Section #5 of Teaching Principles, "Effective teaching involves recognizing and overcoming our expert blind spots", was the part that I related to the most. I often find that I cover material too quickly. I tend to assume that my students have more background knowledge and abilities than they do. This was one reason why I chose to teach high school instead of lower grades - I felt that I wouldn't need to do as much step-by-step instruction and hand holding. This is something that I continue to struggle with today. I am always worried that step-by-step instruction will bore the students and I will lose the ability to capture their interest. It is often hard to find that middle ground that provides ample direction without being too elementary; how do you adequately explain without boring them to death. What do you do with the students who grasp the concepts more quickly and want to move on?
I struggle with the same thing. I teach 6th grade so some of them have the prior knowledge needed and are bored when I do the step-by-step, hand holding approach, but if I don't start from the beginning other students are lost. It is hard to capture all of their interests and yet challenge them. Using technology helps me by allowing some students to do more advanced lessons while giving other students more step-by-step guidance.
ReplyDeleteI guess that is where technology and individualized differentiation becomes most useful? I don't know, but the expert blind spots is the one that stuck out for me as well, I have to remain conscious of this as often as possible. I don't know that it is hand holding or even step-by-step specifically, more that we at least need to walk it back in our own heads to see if there is a step that the students wouldn't be familiar with and make sure that is part of the instruction leading up to the objective. Of course, this will most likely be different between students, so a survey of prior knowledge could at least help sort students into appropriate groups if it was not completely individualized.
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