So put this into perspective, you’re a teacher and you have
been taught in University that your students need to ignite their higher-order
thinking skills. In order to do this, students must work with each other,
collaborate with each other, communicate with each other, and present their
findings to the class. All of these student centered learning techniques I
mentioned, do not involve a teacher telling them how to collaborate,
communicate and present. What do teachers even do? They are there to guide the
students through their learning and act as a manager of the class, rather than
the head honcho who holds all the knowledge and answers. Never forget that the
students are the learners, the teachers, the investigators and essentially the
center focus in every classroom. We are obviously shifting away from a
traditional classroom because student centered learning, through discovery and
experience, is being more heavily focused on than ever before. So, if students
do all the work, why do teachers get paid so much for working 4 hours a day for
5 days a week and holidays/summers off? It’s just funny to look at because we
are told, as future teachers, to let students discover knowledge by themselves.
Teachers are having a smaller and smaller role in the classroom and getting
paid more and more. Maybe it comes to a question. Do you think, eventually,
that teachers would become almost unnecessary in a classroom environment? If
they are necessary, would they still be called teachers or maybe just managers?
Hopefully my perspective makes sense to someone else besides myself.
I really liked Susan’s excerpt in the book, interweaving
curriculum and classroom assessment, where she explained how to infuse
Assessment for learning into teaching. To summarize, Susan used different
assessing techniques in her classroom, ranging from raising hands to traffic
cards to exit cards. I like how she came to the conclusion of feedback and no
grades given. Growing up, I would never think of being a teacher and not giving
out grades. Maybe because I have been conditioned by the typical curriculum
that we have implemented today. Fortunately, success came from not giving out
grades and just giving feedback. I’ll be looking forward to trying this
technique in my classroom someday. Thank you Susan!
