One disadvantage that I can see from this is that the children need to learn somewhat of the procedure and like in Benny's case, he was left to construct knowledge on his own and he came up with the wrong procedures and answers. That is something to consider, although the students are left to construct knowledge independently, they also need guidance to make sure they construct the right knowledge. Another thing, Warrington states that it is the responsibility of the teacher to provide learning environments, but how can the teacher know what a learning environment is that would suit each student? I think that that is a difficult thing to determine.
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Warrington Paper
Some of the advantages of teaching the procedures or giving the correct answers gives the students the opportunity to think for themselves. In Warrington's paper she presented the students with problems without telling them what to do or how to solve it. She simply asked them what it meant to them and according to Warrington she states that children construct knowledge based on what they already know. So after she presented a fraction the students went on constructing knowledge about what they thought it meant based on what they already knew and in many cases they concluded correctly. Another advantage of this is that it encourages social interaction. When socially interacting with others it helps to bring more insights and helps to construct better knowledge because more minds are better than one. The students were able to put their ideas together and then conclude on an answer.
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Nana,
ReplyDeleteI agree with what you said about the advantage of social interaction and how all the students can teach each other, and then each one individually can edit their construction of knowledge from what they decide to believe from their peers. They can work to together to construct knowledge, for more than one head is always better!
I also agree with what you said about a teacher needing to be there because sometimes students, like Benny, construct false knowledge. That is a very valid point! However, I do not find any evidence of Warrington allowing her students to construct false knowledge. Never in any of her examples did the students not get the right answer in the end, nor do I think if they all suddenly did agree on the wrong answer would Warrington or any teacher for that matter not step in and ask them to keep thinking about the problem. This classroom is much different than Benny's because Warrington was listening to the students all the way, and they never wavered in the end from correct mathematics.
Thanks for your post!
I really enjoyed your thoughts about it being the teacher's responsibility to provide the learning environment. I liked how you acknowledged how hard it would as a teacher to determine what learning environment is best, especially if your classroom had a diverse group of students. This was new insight that I had not really given much thought, so thank you for your idea.
ReplyDeleteAlong the idea of social interaction, I believe that the students bring up conflicting ideas. I believe this to be an important part because as students encounter contradictions, they will adapt their knowledge and thinking in order to construct correct ideas. Furthermore, it is more of an individual and uplifting correctly process, rather than feeling dumb by a teacher telling the student that they made a mistake.
I definitely agree how these students may end up like Benny if not monitored and watched to prevent something similar. Indeed, when Warrington have her hardest problem only one student in the entire class got the problem right; that should be some indication that something more is needed.
ReplyDeleteThough your mistrust in how teachers know what environment should be implemented for the best learning experience for the students made me a little uneasy. The teacher is there for the specific purpose (if he/she is a constructivist) and has been trained and educated to help the students learn as well as possible. Though that was my only problem.
Thanks for the post!
I agree with the two advantages that you noted. In fact, I think that the second advantage, the one about social interaction, often mitigates the disadvantage of not having the correct answer available. In other words, if students are allowed to reason together, explain their reasoning, and challenge what doesn't make sense, they frequently come up with the right methods and answers themselves without any correction from the teacher.
ReplyDeleteI would like to encourage you to continue using topic sentences in your writing. Neither paragraph has a strong topic sentence, which influences the tone and credibility of the writing. In fact, the first sentence of your first paragraph is very misleading. A careful rereading might have helped you fix this and other mistakes in the entry.