Students are not robots
When teaching sometimes we can get
wrapped up in the pressure of tests, standards, and goals. It would be a lot
less stressful if we could send the information in an email to the students and
they would be automatically programed to know and use the data. Unfortunately
that is not how the human mind works. Also when teachers become rushed and
stressed they focus on moving forward and being efficient and “fun” activities
can be sacrificed. When having fun students are actively engaged and this
allows their minds to make more connections and file this information away more
permanently. One mistake that I believe teachers can make with this theory is
that they focus too much on fun. With all the theories and methods in teaching
balance is key. If I was to base most of my lessons on if they were fun or not
I would need to keep in mind a few things. First of all, I need to have a
strong enough classroom management system that will keep my students focus and
keep order and control in the classroom. Also if the lesson content heavy
enough that the students are learning while having fun not just playing around.
One way teachers can monitor this is by being actively involved. If you are
going to assign a hands on fun lesson and then sit at your desk you are being
no more productive than the teacher who scares their students into learning
using no fun. I believe that it is also important the when including fun into a
lesson you need to know where your students prior knowledge ends. This prior knowledge
needs to be on the type of fun you are having, game or activity you are
playing, and content knowledge. If you assign a matching game with words that
are 3 levels above your students and content they haven’t learned you have
completely lost the lesson. However the same goes for the activity. Especially
as years go on certain activities that may be common knowledge to the teacher
may be completely foreign for the student. Just as we assess for content
knowledge we need to pre-assess for where the “fun level” exists in our
classrooms.
1 comment:
What I take from this, is that it is crucial to establish a happy medium between content and fun. By interrelating these two, students become actively engaged and experience meaningful learning that they can relate to.
I'm glad that you commented on the appropriateness of content to match each child's ability level. To avoid frustrating or boring children, teachers can differentiate their lesson by implementing a sufficient diagnostic assessment.
Content learning has the potential to be fun, as long as the teacher is willing to put in the extra time and effort to make it fun!
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