I would like to reflect on the website article by Mayer and Clark.
1. I think they were emphasizing the importance of presenting/teaching new material in several avenues - words, pictures and sound. But they also stressed not to get "wordy". It reminded me of Dragnet - "Just the facts, ma'am."
2. I think this fits in with chapter 2 because it talked about how visual and auditory learning affect us. We all use both to help us learn. Some just lean on one more heavily than the other.
3. At this point I think I am catching everything.
4. In my own teaching I try to introduce new concepts in several ways. For instance, in science, we read about magnets with attracting and repelling. We talked about things that we knew were attracted to each other (kids and their moms) and things that repelled each other (kids and smelly garbage). Then we "played' with magnets to actually experience attract and repel. Finally, we acted out attract and repel.
5. I guess their proof would be in their resources, but I believe it because I have seen it in my own classroom.
6. This concept is important to remember because all people have different modes of learning. So it is important to teach to those different modes. Also important not to lose your students by going on and on and on.
7. As I said earlier, I use this everyday in my classroom. Although, I would have to say that Julie has me rethinking how I do the walls in my room.
8. Not sure how to answer this one.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Thanks Jill. Nice reflection. For #8, you might consider if multimedia is even necessary. Is it better/faster/cheaper to teach magnets the way you do than by buying a multimedia program that does the same thing. Why? That is what I was getting at with this question. Of course, it may differ slightly with every article/chapter.
ReplyDeleteJulie said...(I've never blogged so I'm just going off of what the prof did above me for a greeting!)I agree with you that we have proof of these concepts/theories in our classroom. I always think of which came first, the egg or the chicken.....so which came first, the theory or the implementation of the concept that was studied and named a theory?! I'm glad to hear that the state's idea of the walls challenged your thinking. You are a master teacher but sometimes we have to consider newer ideas. Just food for thought. We can always better ourselves (not that you need that!). Maybe you could start a revolution at your school!
ReplyDeleteI was just talking to a teacher the other day about Mayer and Clark's principle, "less is more." We were discussing how ISAT is coming soon and that the walls in our classroom are a great resource for students during this test. We were discussing what posters we already had up on our walls and if anything needed to come down that might be a distraction. Anyway...During my student teaching, I once walked into a classroom that had not one inch of bare wall anywhere to be found. The ceilings were even covered with posters. Instantly I was overwhelmed by this, so I can only image what a child might be feeling. I would say that this would be the distraction that Mayer and Clark were referring to that can actually hurt instruction by causing cognitive overload. I saw that you and Julie might have been talking about this already somewhere, but I couldn't find where?? Let me know what you think!!!
ReplyDeleteAfter reading your post I founds myself agreeing much of the time. In question #1, the idea of less is more came to mind. Giving the students only what they need rather than getting wordy is important. Also question #2, you mentioned visual and auditory learning affecting all of us, I think as teachers we lean more heavily on the way that we learn the most. Being a very visual learner my students are often times but not all the time taught in a more visually appealing way.
ReplyDeleteThank for sharing! I enjoyed reading your blog!