Standards have altered teacher preparation programs and curriculum requirements in schools. The intentions behind standardization is to ensure equivalent and consistent instruction and to provide measurable outcomes. Do you believe that the implementation of standards identified by national, state, and curriculum organizations has accomplished their intent? Explain why or why not.
If the only intention of creating standards was to create consistent instruction and provides measurable outcomes, the answer to this question is a simple yes. Well, kinda sorta. They have created a single curriculum that all students must accomplish in order to further their education. Does teaching the same curriculum to EVERY student make it consistent or fair when it comes to measuring outcomes? Absolutely zero (YES, ZERO) students that come into an education system are the same, making consistent instruction a hard thing to provide.
There is not a particular way that every student learns from instruction. Maybe a few students learn better in a different way than the majority. If instruction is the same, which is what I assume these organizations mean by consistent, then not all students are capable of learning. It may be the subject matter they are discussing and not the way it is taught, but what a teacher is told to educate directly influences how they are capable of doing so. Even if it were possible that every student's best possible learning strategy were the same and could be implemented, are these measurable outcomes really fair to all students?
I guess these organizations have accomplished their intent, but only because of the vague goals they set in the first place.
Chapter 2; Question 2:
Different students have different learning styles and their learning styles influence their learning. As a teacher, you should understand your students learning styles when preparing for the classes. Discuss your understanding on different learning styles and its influence on learning.
Before we begin, learning style refers to those conditions under which we best learn. Students may come to your classroom as auditory learners, meaning they learn best by listening. Others, such as myself, may be more vision influenced learners, meaning they learn better from watching and seeing how things are completed. You also have your "but it's easier if I just do it" learners, known as kinesthetic learners.
I am a visual learner, as a stated above, but their are countless times throughout my educational career when I was not given the opportunity to see something. Instead, I was forced to listen to a boring discussion or sit in a long lecture hall. Did I learn? Yes. Could I have learned better? Definitely. Because I can look back and reflect on these times I went through in my personal education, I am able to understand that some of these might appeal more to other's learning needs.
Learning all of these is only part of the battle. As an educator, you must grasp a full understanding of each, because there will be many times when you need to figure out which one best fits a child who "just isn't getting it". You know they are full capable, but it just is not sticking and other routes will need to be taken. There will be many things the learning styles outside your own (and within yours) that you will have to figure out along the way. That is why teaching is a profession of continued learning, for both students and teachers.
I teach Art, obviously very much a visual learning class setting, but I understand that there are other ways to teach the exact same thing. Teachers should consider this when creating lesson plans and class activities/assignments. A student may not learn best from putting things together or creating, but is fully capable of displaying their knowledge of the content through another outlet: writing or presentation for example.
Chapter 3; Question 3:
This chapter introduced you that lesson planning was an outgrowth of your instructional design. The DID section helped you see the overall organization of your instructional unit, and this lesson plan section helped you address what you would do to achieve the unit on an instructional day-to- day basis. Now identify, describe and use the most common steps in lesson planning.
Step 1: Know your learner.
This was discussed throughout the first three chapters and in my earlier responses. You need to know where your learner comes from, what their goals are, if they have learning disabilities, and their learning styles in order to give them the best educational system.
Step 2: Standards-aligned performance objectives.
As the teacher, YOU must know what you want the children to learn. When it comes to the learning outcomes, what are your goals for your students? You must be strong and to the point when it comes to creating these outcomes. Vagueness will only lead to more questions than answers in the long run.
Step 3: Identify learning and teaching strategies.
The most important step in the lesson planning process, you must decide how you plan to make your students achieve the learning outcomes. In order to implement the most effective teaching strategy, you must have an understand of your student's learning styles. Figure out your student's needs and accommodate as much as possible.
Step 4: Selecting support technologies.
Teachers need to understand their student's need and have a grasp on steps 1-3 before looking into the technology they plan on implementing. According to the DID model, you want to choose technology that fits your learning outcomes, rather than choosing learning outcomes based on what technology allows.
Step 5: Assess and revise.
We all know what assess means. It means develop some way to test the knowledge the students have gained throughout the lesson. These assessments should be directly correlated with the learning outcomes to make sure your students are learning what you planned for them to learn. Assessment can be performed in many ways such as paper/pencil test, presentation, writing, discussion, etc. Many organizations believe in standardized test, but I really enjoy more visual ways of assessment in my classroom. Many Art classrooms use paper/pencil test earlier, but allow students to present their work to the class as they develop skills.