I liked what you said about pushing students out of their comfort zone. I agree and think that is one of the challenges of being a good teacher - to keep them confident about their current ability and mastery of content while also challenging them just enough to help them push to the next level.
Also, my subject is also biology and I totally agree that we need to relate content from readings and our subject to the real world. I mean, what we're teaching is the science of the "real world", but it's not music videos, video games or junk food. I mean, cellular biology is not going to grab the attention of the average adolescent. So, again we are challenged to make the content relevant to their teenage world. How do we do this? Well, in talking about the cell I am going to bring eggs to school (hard boiled of course) since they are, in fact, one very large cell and something kids can relate to because, hopefully, they have all eaten one and perhaps cracked one open themselves. we can talk about cell membrane (why does the yolk not mix with the white?), nucleus (hey, that's the yolk!) and even osmosis (what happens when you drop a separated yolk into a super salt solution?).
It really is getting to be repetitive in our readings in both classes that the more sources of information we can bring into the class to relate to the children the better. With biology, you will have plenty of hands on experience opportunities, like John's egg idea, and that is exciting. And the goal setting is very important as we've read in Ed Psych this week. Like John said, we have to push them just the right amount to challenge them but not too much where they will fail and lose that confidence. This will be tricky and different for every student. I can't wait to try :)
Ha! I got it! Thanks John!
ReplyDeleteFirst off, glad I could help :)
ReplyDeleteI liked what you said about pushing students out of their comfort zone. I agree and think that is one of the challenges of being a good teacher - to keep them confident about their current ability and mastery of content while also challenging them just enough to help them push to the next level.
Also, my subject is also biology and I totally agree that we need to relate content from readings and our subject to the real world. I mean, what we're teaching is the science of the "real world", but it's not music videos, video games or junk food. I mean, cellular biology is not going to grab the attention of the average adolescent. So, again we are challenged to make the content relevant to their teenage world. How do we do this? Well, in talking about the cell I am going to bring eggs to school (hard boiled of course) since they are, in fact, one very large cell and something kids can relate to because, hopefully, they have all eaten one and perhaps cracked one open themselves. we can talk about cell membrane (why does the yolk not mix with the white?), nucleus (hey, that's the yolk!) and even osmosis (what happens when you drop a separated yolk into a super salt solution?).
It really is getting to be repetitive in our readings in both classes that the more sources of information we can bring into the class to relate to the children the better. With biology, you will have plenty of hands on experience opportunities, like John's egg idea, and that is exciting.
ReplyDeleteAnd the goal setting is very important as we've read in Ed Psych this week. Like John said, we have to push them just the right amount to challenge them but not too much where they will fail and lose that confidence. This will be tricky and different for every student. I can't wait to try :)
Hopefully repetitive in a good way--in that you are learning about these key concepts from different perspectives that spark different ideas!
ReplyDelete