point is that answers to the inquiry aren’t always the key to the learning activity but the process of stimulating students to think and find the answers themselves are much more important because if you “give a man a fish; you have fed him for today, but if you teach a man how to fish, you have fed him for a life time.”
After Prof. Rick’ class, we went to Dr. Brody’s class of active learning. Today was quite special because we had a chance to attend his classroom. We had learnt a little bit about “inquiry method” and today we actually saw how it was applied to the classroom. Dr. Brody’s students acted as teachers, while we acted as students. It was a very interesting class; though I had very little background knowledge related to the topic; magnetism. The class started by an interesting demo (a demonstration of an experiment). Students were asked to do experiments themselves by following the instructions from the clear and well-organized handout. The teachers acted more like guides or facilitators since they let us do the experiments freely without interference. Students were also asked to apply their magnetism knowledge to something related to their real world such as bird migration, and speakers. We learnt about Active learning assessment with Dr. Art after that and ended our day with blog creating.
What I’ve gained today is that in learning, students should also have fun doing activities. Another important point is that answers to the inquiry aren’t always the key to the learning activity but the process of stimulating students to think and find the answers themselves are much more important because if you “give a man a fish; you have fed him for today, but if you teach a man how to fish, you have fed him for a life time.”
1 comment:
Yes, Noon. I would have said that if I give a student a fact, the student will only remember it for a day. But if I give a student the skills to seek knowledge, the student will learn more than I could ever teach. Dr. Brody, however, would prefer the fish version. Brody always likes the fish.
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