chapter 5

Now, that I'm a future teacher, it's funny to see how my views have changed. Now, I am all for higher order thinking questions; however, when I was in high school, those were the kinds of questions I loathed. I did not want to hear a question where I had to put two and two together in order to get the answer. I wanted it cut and dry. I remember in high school, I had a Biology II teacher that would ask several higher order thinking questions to help us learn the material. In fact, if he asked a question, he would not go on until it was answered; he refused to give us the answer. As much as I hated it then, I see now how much that helped me learn. Because I wasn't just given an answer or asked a question that required a simple answer, I retained more of the material. Not only was he helping me learn Biology II, he was giving me strategies that I could use in other classes in order to better myself as a student, although I did not realize that at the time. Now, that I am going to be a teacher, I see the importance of having students think for themselves. One of the reason school was so boring was we were mostly just handed answers. We did not have to work for much. After reading chapter 5, I have learned some new strategies to help my students become genuine thinkers. I find that the SQ3R strategy can be useful when reading to learn. I feel like if I would have used this strategy before now, I would have done a lot better on some of the quizzes I have taken throughout my student career. Also, I love all of the mathematical strategies because I personally am a math person and plan to teach math. I personally like the reciprocal teaching method This allows students to learn from other students. It also make students feel important becuase they discovered how to do something on their own. Also, I am a firm believer in you learn 100% what you teach. Also, I think that it makes you feel better when you learn something on your own. Contrary to what I said before about how I like questions to be cut and dry, when it comes to something I am intersted in, I like to figure it out on my own. It makes me feel like I have accomplished something, and I feel good about myself. Why not give our students this opportunity?

Note Taking

I like how the article states, "Although it is important to teach students how to take and use notes effectively, educators also have a responsibility to organize their lectures in ways that make it possible to create notes." I couldn't stand when I had a teacher that would mostly lecture the whole class period and talked non-stop, which didn't give you much time to record notes while listening effectively. Then, on top of that, their lecture is unorganized. I like to have my notes organized by topics, and if I'm taking hand written notes, it's hard to go back and insert pieces of information because the teacher is skipping around. I also like how this chapter models for us how we can help our students become better note takers and note makers. When I was in high school, I can't remember learning how to take notes from a lecture. Most of the time, the notes I had were either handed to us to study, or they were guided notes to follow along with a power point or chapter. If we ever did have to write anything, we were told, "Write this down." I feel like we were babied too much and never learned how to become independent note takers. or note makers. When I came to USM, I learned real quick that I was not an effective note taker. I can remember being in CIV 101 and missing have the lecture because I was trying to write down everything the instructor said instead of the things that were most important.  I knew that I wasn't supposed to write down everything, I just had a hard time deciphering what was important and if the things I thought were important were the same things that he thought were important. However, this instructor did something that helped me with taking effective notes. Before each lecture, he would write a list of key terms on the board in the order that they would appear in the lecture. This not only kept him organized, but it also helped me keep my notes organized.  There was another instructor that I had at USM who taught calculus. When he would write examples and definitions on the board, he would write it on the board in an organized way in which we could mimic. He would also tells to write something down if it was something that we really needed to make sure that we knew it. Although I took that class 2 years ago, I feel that I could look back on those notes and be able to know how to do the operations. In conclusion, I feel that it is important that teachers model for students how to take notes so that the students can look back on the notes later and actually understand what they wrote.  Saying that, the teacher also needs to make sure that her lecture is "note taking friendly" to ensure that the students are able to take effective notes.