Class Reflection

So far, this class has helped me to realize three key ideas related to teaching and schooling. First off, there is a vast distinction between “taught knowledge” and “learned knowledge.” Often times these two things are thought to be interchangeable, however they are quite different and one does not insure the other. Personally, I can saw that I have been taught much more than I have actually learned. Mainly because, many of my past teachers focused more whether or not they covered certain curricular subjects rather than if all their students had actually learned anything from their instruction. Ultimately, our job as teachers is not just to teach content, rather it is to help our students learn and apply the knowledge we teach. This is achieved through continuous assessment of student understanding, and implementation of modified instructional strategies to meet the needs of our students.

Another key idea I have come to recognize is the importance of utilizing the principles of developmental learning theory in order to inform ones teaching. It is essential to incorporate a meaningful balance of concrete and abstract representations in teaching concepts to our students. Typically, concrete representations are easier to understand than more abstract representations. Nevertheless, often we see that teachers primarily base their instruction on using abstract means of representation (e.g. text or speech) rather than provide their students with the opportunities to engage in real experiences with a phenomenon to better understand a concept.

Lastly, the third key idea that I have come to recognize is that most of my past learning experiences have predominately been product and not process oriented. In the sense that many of my past teachers primarily emphasized the development of products (e.g. assignments, papers, worksheets, etc.) and little or no attention was paid to processes of learning used to create those products. Therefore, like many others, I have become conditioned to produce products of learning without thinking about the skills needed to perform those operations. As a result, I have come to develop a mindset that values grades (products) over the processes of learning. However, without conscious knowledge of the processes of learning, one may find that they are unable to apply their knowledge in non-predescribed settings. And what good is a grade (representation of a product), if you can’t actually apply/demonstrate the skills/knowledge in a real life setting such as a classroom.