I felt that we were treated to another valuable presentation tonight on the subject of Discovery Learning. Please post reflections here, Thanks, Dr. Andy
Tonight I have learned about discovery learning from the presentation from Evan and Sister Rose. It made me feel so regret for Thai students, due to Thai education system and curriculum in some schools & institutions, it is a traditional instruction (passive learning) in my opinion I would say that it might be a pitfall to develop Thai student to get deep understanding, to discover fact and relationships that they have learned and also apply or interact with their real life by using new knowledge.
Applications:
1) Evan has showed us benefits of discovery learning; to promote deep learning, to encourage active engagement and to help student to remember things that they have learned. As Dr.Andy had a comment that Evan has demonstrated a good technique of presentation by using 1 quote for 1 topic and I think I can apply it for my training class as well. For example, using the quote “He who fails to plan, plans to fail” to increase awareness of sales team to do call planning before they getting into the field.
2) Sister Rose has shared many techniques of discovery learning to us. I like the last activity the most, when I was a child I learned about solid-liquid-air but I didn’t feel I get it as the class tonight so I think even adult learning, it needs discovery learning method and it will be a tailored learning experience which will be suitable for adult needs as well.
3) Another comment from Dr.Andy on a negative word when we put some topic, some story on slide and we say that we will not talk too much detail about it, it can induce audiences to stop listening! I think it was very practical comment because I used this negative statement many times and I haven’t paid attention on it before.
So thank you Evan and Sister Rose for your presentation and thank you Dr.Andy for your constructive comments
Every child loves to discover, explore, invent, create, etc. That is the core of discovery learning which we all learned about and enjoyed last evening through Eva and Sister Rose’s presentation. I think it all really hit home for everyone when we all engaged in a very exciting and stimulating hands-on experiment at the end of the presentation with the corn starch and water. Seeing the excitement and awe on everyone’s faces was really cool and really motivated me to think again about how I can try to get that kind of reaction out of my students daily in the classroom. I loved the quote about our innate curiosity and inquisitiveness. That is so true. It is our natural and instinctive desire to want to know and to be curious about the world around us and how it works. It is every student’s natural desire to want to learn. It is our job as teachers to create that kind of environment for discovery learning. Children need to be given the opportunity as much as possible to solve problems, explore, and create in situations that are authentic and real life to them. Then their natural instinctive desire to discover and learn will grow by leaps and bounds and real and effective learning will inevitably take place. The key is the students MUST be involved! Thanks for the presentation…
Application: 1. We need to create an environment in our classrooms that is conducive to discovering, exploring, creating, and finding solutions to real world problems. This must be incorporated into our lesson planning and classroom activities.
2. I personally want to make every effort possible to incorporate many more hands on science experiments into my science classes to make the classes a lot more interesting and real. I want the students to be actively involved in the learning process rather than me just showing them.
3. I also want to develop more real life math projects that students will cooperatively work together on that relate to real life situations that they are facing or will face in the future. If I give more opportunities for my students to discover real meaning in math by allowing them to use it in authentic problem solving situations and projects then they will be much more excited to learn math, and they will learn it more effectively because they are doing it.
Last night Evan and Sister Rose had presented about a topic that all of us are looking for in applying it in our classrooms – “Discovery Learning”. This topic really caught my attention as Sister Rose started off with a very emotional and touching story about the perfect heart. I really like the area where Evan spoke about the Quote “Teach and they forget, show and they remember and involve / engage and they never forget”. With the discussion in class all of us as teachers would love the last part that is – involve / engage and they never forget, as we would want our students to be engage in the classroom and also want them to remember things. Last but not the least is the activity we did last night with the corn starch and water, everyone was very excited and everyone was wondering what the outcome will be but when our group was in the process it suddenly struck me that when I hold the mixture in my hand it melts. That is when I realized that this is something I discovered myself and therefore it is discovery learning. Applications:
1) Discovery learning- it helps to encourage active engagement and to help student to remember things that they have learned.
2) Create our classroom environment in such a way to encourage discovery learning, it could actually be an outdoor activity too.
3) The activity used by the presenters last night could actually be tried and the results might actually be different than what we experienced last night.
Discovery learning promotes that it is best for learners to discover facts and concepts for themselves. Evan and Sister Rose modeled the discovery learning by corn-starch, water, and food coloring activity. At first most of us had no clue what we were supposed to do, and we mixed the corn-starch with water and added food coloring, but no knowing what to expect next. We added more water and food coloring until we got a mixture and noticed its unusual consistency. It was fun and promoted motivation for all of us.
Application: 1) Evan put this quote which I believe is a Chinese proverb ”Tell me and I’ll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I’ll understand” on the powerpoint and we discussed for a while. I believe that all three points (Tell, Show, and Involve) are necessary in teaching and learning. I teach Grade 1 and without clear directions, students are often lost and they get frustrated easily. That’s why I have to give clear instructions first; then demonstrate/model the lessons, and then give students opportunities to get involved in the lessons. 2) I will use more concept attainment lessons in my class. They are direction instructions; however I believe concept attainment approaches promote critical thinking skills of the students. 3) I will definitely try corn-starch, water, and food coloring activity with my students when we do Science unit on matters.
We were treated to another very informative presentation. I feel as though I am cheating because after every presentation I identify how Olivier and I need to change our ideas for our presentation to include the new information we learn each week. I was very engaged throughout the presentation and appreciated the chance to move around the classroom and get my hands dirty with the goo at the end.
Applications:
1. After watching the video of the presentation I was very impressed with how Sister Rose introduced the final activity. Had it been me I would have been very tempted to specify how much flour and water to add (obviously this is counter to the idea of discovery). I know sometimes due to time constraints I tend to instruct the students rather than let them discover the ideas for themselves. If you watch the video you can see how concise Sister Rose is without being too detailed.
2. It was great to see all us ‘mature’ students having so much fun with the goo. If we loved it I can imagine what a hit it will be for the students. Sister Rose’s explanation about how the molecules get crushed together and then allowed to separate really supported her ideas on state of matter. I believe trusting in our students desire to learn and providing them the best possible environment to achieve this is an area I need to improve on.
3. It seemed quite appropriate that the presentation on discovery learning followed the creativity presentation. I thought the slides and the activities were very imaginative and really highlighted the points Sister Rose and Evan wanted to make. So obviously as teacher we need to remember the importance of creativity.
Last lesson guided me to one of the powerful method that helps learners to develop cognitive skills effectively. Applying this method encourages teachers to find out the suitable way to meet the different needs of learners and learners know how to learn and they are able to learn more with the help of teachers.
Discovery learning enable learners to imagine and to link what they are learning with the existing knowledge to become their own knowledge when they understand the problem while applying to real situation. Teachers as a role of facilitator and coach with their hints guide learners step by step to discover the coming new things. Beside the successful, teachers and learners do not deny the fail because defeat is the mother of success.
Application :
1. Cognitive skills help me find out the talents of learners and empower learners to spread their potential. As a teacher so I wish that through each presented lesson learners love studying.
2. Requirement of teacher’s patient to this method is unconditional because if I believe that learners can do successfully then they will believe themselves.
3. The internal desire of each person is very powerful. Teachers desire learners to understand and do what they are taught, in turn, learners have desired to discover and to show their talents. I am going to give learners more chances to practice but I myself have to be a self-learner in order to guide them to go the right direction.
Discovery learning is a constructivist approach which lets our students learn by doing by themselves. It’s been proved that students are more likely to remember when they learn concepts by discovering themselves. Rather than loading the kids with lots of mere facts, it’s essential to get them try, work on their own solutions and build their own understanding. Especially in Science teaching, Discovery learning is a must I can say. It’s the best approach to get my students attention on Science learning and get them have fun while learning. Obviously the teacher has to have a role of guidance all through the learning process but it’s the student that has to make the meaning by him or herself.
My applications:
1) Assign my students a term project to find out many different ways and procedures of application, in order to prove any fact that they are interested in Science.
2) In order to get all my students (even the non-academic ones) enjoy the Science classes and get involved, I will make sure to spend enough time on their own learning by doing.
3) Try to improve myself on learning the ways of being an effective teacher as a guide, in my students discovery and inquiry based learning.
Please note that the reflection three places above this post is Ben's. He was working on some videos for the class using my youtube account and the post came up under my name as a result. By the way, relating to Ben's comments, it's not cheating to incorporate the lessons learned from others as we go along with these presentations. It's smart, and exactly what we should be doing. Thanks, Dr. Andy
My Reflection : Everything begins with curiosity. That will lead us to want to know. In order to know, we have to research to find out. Everyday I discover new things that I can learn. Often time something that is very simple and ordinary like, "breathing air" that I do routinely each day, but the "ah-ha" moment came, I realized how much breathing that I took in everyday, every hour, and every minute in order to live. Yet, sometimes I took for granted.
There are so many ways that I’ve learned. Everyday is a new adventure for me. As I was preparing for this presentation, every time I research, I found new methods or approaches about discovery learning. It's exciting to find many ways of discovery learning that could help me to met different need of learners in my classroom. I will definitely use guided discovery learning and web quest often in my lessons. Once in awhile I use open discovery learning with my older students. I use this method not only in Science, in writing, in math, but with Bible learning as well. With discovery learning I kept my students motivated, engaged, working cooperatively with one another, get excited about the outcome of their findings. So it's important that I will act as facilitator, to ask open-ended questions that helps my students to come up with their own inquiry, guide them through to do research, to discuss in their group, to find solutions, and to write their report to share with the large group or to publish it/display it on the bulletin board or even in our school monthly and quarterly newsletters. They are proud of their original work. It helps them to take ownership of their learning and get involve.
Applications: 1. It's very tempting to give the answer or the solution to my students rather than use open-ended or guided questions to help my students to think on their own. As a facilitator, I need to model my motivations and much patience, and focus in order to help my students to go through a discovery learning process rather than just give them my only view or others solution but be able to think for themselves as well.
2. Writing workshop is also part of the discovery learning. I use this method to teach in my religion classes. There are wonderful results.
3. As I researching on this topic, it's not only had helped me to teach effectively, but I also gained more knowledge that I could use for my thesis as well.
Discovery learning is such a creative and enjoyable teaching method which engages students in learning. I think it is true that “understanding is like discovering.” The feeling of “I got it!” is much more powerful if students find out the meaning by doing things by themselves rather than simply being told the fact. When they get involved in the process of finding out something, they can also remember and understand much better. I thought applying discovery learning in my teaching might be difficult since I teach Japanese language, not science or math. However, as I saw the presentation and understood more about discovery learning, I could think of some ways to incorporate the ideas of discovery learning in my own situation. 3 applications 1) Compared to English, Japanese language is quite indirect and requires people to infer the meaning and read between the lines. When my students encounter such a sentence with abstract meaning, they ask me “what does it exactly mean?” I would first let them guess the meaning, asking “What do you think it means?” I would like my students to be in the process of discovering the meaning. 2) When my students start more advanced readings, they often get so confused because they cannot get the meanings. They understand each difficult word using a dictionary, but they cannot get it as a sentence or a paragraph. As Evan did in the presentation, I think it is a good idea to show one quote or sentence and let students discuss the meaning of it. In this way, my students can practice reading between the lines in more complex and abstract readings. 3) When I teach grammar, I can guide them to discover the target grammar rules. This will be difficult for total beginners, but as they get some knowledge of Japanese language, they become able to guess the new rules to be applied using their prior knowledge of grammar.
First of all,thank you so much to Evan and Sister Rose for a fantastic presentation. Evan and Sister Rose taught us discovery learning.I have learned about Guided Discovery Learning for Skills Instruction:1.Define a task/skill 2.Experimentation 3. Be a kid-watcher 4.Target Skill- Real world problems/ activities 5.Teach sub-skills (mini-lessons) 6. Review and record each day 7.Writing instruction – whole language a. immerse children in real writing b.Give feedback.I was very interested in corn-starch, water, and food coloring activity.This activity let everyone feel excited.
Application: 1.Student Activities ,it could be releasing potential and divergent thinking of student. It's could be use in any level teaching.
2.Every language is unique.They usually have different grammar and use of vocabulary.When I teach chinese, I aways make my students have worked hard on learning a lot of vocabulary by translating them into Chinese.I thought it was a good idea to build up their vocabulary in order to read and write better.
3.When we presentation,We can use body language,made class became a lot fun and interested.If we aways speak by ourself ,people whom listen us easy feel boring.
After lending my ears to Evan and Sr. Rose's presentation, I came to realize that discovery learning is critically significant in effective learning. It is undeniable that through discovering, students can further explore the reality of facts relating to their subjects. In addition, they can enhance their deep learning, metacognitive skills, engagement and critical thinking skills by discovering. In fact discovery learning process is beneficial to all students because they ask questions connecting to their subjects matter among each other, investigate the posibilities of solutions, discuss the tentative solutions together, create a decisive answer and reflect the outcome.
Applications.
1. First of all I will convince my students that curiosity is not a sin. 2. Then I will give my students a chance to go beyond their old learning styles to find out something new. 3. Ultimately I will clarify the new finding until students totally understand the subject by involving with them.
Last lesson Evan and Sister Rose showed us a fantasitic presentation.I real learned more knowledges about "discovery learning" from their presentation.After their presentation i understood that "Discovery Learning is a method of inquiry-based instruction and is considered a constructivist based approach to education." At the begining,they told us a story about the "broken heart",i think it's a good way to induct the course.And they devise a littele game about to find the partner's things.So,we all understand the visual meanning of the "Discovery Learning".I think it makes the course fun and can help students to know the knowledge in the interesting.And then,they introduced the Discovery Learning Theory about Dr.Jerome Bruner.(The keywords of this theory is Inquiry-based learning,constructivism).In that theory we can know more about the discovery learning. There is a question i thought deeply of this presentation.The question is "Tell me and i forget,show me and i rememeber,involue me and i understand."In the presentation many classmates to chose the "involue me and i enderstand" this sentence,but i like this sentence better--"show me and i remember".Caused of when i was a child,i learned the piano about 10 years.In my opinion,when i learn a new skill of the piano,whatever teacher told me how many times,but when the teacher show me 1 time,i can understand. My teacher tell me the point of the skill and involue me better.But i felt the important thing is to show me.When i watch the teacher how to do and i can understand.It's real important to me.
Applications: 1.A fantasitic beginning. I felt there's so important of a successful class.I think at a front of a class,there's something fun is easy to catch the attention of the students.So, when we strat a class the beginning is very important. 2.Some easy activities is very useful for a successful class. In a class,not only teacher to teach and student to study, we can make some activities in the calss.In the activities, student could understand the visual meanning of the knowledges.But i think the best activities is proper and easy. 3.Group team.I think it real important for educatioin.The student must to learn how to get on with each other.So in the education we make some group team to finish some work.In the group team,student have to finish thire work with other group memebers,they are not alone,ther must cooperate with the partner.
Discovery Learning is an inquiry-based learning method. As Seymour Papert said that you can't teach people everything they need to know. The best you can do is position them where they can find what they need to know when they need to know it. Discovery learning takes place most notably in problem solving situations where the learner draws on his own experience and prior knowledge to discover the truths that are to be learned. It is a personal, internal, constructivist learning environment. Bruner wrote, “Emphasis on discovery in learning has precisely the effect on the learner of leading him to be a constructionist, to organize what he is encountering in a manner not only designed to discover regularity and relatedness, but also to avoid the kind of information drift that fails to keep account of the uses to which information might have to be put.”
Application - Discovery learning can use in a widely scope as science, math, natural science, chemistry, biology, physics or geographical research and so on.
- Definitely,it's make the learner have more deeply impression for something they are learned through the process of discovery, namely, found out the problem, research and sloving the problem.
- Discovery learning can help the learner developing divergent thinking and tap their potential.
Hi everyone. First of all, I want to thank everyone for the cooperation you've shown last time during our “Discovery Learning” presentation. I, myself discovered so many things out of it. Like for one, I discovered that this experience will prove to be an excellent tool in our upcoming thesis defense by next year, and with this, thank you Dr. Andy. Once again, discovery learning is a powerful way to learn as it engages and builds the learners curiosity. It actually helps them to actively use their critical thinking, intuition, imagination, thus, leading them to be more creative and be able to construct the understanding of the concepts on their own. DL (discovery learning) first exposes learners to experience skills, concepts, and explore with the teacher guidance, then students determine the concept or principles on their own. Teacher presents small bits of information along the way, only as necessary. Teacher may give hints, modeling, questions, etc., but he/she should have an objective or a purpose in mind first and create the learning experience to guide learners toward DISCOVERY. As I've said, DL is not- fishing around. There should be enough planning to bring the learners towards specific goal. DL comes in a variety of forms and structures, so that, each one takes careful planning. Socratic questioning is a type of guided DL- it is where the teacher asks a particular type of thinking to bring students toward a realization, however, it does require learners to have sufficient background knowledge. The other type of guided DL is the concept attainment where the teacher provides examples of the concept and non-examples or the differences until the learners will be able to create their own concept map. Inquiry-based learning- “Tell me and I forget, show me and I remember, involve me and I understand.” In reality, the last part of this adage is the true essence of inquiry-based learning. Through inquiry-based learning, learners are involve that leads to understanding, they seek resolutions to questions/issues, while they learn or construct new knowledge which is related to meta-cognitive (learning about learning). Web Quests discovery learning- the beauty of web quests is that they are flexible, in the sense that, teachers can use it in so many ways. A single question would require learners to analyze a vast array of information. This helps a lot in letting them find researches related to their topic. It also provides strategies for working in a group situations. Through web quests learners become more competent in using the technology, which, I should say is a must in the 21st century. Problem-based learning- it is where the teacher immersed the learners into a problem situation. It is a truly student centered and open-ended, since learners developed problem solving skills/reasoning skills where the role is relevant to real-life issues. Moreover, learners come to adapt new knowledge while involving themselves in the situation.
Note: Going back to what I had presented about the concepts of Expository Teaching and Discovery Learning, it would be best if we can utilize them both in our classroom. Good teachers do not fixate on anyone particular teaching methods or strategy. Dr. Andy would be adding some more information on this by tomorrow.
My Applications: 1)I will allow my students to learn by asking questions and giving them something to ponder on later. This will give room for them to think and learn what they ought to know in the future. I believed that by using this teaching strategy, information are likely to be retained and they become life-long learners at the end. 2)Even in teaching English, researches are very important. In my class, I am giving them a simple presentation (by groups) and visuals related to my lessons, like: British vs. American English, How to improve your listening and speaking skills, etc. Class discussion will follow including questions/inquiries after the presentation. 3)When I plan for my upcoming lessons, I should ask myself and set goals when reflecting on discovery learning thing, like, how do I involve and encourage my students to be active learners? How do I incorporate a way for my students to discover the knowledge by themselves? Actually, I've written this on the cover of my record book, a reminder for me to ponder on every time I prepare my lessons.
Relating to the reflections above, first of all, well done, it seems there was a great deal learned by everybody and for that I am most thankful not only to Evan and Sister Rose, but to all of you for being willing to stretch yourselves and try out new ideas. There are a couple of topics I would like to touch on in my intro tonight, so help me remember if it slips my mind to talk about 'false dichotomies' in education, using some of the concepts from the discovery learning presentation, and also the role of structure in some of the processes we have been using. See you all in class, Thanks, Dr. Andy
Week 6 we talk about “discovery learning ”,Ms Evan and sister Rose gave good presentation and a real “discovery ” activity .The theme of this presentation that enlightenment me is :tell me ,I forget it ,show me ,I remember it , involve me I understand . I can’t forget my ancient history teacher’s discovery teaching –learning strategies .He emphasize 4 Q (four questions )at first ,when we learning ,we were suggested to With questions to study .our teacher didn’t gave much presentation ,we must do research and got the answer by self or with group .for example ,our teacher told us ,next week ,we will talk about” collapse of the Tang dynasty”, there are 4 questions we have to considered :when (what time ),why (why The tang dynasty was collapsed),what (what events happened ),what (what influence to next dynasty). With these questions every group taken acting .we can went to library to check data ,or research some media material ,or some unofficial history …..whatever ,next week ,every group publication their answers , at the same time ,we can share result each other ,because usually each group’s has wonderful and particular viewpoints for the “why “and last “what “.Beyond doubt, all students like best subject is ancient history and have best performance , gained most knowledge and never forget. Application : 1,Give students enough space to free action .discovery learning need action ,free thinking space and curiosity. Must to Avoid teacher control all the details and whole class time . 2, Don’t afraid adventure. Teachers and students adventure together in the “discovery learning “process deserves recommendation sometime . most time we can get Surprising discovery and Satisfactory outcome s. 3,when we implement discovery teaching-learning ,as a teacher ,we have to definiteness of purpose to work at first and let students free action in the process .
Thank you to Sister Rose and Evan very much for last week’s presentation. It was evident that they had put a lot of research, thought and preparation into it. I started last Tuesday’s session with the thought of ‘creativity in the curriculum’ still in my head and I feel like ‘discovery learning’ was the perfect topic to follow up with. I had been wondering all week how I would really be more creative in my approach to teaching, and how I would encourage the students to be more creative too. Thanks to Sister Rose and Even I feel I have a new tool with which to do this, ‘Enquiry Based Learning’. The Enquiry Based Learning cycle is where students see learning as a process or ‘cycle’ which uses a sequence of stages in order to gain new knowledge. The sequence is as follows: ask-Investigate-create-discuss-reflect. During the week I have realized this is a cycle I have, in part, been already using. As I teach Art, the ask, investigate, create aspect of the cycle fit very well, but often I do not factor in time for the discussion or reflective practices. I feel that the presentation has helped to bring into focus the importance of these 2 stages in the learning process. Thank you! Applications: 1. Build time into lessons/curriculum to discuss and reflect on ideas and outcomes. 2. Consider how ‘reflective practice outcomes’ can be used as a catalyst to start a new Enquiry Based Learning cycle. 3. PowerPoint slides using short quotes are a powerful way to introduce or stimulate debate. Consider this for my forthcoming presentation.
The best way to study is developing by myself. Telling is a teaching way, and it is also a studying way. But too much telling would deprive students of their delighting in studying. It is not a good way to teach and study. I am sure everybody agree with me. Because everyone know it is really different between telling a secret and developing a secret, they are not to be mentioned in the same breath. It can remind people of the best memories of the past by developing, and knowledge can be remember for a so long time. It is the best interpretation of leaning, isn’t it? So, to be a teacher, I’d better make sure students enjoying in my class. I can not deprive of their delighting in the studying. I was a terrible teacher, because I just telling students everything they should study, include the punctuation marks. When they seemed not interested in it, I felt very angry with them. I thought I paid all my time to them, but they can not understand, they looked as the plastic film, I mean, they did not take in water. After this class, I feel I need change. Thank you so much my dear sisters, you taught me so much. And thanks Andy gave us these useful topic, that I can get knowledge from different way.
Thank you for a very wonderful and engaging presentation Evan and Siter Rosa! Dr. Andy 's comments guided and enlightened as usual! Discovery learning is indeed important as was demostrated by the lecture and our in class experiment!
1. Actual participation and implementation in the knowledge being presented does indeed enforce and more importantly reinforces preexisting knowledge.
2. Furthermore any new knowledge is augmented and enhanced in its depth and content by discovery learning. The actual knowledge becomes very memorable and relevant.
3. The practicablilty and application (Or lack of application as our in class experiment demonstrates) only will make the information being presented be learned to a vastly greater depth it will remain lasting!
As such I believe that finding the right material and created an evironement and also a lesson plan or indeed a curriculum would make discovery llearning a superior means and method to teach! I will try to incorporate more in the future!
Both Evan and Sister Rose presented well although both had different techniques of presentation which made it more interesting. Discovery learning is something everyone has to go through, irrespective of one's profession, age, etc. My applications are:
1. Teachers need to clarify students that students need to make the effort to learn and not only teachers teaching so that they learn. In Thailand, many teachers have the tendency to be over lenient with the students, which is good sometimes but if you want a strong learner, sometimes you need to step things up.
2. This gets REALLY annoying, especially since I have many siblings and they day and night question me regarding all the doubts they have while learning. Honestly, when I'm really busy it gets annoying to an extent but the truth is, this is how they learn. Encouraging students to ask "WHY" makes the teachers life difficult but in the long run you end up getting a brilliant student!
3. With so much information available on the internet, students don't have to go through extensive research to find articles etc, but now the main focus is for them to know how to mould it to fit the requirements. When students are told to create, they need to have that drive in themselves which pushes them to think beyond and all that mainly a teacher can encourage.
It was another interesting and informative session, and Sister Rose and Evan did a very good presentation of the topic. I really learned a lot and enjoyed the activities, especially the goo. This was an excellent hands-on activity which everybody seemed to enjoy, which I am sure will be a hit with the students. Another thing that struck me was the quote “ tell me and I forget, show me and I remember, involve me and I understand”. This is really true, not only inside a classroom, but also in real life situations . The person who had experience by himself certain information or knowledge will probably acquire such skill or expertise compared to those who have just heard or seen it from others. I believe that discovery learning will be more effective in teaching mathematics if this will coupled with spiral curriculum. As every math teacher believes, Mathematics requires mastery of foundational steps in order to build upon them. Without such mastery or foundation students will not be prepared to solve new and complex problems. My applications are as follows. 1. I will always remember the part of the quote “involve me and I remember”. I will make every example and activity in my classes, as much as possible, more hands-on and involve my students. 2. I will use more often the problem- based learning model to give my students the opportunity to explore and learn by themselves the idea or goal behind the topic. But, of course, I will make sure they know or learn beforehand the basics or the foundations needed to solve the problem, otherwise they might get frustrated when they fail to solve the given problem. 3. In relation to above applications, I will make the activities and problem-based learning challenges more authentic which my students can apply or observe in real-life situations to make them more interested in the topic and in Math, as a whole. Thank you. Emil
Tonight I have learned about discovery learning from the presentation from Evan and Sister Rose. It made me feel so regret for Thai students, due to Thai education system and curriculum in some schools & institutions, it is a traditional instruction (passive learning) in my opinion I would say that it might be a pitfall to develop Thai student to get deep understanding, to discover fact and relationships that they have learned and also apply or interact with their real life by using new knowledge.
ReplyDeleteApplications:
1) Evan has showed us benefits of discovery learning; to promote deep learning, to encourage active engagement and to help student to remember things that they have learned. As Dr.Andy had a comment that Evan has demonstrated a good technique of presentation by using 1 quote for 1 topic and I think I can apply it for my training class as well. For example, using the quote “He who fails to plan, plans to fail” to increase awareness of sales team to do call planning before they getting into the field.
2) Sister Rose has shared many techniques of discovery learning to us. I like the last activity the most, when I was a child I learned about solid-liquid-air but I didn’t feel I get it as the class tonight so I think even adult learning, it needs discovery learning method and it will be a tailored learning experience which will be suitable for adult needs as well.
3) Another comment from Dr.Andy on a negative word when we put some topic, some story on slide and we say that we will not talk too much detail about it, it can induce audiences to stop listening! I think it was very practical comment because I used this negative statement many times and I haven’t paid attention on it before.
So thank you Evan and Sister Rose for your presentation and thank you Dr.Andy for your constructive comments
Gina
Every child loves to discover, explore, invent, create, etc. That is the core of discovery learning which we all learned about and enjoyed last evening through Eva and Sister Rose’s presentation. I think it all really hit home for everyone when we all engaged in a very exciting and stimulating hands-on experiment at the end of the presentation with the corn starch and water. Seeing the excitement and awe on everyone’s faces was really cool and really motivated me to think again about how I can try to get that kind of reaction out of my students daily in the classroom. I loved the quote about our innate curiosity and inquisitiveness. That is so true. It is our natural and instinctive desire to want to know and to be curious about the world around us and how it works. It is every student’s natural desire to want to learn. It is our job as teachers to create that kind of environment for discovery learning. Children need to be given the opportunity as much as possible to solve problems, explore, and create in situations that are authentic and real life to them. Then their natural instinctive desire to discover and learn will grow by leaps and bounds and real and effective learning will inevitably take place. The key is the students MUST be involved! Thanks for the presentation…
ReplyDeleteApplication:
1. We need to create an environment in our classrooms that is conducive to discovering, exploring, creating, and finding solutions to real world problems. This must be incorporated into our lesson planning and classroom activities.
2. I personally want to make every effort possible to incorporate many more hands on science experiments into my science classes to make the classes a lot more interesting and real. I want the students to be actively involved in the learning process rather than me just showing them.
3. I also want to develop more real life math projects that students will cooperatively work together on that relate to real life situations that they are facing or will face in the future. If I give more opportunities for my students to discover real meaning in math by allowing them to use it in authentic problem solving situations and projects then they will be much more excited to learn math, and they will learn it more effectively because they are doing it.
Thanks everyone.
David Maksel
Reflection # 5
ReplyDeleteLast night Evan and Sister Rose had presented about a topic that all of us are looking for in applying it in our classrooms – “Discovery Learning”. This topic really caught my attention as Sister Rose started off with a very emotional and touching story about the perfect heart. I really like the area where Evan spoke about the Quote “Teach and they forget, show and they remember and involve / engage and they never forget”. With the discussion in class all of us as teachers would love the last part that is – involve / engage and they never forget, as we would want our students to be engage in the classroom and also want them to remember things. Last but not the least is the activity we did last night with the corn starch and water, everyone was very excited and everyone was wondering what the outcome will be but when our group was in the process it suddenly struck me that when I hold the mixture in my hand it melts. That is when I realized that this is something I discovered myself and therefore it is discovery learning.
Applications:
1) Discovery learning- it helps to encourage active engagement and to help student to remember things that they have learned.
2) Create our classroom environment in such a way to encourage discovery learning, it could actually be an outdoor activity too.
3) The activity used by the presenters last night could actually be tried and the results might actually be different than what we experienced last night.
From Zarni....
ReplyDeleteDiscovery learning promotes that it is best for learners to discover facts and concepts for themselves. Evan and Sister Rose modeled the discovery learning by corn-starch, water, and food coloring activity. At first most of us had no clue what we were supposed to do, and we mixed the corn-starch with water and added food coloring, but no knowing what to expect next. We added more water and food coloring until we got a mixture and noticed its unusual consistency. It was fun and promoted motivation for all of us.
Application:
1) Evan put this quote which I believe is a Chinese proverb ”Tell me and I’ll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I’ll understand” on the powerpoint and we discussed for a while. I believe that all three points (Tell, Show, and Involve) are necessary in teaching and learning. I teach Grade 1 and without clear directions, students are often lost and they get frustrated easily. That’s why I have to give clear instructions first; then demonstrate/model the lessons, and then give students opportunities to get involved in the lessons.
2) I will use more concept attainment lessons in my class. They are direction instructions; however I believe concept attainment approaches promote critical thinking skills of the students.
3) I will definitely try corn-starch, water, and food coloring activity with my students when we do Science unit on matters.
We were treated to another very informative presentation. I feel as though I am cheating because after every presentation I identify how Olivier and I need to change our ideas for our presentation to include the new information we learn each week. I was very engaged throughout the presentation and appreciated the chance to move around the classroom and get my hands dirty with the goo at the end.
ReplyDeleteApplications:
1. After watching the video of the presentation I was very impressed with how Sister Rose introduced the final activity. Had it been me I would have been very tempted to specify how much flour and water to add (obviously this is counter to the idea of discovery). I know sometimes due to time constraints I tend to instruct the students rather than let them discover the ideas for themselves. If you watch the video you can see how concise Sister Rose is without being too detailed.
2. It was great to see all us ‘mature’ students having so much fun with the goo. If we loved it I can imagine what a hit it will be for the students. Sister Rose’s explanation about how the molecules get crushed together and then allowed to separate really supported her ideas on state of matter. I believe trusting in our students desire to learn and providing them the best possible environment to achieve this is an area I need to improve on.
3. It seemed quite appropriate that the presentation on discovery learning followed the creativity presentation. I thought the slides and the activities were very imaginative and really highlighted the points Sister Rose and Evan wanted to make. So obviously as teacher we need to remember the importance of creativity.
Ben
Dear Dr.Andy
ReplyDeleteLast lesson guided me to one of the powerful method that helps learners to develop cognitive skills effectively. Applying this method encourages teachers to find out the suitable way to meet the different needs of learners and learners know how to learn and they are able to learn more with the help of teachers.
Discovery learning enable learners to imagine and to link what they are learning with the existing knowledge to become their own knowledge when they understand the problem while applying to real situation. Teachers as a role of facilitator and coach with their hints guide learners step by step to discover the coming new things. Beside the successful, teachers and learners do not deny the fail because defeat is the mother of success.
Application :
1. Cognitive skills help me find out the talents of learners and empower learners to spread their potential. As a teacher so I wish that through each presented lesson learners love studying.
2. Requirement of teacher’s patient to this method is unconditional because if I believe that learners can do successfully then they will believe themselves.
3. The internal desire of each person is very powerful. Teachers desire learners to understand and do what they are taught, in turn, learners have desired to discover and to show their talents. I am going to give learners more chances to practice but I myself have to be a self-learner in order to guide them to go the right direction.
Thanks very much,
KHOA, VU DO ANH
Discovery learning is a constructivist approach which lets our students learn by doing by themselves. It’s been proved that students are more likely to remember when they learn concepts by discovering themselves. Rather than loading the kids with lots of mere facts, it’s essential to get them try, work on their own solutions and build their own understanding. Especially in Science teaching, Discovery learning is a must I can say. It’s the best approach to get my students attention on Science learning and get them have fun while learning. Obviously the teacher has to have a role of guidance all through the learning process but it’s the student that has to make the meaning by him or herself.
ReplyDeleteMy applications:
1) Assign my students a term project to find out many different ways and procedures of application, in order to prove any fact that they are interested in Science.
2) In order to get all my students (even the non-academic ones) enjoy the Science classes and get involved, I will make sure to spend enough time on their own learning by doing.
3) Try to improve myself on learning the ways of being an effective teacher as a guide, in my students discovery and inquiry based learning.
Thank you
Gaye Sadic
Please note that the reflection three places above this post is Ben's. He was working on some videos for the class using my youtube account and the post came up under my name as a result. By the way, relating to Ben's comments, it's not cheating to incorporate the lessons learned from others as we go along with these presentations. It's smart, and exactly what we should be doing. Thanks, Dr. Andy
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteMy Reflection :
ReplyDeleteEverything begins with curiosity. That will lead us to want to know. In order to know, we have to research to find out. Everyday I discover new things that I can learn. Often time something that is very simple and ordinary like, "breathing air" that I do routinely each day, but the "ah-ha" moment came, I realized how much breathing that I took in everyday, every hour, and every minute in order to live. Yet, sometimes I took for granted.
There are so many ways that I’ve learned. Everyday is a new adventure for me. As I was preparing for this presentation, every time I research, I found new methods or approaches about discovery learning. It's exciting to find many ways of discovery learning that could help me to met different need of learners in my classroom. I will definitely use guided discovery learning and web quest often in my lessons. Once in awhile I use open discovery learning with my older students. I use this method not only in Science, in writing, in math, but with Bible learning as well. With discovery learning I kept my students motivated, engaged, working cooperatively with one another, get excited about the outcome of their findings. So it's important that I will act as facilitator, to ask open-ended questions that helps my students to come up with their own inquiry, guide them through to do research, to discuss in their group, to find solutions, and to write their report to share with the large group or to publish it/display it on the bulletin board or even in our school monthly and quarterly newsletters. They are proud of their original work. It helps them to take ownership of their learning and get involve.
Peace and Joy,
Sr. Rose: part1, continue…
Applications:
ReplyDelete1. It's very tempting to give the answer or the solution to my students rather than use open-ended or guided questions to help my students to think on their own. As a facilitator, I need to model my motivations and much patience, and focus in order to help my students to go through a discovery learning process rather than just give them my only view or others solution but be able to think for themselves as well.
2. Writing workshop is also part of the discovery learning. I use this method to teach in my religion classes. There are wonderful results.
3. As I researching on this topic, it's not only had helped me to teach effectively, but I also gained more knowledge that I could use for my thesis as well.
Peace and Joy,
Sr. Rose 2: part 2
Discovery learning is such a creative and enjoyable teaching method which engages students in learning. I think it is true that “understanding is like discovering.” The feeling of “I got it!” is much more powerful if students find out the meaning by doing things by themselves rather than simply being told the fact. When they get involved in the process of finding out something, they can also remember and understand much better. I thought applying discovery learning in my teaching might be difficult since I teach Japanese language, not science or math. However, as I saw the presentation and understood more about discovery learning, I could think of some ways to incorporate the ideas of discovery learning in my own situation.
ReplyDelete3 applications
1) Compared to English, Japanese language is quite indirect and requires people to infer the meaning and read between the lines. When my students encounter such a sentence with abstract meaning, they ask me “what does it exactly mean?” I would first let them guess the meaning, asking “What do you think it means?” I would like my students to be in the process of discovering the meaning.
2) When my students start more advanced readings, they often get so confused because they cannot get the meanings. They understand each difficult word using a dictionary, but they cannot get it as a sentence or a paragraph. As Evan did in the presentation, I think it is a good idea to show one quote or sentence and let students discuss the meaning of it. In this way, my students can practice reading between the lines in more complex and abstract readings.
3) When I teach grammar, I can guide them to discover the target grammar rules. This will be difficult for total beginners, but as they get some knowledge of Japanese language, they become able to guess the new rules to be applied using their prior knowledge of grammar.
Thank you.
Chie Katsuda
First of all,thank you so much to Evan and Sister Rose for a fantastic presentation. Evan and Sister Rose taught us discovery learning.I have learned about Guided Discovery Learning for Skills Instruction:1.Define a task/skill
ReplyDelete2.Experimentation 3.
Be a kid-watcher
4.Target Skill- Real world problems/ activities
5.Teach sub-skills (mini-lessons) 6. Review and record each day
7.Writing instruction – whole language
a. immerse children in real writing
b.Give feedback.I was very interested in corn-starch, water, and food coloring activity.This activity let everyone feel excited.
Application:
1.Student Activities ,it could be releasing potential and divergent thinking of student. It's could be use in any level teaching.
2.Every language is unique.They usually have different grammar and use of vocabulary.When I teach chinese, I aways make my students have worked hard on learning a lot of vocabulary by translating them into Chinese.I thought it was a good idea to build up their vocabulary in order to read and write better.
3.When we presentation,We can use body language,made class became a lot fun and interested.If we aways speak by ourself ,people whom listen us easy feel boring.
Thank you.
--zhaoyi wei (Tina)
ID:5329529
After lending my ears to Evan and Sr. Rose's presentation, I came to realize that discovery learning is critically significant in effective learning. It is undeniable that through discovering, students can further explore the reality of facts relating to their subjects. In addition, they can enhance their deep learning, metacognitive skills, engagement and critical thinking skills by discovering. In fact discovery learning process is beneficial to all students because they ask questions connecting to their subjects matter among each other, investigate the posibilities of solutions, discuss the tentative solutions together, create a decisive answer and reflect the outcome.
ReplyDeleteApplications.
1. First of all I will convince my students that curiosity is not a sin.
2. Then I will give my students a chance to go beyond their old learning styles to find out something new.
3. Ultimately I will clarify the new finding until students totally understand the subject by involving with them.
Last lesson Evan and Sister Rose showed us a fantasitic presentation.I real learned more knowledges about "discovery learning" from their presentation.After their presentation i understood that "Discovery Learning is a method of inquiry-based instruction and is considered a constructivist based approach to education."
ReplyDeleteAt the begining,they told us a story about the "broken heart",i think it's a good way to induct the course.And they devise a littele game about to find the partner's things.So,we all understand the visual meanning of the "Discovery Learning".I think it makes the course fun and can help students to know the knowledge in the interesting.And then,they introduced the Discovery Learning Theory about Dr.Jerome Bruner.(The keywords of this theory is Inquiry-based learning,constructivism).In that theory we can know more about the discovery learning.
There is a question i thought deeply of this presentation.The question is "Tell me and i forget,show me and i rememeber,involue me and i understand."In the presentation many classmates to chose the "involue me and i enderstand" this sentence,but i like this sentence better--"show me and i remember".Caused of when i was a child,i learned the piano about 10 years.In my opinion,when i learn a new skill of the piano,whatever teacher told me how many times,but when the teacher show me 1 time,i can understand. My teacher tell me the point of the skill and involue me better.But i felt the important thing is to show me.When i watch the teacher how to do and i can understand.It's real important to me.
Applications:
1.A fantasitic beginning. I felt there's so important of a successful class.I think at a front of a class,there's something fun is easy to catch the attention of the students.So, when we strat a class the beginning is very important.
2.Some easy activities is very useful for a successful class. In a class,not only teacher to teach and student to study, we can make some activities in the calss.In the activities, student could understand the visual meanning of the knowledges.But i think the best activities is proper and easy.
3.Group team.I think it real important for educatioin.The student must to learn how to get on with each other.So in the education we make some group team to finish some work.In the group team,student have to finish thire work with other group memebers,they are not alone,ther must cooperate with the partner.
Discovery Learning is an inquiry-based learning method.
ReplyDeleteAs Seymour Papert said that you can't teach people everything they need to know. The best you can do is position them where they can find what they need to know when they need to know it.
Discovery learning takes place most notably in problem solving situations where the learner draws on his own experience and prior knowledge to discover the truths that are to be learned. It is a personal, internal, constructivist learning environment. Bruner wrote, “Emphasis on discovery in learning has precisely the effect on the learner of leading him to be a constructionist, to organize what he is encountering in a manner not only designed to discover regularity and relatedness, but also to avoid the kind of information drift that fails to keep account of the uses to which information might have to be put.”
Application
- Discovery learning can use in a widely scope as science, math, natural science, chemistry, biology, physics or geographical research and so on.
- Definitely,it's make the learner have more deeply impression for something they are learned through the process of discovery, namely, found out the problem, research and sloving the problem.
- Discovery learning can help the learner developing divergent thinking and tap their potential.
Hi everyone. First of all, I want to thank everyone for the cooperation you've shown last time during our “Discovery Learning” presentation. I, myself discovered so many things out of it. Like for one, I discovered that this experience will prove to be an excellent tool in our upcoming thesis defense by next year, and with this, thank you Dr. Andy.
ReplyDeleteOnce again, discovery learning is a powerful way to learn as it engages and builds the learners curiosity. It actually helps them to actively use their critical thinking, intuition, imagination, thus, leading them to be more creative and be able to construct the understanding of the concepts on their own. DL (discovery learning) first exposes learners to experience skills, concepts, and explore with the teacher guidance, then students determine the concept or principles on their own. Teacher presents small bits of information along the way, only as necessary. Teacher may give hints, modeling, questions, etc., but he/she should have an objective or a purpose in mind first and create the learning experience to guide learners toward DISCOVERY. As I've said, DL is not- fishing around. There should be enough planning to bring the learners towards specific goal. DL comes in a variety of forms and structures, so that, each one takes careful planning.
Socratic questioning is a type of guided DL- it is where the teacher asks a particular type of thinking to bring students toward a realization, however, it does require learners to have sufficient background knowledge. The other type of guided DL is the concept attainment where the teacher provides examples of the concept and non-examples or the differences until the learners will be able to create their own concept map.
Inquiry-based learning- “Tell me and I forget, show me and I remember, involve me and I understand.” In reality, the last part of this adage is the true essence of inquiry-based learning. Through inquiry-based learning, learners are involve that leads to understanding, they seek resolutions to questions/issues, while they learn or construct new knowledge which is related to meta-cognitive (learning about learning).
Web Quests discovery learning- the beauty of web quests is that they are flexible, in the sense that, teachers can use it in so many ways. A single question would require learners to analyze a vast array of information. This helps a lot in letting them find researches related to their topic. It also provides strategies for working in a group situations. Through web quests learners become more competent in using the technology, which, I should say is a must in the 21st century.
Problem-based learning- it is where the teacher immersed the learners into a problem situation. It is a truly student centered and open-ended, since learners developed problem solving skills/reasoning skills where the role is relevant to real-life issues. Moreover, learners come to adapt new knowledge while involving themselves in the situation.
Note:
Going back to what I had presented about the concepts of Expository Teaching and Discovery Learning, it would be best if we can utilize them both in our classroom. Good teachers do not fixate on anyone particular teaching methods or strategy. Dr. Andy would be adding some more information on this by tomorrow.
My Applications:
ReplyDelete1)I will allow my students to learn by asking questions and giving them something to ponder on later. This will give room for them to think and learn what they ought to know in the future. I believed that by using this teaching strategy, information are likely to be retained and they become life-long learners at the end.
2)Even in teaching English, researches are very important. In my class, I am giving them a simple presentation (by groups) and visuals related to my lessons, like: British vs. American English, How to improve your listening and speaking skills, etc. Class discussion will follow including questions/inquiries after the presentation.
3)When I plan for my upcoming lessons, I should ask myself and set goals when reflecting on discovery learning thing, like, how do I involve and encourage my students to be active learners? How do I incorporate a way for my students to discover the knowledge by themselves? Actually, I've written this on the cover of my record book, a reminder for me to ponder on every time I prepare my lessons.
Cheers and take care everyone,
Evan
Relating to the reflections above, first of all, well done, it seems there was a great deal learned by everybody and for that I am most thankful not only to Evan and Sister Rose, but to all of you for being willing to stretch yourselves and try out new ideas. There are a couple of topics I would like to touch on in my intro tonight, so help me remember if it slips my mind to talk about 'false dichotomies' in education, using some of the concepts from the discovery learning presentation, and also the role of structure in some of the processes we have been using. See you all in class, Thanks, Dr. Andy
ReplyDeleteWeek 6 we talk about “discovery learning ”,Ms Evan and sister Rose gave good presentation and a real “discovery ” activity .The theme of this presentation that enlightenment me is :tell me ,I forget it ,show me ,I remember it , involve me I understand .
ReplyDeleteI can’t forget my ancient history teacher’s discovery teaching –learning strategies .He emphasize 4 Q (four questions )at first ,when we learning ,we were suggested to With questions to study .our teacher didn’t gave much presentation ,we must do research and got the answer by self or with group .for example ,our teacher told us ,next week ,we will talk about” collapse of the Tang dynasty”, there are 4 questions we have to considered :when (what time ),why (why The tang dynasty was collapsed),what (what events happened ),what (what influence to next dynasty). With these questions every group taken acting .we can went to library to check data ,or research some media material ,or some unofficial history …..whatever ,next week ,every group publication their answers , at the same time ,we can share result each other ,because usually each group’s has wonderful and particular viewpoints for the “why “and last “what “.Beyond doubt, all students like best subject is ancient history and have best performance , gained most knowledge and never forget.
Application :
1,Give students enough space to free action .discovery learning need action ,free thinking space and curiosity. Must to Avoid teacher control all the details and whole class time .
2, Don’t afraid adventure. Teachers and students adventure together in the “discovery learning “process deserves recommendation sometime . most time we can get Surprising discovery and Satisfactory outcome s.
3,when we implement discovery teaching-learning ,as a teacher ,we have to definiteness of purpose to work at first and let students free action in the process .
Cui mei (May)
Thank you to Sister Rose and Evan very much for last week’s presentation. It was evident that they had put a lot of research, thought and preparation into it. I started last Tuesday’s session with the thought of ‘creativity in the curriculum’ still in my head and I feel like ‘discovery learning’ was the perfect topic to follow up with. I had been wondering all week how I would really be more creative in my approach to teaching, and how I would encourage the students to be more creative too. Thanks to Sister Rose and Even I feel I have a new tool with which to do this, ‘Enquiry Based Learning’. The Enquiry Based Learning cycle is where students see learning as a process or ‘cycle’ which uses a sequence of stages in order to gain new knowledge. The sequence is as follows: ask-Investigate-create-discuss-reflect. During the week I have realized this is a cycle I have, in part, been already using. As I teach Art, the ask, investigate, create aspect of the cycle fit very well, but often I do not factor in time for the discussion or reflective practices. I feel that the presentation has helped to bring into focus the importance of these 2 stages in the learning process. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteApplications:
1. Build time into lessons/curriculum to discuss and reflect on ideas and outcomes.
2. Consider how ‘reflective practice outcomes’ can be used as a catalyst to start a new Enquiry Based Learning cycle.
3. PowerPoint slides using short quotes are a powerful way to introduce or stimulate debate. Consider this for my forthcoming presentation.
The best way to study is developing by myself. Telling is a teaching way, and it is also a studying way. But too much telling would deprive students of their delighting in studying. It is not a good way to teach and study. I am sure everybody agree with me. Because everyone know it is really different between telling a secret and developing a secret, they are not to be mentioned in the same breath. It can remind people of the best memories of the past by developing, and knowledge can be remember for a so long time. It is the best interpretation of leaning, isn’t it? So, to be a teacher, I’d better make sure students enjoying in my class. I can not deprive of their delighting in the studying.
ReplyDeleteI was a terrible teacher, because I just telling students everything they should study, include the punctuation marks. When they seemed not interested in it, I felt very angry with them. I thought I paid all my time to them, but they can not understand, they looked as the plastic film, I mean, they did not take in water. After this class, I feel I need change.
Thank you so much my dear sisters, you taught me so much. And thanks Andy gave us these useful topic, that I can get knowledge from different way.
Thank you for a very wonderful and engaging presentation Evan and Siter Rosa!
ReplyDeleteDr. Andy 's comments guided and enlightened as usual!
Discovery learning is indeed important as was demostrated by the lecture and our in class experiment!
1. Actual participation and implementation in the knowledge being presented does indeed enforce and more importantly reinforces preexisting knowledge.
2. Furthermore any new knowledge is augmented and enhanced in its depth and content by discovery learning. The actual knowledge becomes very memorable and relevant.
3. The practicablilty and application (Or lack of application as our in class experiment demonstrates) only will make the information being presented be learned to a vastly greater depth it will remain lasting!
As such I believe that finding the right material and created an evironement and also a lesson plan or indeed a curriculum would make discovery llearning a superior means and method to teach!
I will try to incorporate more in the future!
Great reflections, very enlightening! See you all soon! Andy
ReplyDeleteBoth Evan and Sister Rose presented well although both had different techniques of presentation which made it more interesting. Discovery learning is something everyone has to go through, irrespective of one's profession, age, etc. My applications are:
ReplyDelete1. Teachers need to clarify students that students need to make the effort to learn and not only teachers teaching so that they learn. In Thailand, many teachers have the tendency to be over lenient with the students, which is good sometimes but if you want a strong learner, sometimes you need to step things up.
2. This gets REALLY annoying, especially since I have many siblings and they day and night question me regarding all the doubts they have while learning. Honestly, when I'm really busy it gets annoying to an extent but the truth is, this is how they learn. Encouraging students to ask "WHY" makes the teachers life difficult but in the long run you end up getting a brilliant student!
3. With so much information available on the internet, students don't have to go through extensive research to find articles etc, but now the main focus is for them to know how to mould it to fit the requirements. When students are told to create, they need to have that drive in themselves which pushes them to think beyond and all that mainly a teacher can encourage.
From Emil....
ReplyDeleteIt was another interesting and informative session, and Sister Rose and Evan did a very good presentation of the topic. I really learned a lot and enjoyed the activities, especially the goo. This was an excellent hands-on activity which everybody seemed to enjoy, which I am sure will be a hit with the students. Another thing that struck me was the quote “ tell me and I forget, show me and I remember, involve me and I understand”. This is really true, not only inside a classroom, but also in real life situations . The person who had experience by himself certain information or knowledge will probably acquire such skill or expertise compared to those who have just heard or seen it from others.
I believe that discovery learning will be more effective in teaching mathematics if this will coupled with spiral curriculum. As every math teacher believes, Mathematics requires mastery of foundational steps in order to build upon them. Without such mastery or foundation students will not be prepared to solve new and complex problems.
My applications are as follows.
1. I will always remember the part of the quote “involve me and I remember”. I will make every example and activity in my classes, as much as possible, more hands-on and involve my students.
2. I will use more often the problem- based learning model to give my students the opportunity to explore and learn by themselves the idea or goal behind the topic. But, of course, I will make sure they know or learn beforehand the basics or the foundations needed to solve the problem, otherwise they might get frustrated when they fail to solve the given problem.
3. In relation to above applications, I will make the activities and problem-based learning challenges more authentic which my students can apply or observe in real-life situations to make them more interested in the topic and in Math, as a whole.
Thank you.
Emil