Another theory, another set of questions from me. This one was nearly impossible to wrap my mind around but after chatting with previous graduates of the program and googling the theory name, I think I finally figured it out, and the solution was a let-down. Of course each individual sees things through their own set of lenses. We all understand the theory, in fact this theory should be bumped up to the "fact" stage instead. What I want to know is how to teach a classroom full of students, all with different backgrounds, the same principles and do it effectively and in a limited amount of time. Identifying the fact that each student sees the principle based on who they are and what they know and have experienced is a huge "duh." Now to figure out how to do the teaching. When someone solves the next step, the important step of how, let me know.
M
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Interesting view of schema on your blog. It must help being a seminary teacher, at least most if not all of your students probably have some of the same set of schema at least when talking about church background, or do you get a lot of variety there also?
ReplyDeleteI know that I have to find the commonalities of the students. In other words, what are their common experiences? What are the common experiences of everyday life? Every teenager has certain basic experiences and I try to relate new learning to those experiences. When I do a lesson plan I know that the thinking process takes a lot longer than the actual typing up the plan. Don't let the over-the-top vocabulary of the readings scare you.
ReplyDeleteThis was also a difficult theory to completely grasp at first. Hopefully, my current understanding is now sufficient. Teaching to such a large group of students can be a difficult task for any teacher. I think the most important thing to do is to try to build on common experiences. This isn't always easily achieved. Another thing we can do is to provide a great deal of background knowledge to our students before moving forward with new concepts. This is what I find myself doing often.
ReplyDeletethe theory was not meant to be a no-brainer...at the time it was a rather radical idea, but what it does do is allow teachers to think of how students come to learn from them....the biggest take-home message of schema theory in my view is that you have to think of how different students learn from the same text. Because they are going to learn from any individual text differently, you need to vary in your instructional approaches and instructional texts.
ReplyDeleteWhen I taught High School, I worked at a program who catered to students with various learning disabilities and behavioural issues. A majority of the students live with Asperger's Syndrome, a few had higher level autism, and most of the remainder had behavioural issues that led them out of the public and mainstream private systems.
ReplyDeleteOne of the most difficult tasks for me was learning the strengths and weaknesses of my students. Now, this was a small program, so that was not difficult - I had maybe 50 students total - but it was the one thing that helped. Understanding the background of my students, helped me to see some of the "hows" in terms of their ability to learn.
I would spend time getting to know the kids, througout the time we were together. Over time, we grew to better understand wach other and thus, the learning process became easier. . . more fluid. . .