Gregory and Chapman
Prompt for Gregory and Chapman Online Discussion (20 min.)
What questions do you have about the reading for today. Try to come up with a literal question that folks might be able to answer, and deeper question.
Models
Literal question: How exactly might the jigsaw strategy, described on page 220 of our packet, work with teaching Shakespeare?
Deeper Question: What is our responsibility, as teachers, to help students learn in their comfort zone; is there a percentage of comfortable learning vs. pushing students that we should engage in?
posted by deanc1 at 9:09 AM
26 Comments:
I have no answers to my own questions, but I eagerly await yours.
I was really unclear as to how the jigsaw technique works. Did anybody else have the same problem?
I found the jigsaw incredibly confusing
Do people feel that graphic organizers are absolutely necessary in preparing for a paper? I found that I do better without them, so do people have other ways to prepare for writing a paper that isn't the traditional graphic organizer?
The jigsaw appears to be a little confusing, for students and teacher. There must be a better visual way.
Some of the "sponge activities" that are suggested seem to be busy work to me. Does anybody else seem to think so? Any suggestions for other activities to do once students are finished with the day's assignments?
what does everybody think of role-playing in the classroom?
Literal question: As a teacher, should you require a graphic organizer of some kind for each piece of formal writing? Why or why not?
Deeper question: How much of a role should students play in deciding what direction their education takes in the middle school or high school setting?
what does everybody think of role-playing in the classroom?
the authors of this text spend a good deal of time discussing the pshychological process behind learning. do you believe, like the authors, that repitition is the only way master a skill? if so, how do you provide the amount of repitition required for true mastery of the many skills that students are expected to master?
How do you know which graphic organizers are appropriate for what you are specifically teaching?
How do you know which graphic organizers are appropriate for what you are specifically teaching?
think of the jigsaw as a strategy rather than as a technique. the idea seems to be to encourage subsets of the class to become expert in some aspect of the subject being studied. the groups are then mixed heterogeneously for purposes of discussion, project execution and so forth. i think.
Literal question: Would graphic organizers be benefical for special need students and ESL students?
Deeper Question: As a future teacher do you feel that you are trying to win a losing battle?
I think that the sponge activities could be seen as busy work, but I think that there are ways of connecting them to the actual work of the class. Minus that, anything will seem like busy work.
Our resoponsiblities as teachers is to make sure students are comfortable in class because we want them to enjoy coming to class and learning something. if students are uncomfortable then they will not produce anything in class for that day. However, sometimes as teachers we have to push students to engage in class and with work outside of class. Sometimes the students who need a little push need to leave the comfort zone or at least try too. As teachers we should be there to guide these types of students outside of the comfort zone.
Deeper question: I believe that while students should be allowed to choose an activity that is within their comfort zone occasionally, the focus of education should be to push students to take risks and try new things. If a student simply breezes through school by doing what they already know how, how much are they really going to learn?
To reply to the comment about choosing appropriate graphic organizers, I think most graphic organizers can be used for most assignments--they can be customized for almost any situation.
I think graphic organizers are great ways to help students organize for writing a paper. I think we should first take into consideration that our students may not be great writers and they may not even know how to go about writing a paper. A graphic organizer can be a first step for them in order to have organization in their papers. I'm sure we all use some sort of "graphic organizer" when we write our own papers. They may not be as elaborate as the ones that we have seen in Gregory and Chapman, but everybody has some technique they use to organize their thoughts and ideas.
The jigsaw technique makes absolutely no sense to me. Why make something already fairly difficult to access (Shakespeare) even more confusing by adding in the jigsaw puzzle on top of it???
I actually thought that Jigsaw was pretty interesting. I remember doing an similiar activity in high school, and it was actually quite successful. The way in which it is described in the packet is very confusing though. In my class we did a much simpler version.
i do not think graphic organizers are necessary for everyone, but i do think some students could benefit from being introduced to them. i think providing students options to organize their ideas provides students direction, but ultimately they might help students find a method that works for themselves.
While the authors assert that cooperative group learning works the best in pairs, is this format feasible in a class of 20 plus students?
If you do activities such as rehearsal or memory actities, how do you know if students are really learning and retaining information? They may just be memorizing without really understanding what they memorized. How do you avoid this problem?
Literal Question: I am still not understanding what the Jigsaw strategy actually is.
Deeper Question: Comfortable learning is important, but pushing students is also important, so as a teacher, the happy medium is where we must find.
as a beginnign teacher i feel sometimes teachers are losing the battle with students. its sad to see that students arent as motivated anymore. i think its time for some change in schools with the curriculum. somethings got to give.
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