Monday, February 9, 2009
Post 4-Ashleigh
Like Piper mentioned, we have been mostly noticing recitation in our field placement and although I think our CT usually poses good questions, it is more of a teacher-controlled dialogue. I also agree with Piper that our students are not in the necessary mindset for a real discussion because it's not what they're used to and they aren't usually concerned with listening to other students' opinions. I think the best way to try to encourage a change in the discussion style would be first to set expectations (explain what we want to see), model the behavior by thinking out loud, then give positive feedback when students do build off of others' ideas and/or encourage the behavior by asking leading questions, like we discussed in class (can anyone respond to what x just said? Does anyone agree/disagree?) . Hopefully, if students hear models, see desired responses encouraged, and hear probing questions, they will begin to internalize the thought process and begin to provide these types of responses independently. While I think the I-R-E format is very familiar to most of us and may be tempting to use especially when we want students to focus on the content of a story, the readings and class discussion helped me see why and how I should try to incorporate more discussion into my classroom.
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Ashleigh,
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with how you plan to go about teaching your ELA lesson plan. I definitely think that modeling what is expected in a discussion will make the discussion flow much better. Prior to actually teaching my lesson, I asked students to recall what a discussion is, and what behaviors were expected during a discussion (i.e. raise your hand to speak, listen to others, etc). I'm interested in how your lesson went? What types of questions did you ask, and did you feel that they were effective? I feel my discussion went well, however, there were definitely questions that I feel I could have posed better. I also like your idea of asking others whether or not they agree with their peers...that way students are seeing that everyone has different opinions, and we should respect each others' opinions, but also be open to sharing our own.