Final Reflection
How can teachers incorporate individual interests and prior knowledge into coursework design?
Does engaging prior knowledge and interests promote students to become active constructors of their own knowledge and to foster a desire to become inquirers into their own learning?
In what ways did your teaching experience shed light on your original question?
In thinking about my teaching experience so far, I feel that I was able to answer a piece of my focus question. I believe that teachers can incorporate prior knowledge into coursework design by designing tasks that require students to engage existing knowledge in order to accomplish those tasks. While designing the activities for the four subject domains, I wanted students to use their existing knowledge as a foundation for engaging with the tasks presented to them. My idea was that experiencing these tasks would become more meaningful and would deepen understanding by engaging prior knowledge. Reflecting on my teaching experience, I believe that I was successful in incorporating prior knowledge into the lessons through task design.
For our literacy lesson, we decided to use students’ knowledge of the ‘original’ version of The Three Little Pigs as a basis for understanding sequencing. Although we were informed that students had learned about the folktale in kindergarten, we did a preliminary reading of the original version prior to our lesson to reestablish the master narrative. Culminating the lesson, students drew from their knowledge of this narrative to discuss the similarities and differences between the original version and post-modern version we read. Before reading The Story of Ruby Bridges during my social studies lesson, I asked students to draw on their knowledge of what it means to be brave, and summarized their thoughts using a web chart. My thought was that by asking students to describe the characteristics of someone who is brave, this task would act as a framework for understanding Ruby Bridges’s bravery. For science, we began our lesson by recapping students’ knowledge of an ecosystem on a web chart. Discussing their observations from the previous week prompted them to formulate revisions and questions, which led me to believe that the students were actively engaged in scientific thinking. For math, students utilized their existing knowledge of numbers, numerals, and addition to accomplish the lesson’s goal of creating numeric combinations.
In what ways did your experiences confirm and/or challenge your original beliefs?
While I feel that my lesson designs prompted students to use prior knowledge with the tasks presented to them, I found that it was more difficult to truly incorporate individual interests into the work. Interests are subjective, and having designed each lesson with a theme in mind, these themes were restrictive to one’s individual nature. I can ask an opinion of a student, such as to write abut a time when he or she was brave, and I can ask a student to design their own personal pizza, but these activities are still structured so that students have to work within the lesson’s boundaries.
Reflecting on my teaching practice led me to conclude that in order to truly incorporate individual interests, it is necessary to plan a long-lasting unit that allows for multiple layers of interaction. In Gardner and Zessoules’s article on authentic assessment, they discuss choreographer Ehlrich’s teaching practice. They write that “Such full-bodied experiences are not created accidentally. They are the result of careful layering of new and different frames of reference, at any one moment, challenging students to approach their work as maker, perceiver, and critic” (Gardner & Zessoules, 1991, p. 52). Structuring a unit so that it unfolds over the course of a few weeks or months would allow students to take on multiple roles and to build a more meaningful and personal understanding of what interests them. “Ehrlich wants her students to be artists and active learners: to take on the role of dancer, choreographer, and critic” (Gardner & Zessoules, 1991, p. 52). Giving students time to develop themselves within these roles is important in allowing them to learn how to assume responsibility for their learning. In order to position them as inquirers and discoverers, flexibility and flow are also important. The Dinosaur Project’s “development was unpredictable and emergent. It unfolded as a particular group of adults and children interacted, setting in motion a unique dynamic” (Rankin, 1998, p. 234). Students and teachers worked in unison as students’ questions guided the evolution of the project.
Reflecting on my teaching practice emphasized the role that teachers play as co-constructors of knowledge alongside students. In describing the Dinosaur Project, which took place over 4 months, Rankin writes that “The adults want to help children to set up a context in which the children can find their own questions and problems to explore. The goal is to help each individual and the group as a whole advance the construction and co-construction of knowledge” (1998, p. 219). Planning and enacting these lessons allowed me to see firsthand how my support affects and guides the students’ learning. I asked questions and helped students to problem solve in order for them to accomplish the tasks that I designed.
Gardner and Zessoules’s article about authentic assessment prompted me to reflect on the tasks that I designed and my role in assessing student learning through these tasks. They discuss transforming the role of assessment by integrating it into the daily experience of a classroom. “No longer a weapon for rooting out and combatting students’ weaknesses, assessment becomes an additional occasion for learning—a tool for students, as much as for teachers, parents, and administrators to discover strengths, possibilities, and future directions in students’ work. In this way, students are actively involved in an ongoing, educational process, capitalizing on the processes of authentic assessment to move forward in their work as active learners” (Gardner & Zessoules, 1991, p. 63). Asking students to evaluate their own work positions them as co-constructors of knowledge by holding them accountable to reflect on and to care about their educational progress.
Gillie’s article on cooperative learning was also very helpful in framing the practice of authentic assessments and for highlighting the importance of positive interdependence and paired learning in promoting individual accountability. Gilles writes that “The shared responsibility that positive interdependence creates within a group where individuals realize they are accountable to their peers for their efforts helps to increase their motivation to perform well” (Gillies, 2007, p. 39). In addition to group work, I believe that if a teacher encourages students to reflect their interests in the development of the project or long-term unit, then students will be more invested in their progress, and will further be motivated to become active participants in their learning.
In general, students have to want to learn, and have a desire to ask questions in order to further their understanding of whatever it is they are interested in. With a copious amount of academic requirements and rules, I wonder if students have the potential to become jaded as learners. I wonder if, in order to foster a student’s desire to become an inquirer into their own learning, the ethos of the school has to mirror the same mindset, or if it is possible to go against the structure of a school and ignite interest regardless of academic models and rigor. Does it become more difficult to engage students as they progress developmentally? Does an educational system that favors rewards enable a desire for students to want to learn, or does it defeat it?
In what ways did your experiences change your view of the question?
Reflecting on my lessons through the lens of my focusing question caused me to wonder how strong the connection is between engaging student interests and prior knowledge with students becoming co-constructors of their own learning. Instead of assuming there is a link between the two ideas and asking how teachers can promote students to adopt this inquiry approach to learning, I rephrased the question to ask if there is a connection between engaging interests and prior knowledge with developing this habit of mind. I believe that there is a strong correlation between the two ideas but that they are not interdependent. If fostering students’ desire to learn is the result of successfully engaging existing knowledge and interests, I wonder what other ways there are for students to become constructors of their own knowledge, and what other strategies teachers can offer that will spark a desire to learn in students.
What are the implications of this work for your teaching during Terms IV and V?
Since I believe that I can best engage a students’ individual interests through a long-term unit, I want to design interconnected lessons that will fold together into a unit that enables students to tailor the activities to their interests. My goal for these upcoming terms is to create lessons where students can design their own goals and objectives for learning. I want to enable students to create their own proposals and to become accountable for their progress by teaching them how to monitor and evaluate themselves individually and as a group. Using journals will help students to reflect on their progress and will also act as a documentation of their feelings towards their projects over a period of time.
What goals do you have for your teaching during these upcoming terms?
I want to use photography as the primary tool for enabling student learning and individual interests. My goal is to structure lessons so that students can be exposed to and take advantage of the conceptual and literal benefits that photography has to offer as a tool. Using its possibilities as a loose framework for lesson design, my goal is to engage students’ prior knowledge and individual interests by using photography as a tool for igniting creativity and self-reflection, and, in turn, to position students as co-constructors of their educational experience.
Does engaging prior knowledge and interests promote students to become active constructors of their own knowledge and to foster a desire to become inquirers into their own learning?
In what ways did your teaching experience shed light on your original question?
In thinking about my teaching experience so far, I feel that I was able to answer a piece of my focus question. I believe that teachers can incorporate prior knowledge into coursework design by designing tasks that require students to engage existing knowledge in order to accomplish those tasks. While designing the activities for the four subject domains, I wanted students to use their existing knowledge as a foundation for engaging with the tasks presented to them. My idea was that experiencing these tasks would become more meaningful and would deepen understanding by engaging prior knowledge. Reflecting on my teaching experience, I believe that I was successful in incorporating prior knowledge into the lessons through task design.
For our literacy lesson, we decided to use students’ knowledge of the ‘original’ version of The Three Little Pigs as a basis for understanding sequencing. Although we were informed that students had learned about the folktale in kindergarten, we did a preliminary reading of the original version prior to our lesson to reestablish the master narrative. Culminating the lesson, students drew from their knowledge of this narrative to discuss the similarities and differences between the original version and post-modern version we read. Before reading The Story of Ruby Bridges during my social studies lesson, I asked students to draw on their knowledge of what it means to be brave, and summarized their thoughts using a web chart. My thought was that by asking students to describe the characteristics of someone who is brave, this task would act as a framework for understanding Ruby Bridges’s bravery. For science, we began our lesson by recapping students’ knowledge of an ecosystem on a web chart. Discussing their observations from the previous week prompted them to formulate revisions and questions, which led me to believe that the students were actively engaged in scientific thinking. For math, students utilized their existing knowledge of numbers, numerals, and addition to accomplish the lesson’s goal of creating numeric combinations.
In what ways did your experiences confirm and/or challenge your original beliefs?
While I feel that my lesson designs prompted students to use prior knowledge with the tasks presented to them, I found that it was more difficult to truly incorporate individual interests into the work. Interests are subjective, and having designed each lesson with a theme in mind, these themes were restrictive to one’s individual nature. I can ask an opinion of a student, such as to write abut a time when he or she was brave, and I can ask a student to design their own personal pizza, but these activities are still structured so that students have to work within the lesson’s boundaries.
Reflecting on my teaching practice led me to conclude that in order to truly incorporate individual interests, it is necessary to plan a long-lasting unit that allows for multiple layers of interaction. In Gardner and Zessoules’s article on authentic assessment, they discuss choreographer Ehlrich’s teaching practice. They write that “Such full-bodied experiences are not created accidentally. They are the result of careful layering of new and different frames of reference, at any one moment, challenging students to approach their work as maker, perceiver, and critic” (Gardner & Zessoules, 1991, p. 52). Structuring a unit so that it unfolds over the course of a few weeks or months would allow students to take on multiple roles and to build a more meaningful and personal understanding of what interests them. “Ehrlich wants her students to be artists and active learners: to take on the role of dancer, choreographer, and critic” (Gardner & Zessoules, 1991, p. 52). Giving students time to develop themselves within these roles is important in allowing them to learn how to assume responsibility for their learning. In order to position them as inquirers and discoverers, flexibility and flow are also important. The Dinosaur Project’s “development was unpredictable and emergent. It unfolded as a particular group of adults and children interacted, setting in motion a unique dynamic” (Rankin, 1998, p. 234). Students and teachers worked in unison as students’ questions guided the evolution of the project.
Reflecting on my teaching practice emphasized the role that teachers play as co-constructors of knowledge alongside students. In describing the Dinosaur Project, which took place over 4 months, Rankin writes that “The adults want to help children to set up a context in which the children can find their own questions and problems to explore. The goal is to help each individual and the group as a whole advance the construction and co-construction of knowledge” (1998, p. 219). Planning and enacting these lessons allowed me to see firsthand how my support affects and guides the students’ learning. I asked questions and helped students to problem solve in order for them to accomplish the tasks that I designed.
Gardner and Zessoules’s article about authentic assessment prompted me to reflect on the tasks that I designed and my role in assessing student learning through these tasks. They discuss transforming the role of assessment by integrating it into the daily experience of a classroom. “No longer a weapon for rooting out and combatting students’ weaknesses, assessment becomes an additional occasion for learning—a tool for students, as much as for teachers, parents, and administrators to discover strengths, possibilities, and future directions in students’ work. In this way, students are actively involved in an ongoing, educational process, capitalizing on the processes of authentic assessment to move forward in their work as active learners” (Gardner & Zessoules, 1991, p. 63). Asking students to evaluate their own work positions them as co-constructors of knowledge by holding them accountable to reflect on and to care about their educational progress.
Gillie’s article on cooperative learning was also very helpful in framing the practice of authentic assessments and for highlighting the importance of positive interdependence and paired learning in promoting individual accountability. Gilles writes that “The shared responsibility that positive interdependence creates within a group where individuals realize they are accountable to their peers for their efforts helps to increase their motivation to perform well” (Gillies, 2007, p. 39). In addition to group work, I believe that if a teacher encourages students to reflect their interests in the development of the project or long-term unit, then students will be more invested in their progress, and will further be motivated to become active participants in their learning.
In general, students have to want to learn, and have a desire to ask questions in order to further their understanding of whatever it is they are interested in. With a copious amount of academic requirements and rules, I wonder if students have the potential to become jaded as learners. I wonder if, in order to foster a student’s desire to become an inquirer into their own learning, the ethos of the school has to mirror the same mindset, or if it is possible to go against the structure of a school and ignite interest regardless of academic models and rigor. Does it become more difficult to engage students as they progress developmentally? Does an educational system that favors rewards enable a desire for students to want to learn, or does it defeat it?
In what ways did your experiences change your view of the question?
Reflecting on my lessons through the lens of my focusing question caused me to wonder how strong the connection is between engaging student interests and prior knowledge with students becoming co-constructors of their own learning. Instead of assuming there is a link between the two ideas and asking how teachers can promote students to adopt this inquiry approach to learning, I rephrased the question to ask if there is a connection between engaging interests and prior knowledge with developing this habit of mind. I believe that there is a strong correlation between the two ideas but that they are not interdependent. If fostering students’ desire to learn is the result of successfully engaging existing knowledge and interests, I wonder what other ways there are for students to become constructors of their own knowledge, and what other strategies teachers can offer that will spark a desire to learn in students.
What are the implications of this work for your teaching during Terms IV and V?
Since I believe that I can best engage a students’ individual interests through a long-term unit, I want to design interconnected lessons that will fold together into a unit that enables students to tailor the activities to their interests. My goal for these upcoming terms is to create lessons where students can design their own goals and objectives for learning. I want to enable students to create their own proposals and to become accountable for their progress by teaching them how to monitor and evaluate themselves individually and as a group. Using journals will help students to reflect on their progress and will also act as a documentation of their feelings towards their projects over a period of time.
What goals do you have for your teaching during these upcoming terms?
I want to use photography as the primary tool for enabling student learning and individual interests. My goal is to structure lessons so that students can be exposed to and take advantage of the conceptual and literal benefits that photography has to offer as a tool. Using its possibilities as a loose framework for lesson design, my goal is to engage students’ prior knowledge and individual interests by using photography as a tool for igniting creativity and self-reflection, and, in turn, to position students as co-constructors of their educational experience.