The main thing to remember when talking about our teaching practices is that curriculum is what we teach, whereas differentiation is the way that we teach it. The How we do it is the far more important part of our job than we are led to believe from our "leaders" in the field of teaching our children. When considering our quality of curriculum we must pick things that engage our students in their learning. In today's world there are far too many more appealing distractions for students that will take their mind off of their learning. It is critical that we promote student understanding in a way that will keep them interested while also relating it to real world situations so they see the value in it. In the way that curriculum is written, excellence should be demanded by all of our students. It is smart to plan out our end goals and then work backwards to achieve the desired goals. Facts don't transfer with students but the understanding of how to learn is something that will stick with them the rest of their lives. That is the true power of a teacher that many in today's culture take for granted.
Questioning techniques are crucial in the carrying out of any lesson in which we hope to teach. The open questions that contain many possible answers seem to be the ones that are most beneficial. There should never be any single answer at their disposal to accomplish what they need to do. Instead there should be multiple routes they can take so that when they fail, and inevitably they will, there are additional routes that allow them to problem solve and also to demonstrate creativity in their assignment. Essential questions that correspond with the understanding of a particular topic should be used as much as possible. Project based learning is a fun, but effective way of accomplishing a learning topic in place of the old pen and paper responses that have become engrained in our skewed educational philosophy. PowerPoint, the web, Virtual field trips, and streaming of content on the computer allow us to take our students to places we only dreamed of as short as 5 years ago. With all of the wonderful things at our disposal, it is a shame that we would approach things any different. When students focus on the technology they often incorporate themselves into what is going on and can get lost in the fun of learning without even realizing it. It is a fact that 96% of students have learning disabilities so I guess it is a good thing that we do have as many tools at our disposal that we do.
Questioning techniques are crucial in the carrying out of any lesson in which we hope to teach. The open questions that contain many possible answers seem to be the ones that are most beneficial. There should never be any single answer at their disposal to accomplish what they need to do. Instead there should be multiple routes they can take so that when they fail, and inevitably they will, there are additional routes that allow them to problem solve and also to demonstrate creativity in their assignment. Essential questions that correspond with the understanding of a particular topic should be used as much as possible. Project based learning is a fun, but effective way of accomplishing a learning topic in place of the old pen and paper responses that have become engrained in our skewed educational philosophy. PowerPoint, the web, Virtual field trips, and streaming of content on the computer allow us to take our students to places we only dreamed of as short as 5 years ago. With all of the wonderful things at our disposal, it is a shame that we would approach things any different. When students focus on the technology they often incorporate themselves into what is going on and can get lost in the fun of learning without even realizing it. It is a fact that 96% of students have learning disabilities so I guess it is a good thing that we do have as many tools at our disposal that we do.