How can we elicit our students’ first person experiences and perceptions in our educational practices? What does it take for us to promote the process to occur, and what roles should we play?
I believe that as educators we should provide our students with substantial and authentic learning experiences, as well as encourage them to take ownership of their own learning process. Teachers should also guide and mentor them throughout their development by motivating them to hypothesize about a specific content, experiment, test, analyze, discuss, reflect and reach conclusions. By actively engaging in investigations, students may be able to relate new knowledge to previous knowledge, stimulating the activity of neurons (brain plasticity). Teachers should conceive a thorough pedagogical strategy by conceptualizing the learning process as a dynamic activity that works better through its “wholeness”. The more they are able to actively involve students in the process, the more qualia this student will sense during his/her experiences and that will allow him/her to have a broader understanding of what is being taught. As students see purpose and significance in what they are learning, information is more likely to be retained in their intellect and become long-term memory. The more contextualized the learning process is, the more consciously students will experience it, and the more they will value and remember what they learned.
STUDY QUESTION: How can we elicit your students’ first person experiences and perceptions in our educational practice? What does it take for us to promote the process to occur, and what roles should we play?
As a language teacher, I think it is not difficult to elicit students’ first person experience. English is such an international language. The use of the language is common in our daily life, let alone American pop culture has been spread throughout the world by multiple ways of media. I believe students have more or less encountered the language in their personal experience. The difficulty for teachers, though, would be to know students’ personal interests and try to relate the learning material to their interests. In this way, a communicative and tasked-based teaching technique is preferred. After class, students are encouraged to find opportunities to use the language more often in life situations. When they met difficulties in real experience, they will be more motivated to learn in class, which again promotes more practice outside of class to enrich person experience. The positive cycle depends on how teachers approach to the teaching material with the consideration of students’ interests. In this process, teachers are facilitators to help students remove the language difficulties in life situations.
How can we elicit you students’ first person experiences and perceptions in our educational practices? What does it take for us to promote the process to occur, and what roles should we play? The concept of qualia is very important in education. As educators we want our students to understand concepts and languages on various levels. Developing meaningful interpretations in the classroom will help our students understand the material as well as stimulate their intrinsic motivation to want to learn more. In sixth grade, while learning about life in Mesopotamia, my teacher brought in all the different types of fruits and dried foods that they ate during that time period. Having the opportunity to actually taste something that another person ate thousands of years ago gave me a new appreciation and deeper understanding of the time. I could make a personal connection to the people and the time period through my own personal experience of tasting the food. We can elicit our students’ first person experiences and perceptions in the classroom by giving them a wide variety of ways to interpret the information; using different methods of teaching that can reach the varieties of learning styles. Our role as educators is to help teach students the skills that will help them make these personal connections and not just look at what is being taught as just material for a test, but information that they can use in many facets in life.
If self could be best captured by the concept of “emptiness,” what is the best approach to help your students overcome their ego and see the changes that learning brings about within them positively? According to this concept, humans are constantly changing a part of their identity by learning, as they are physically creating and strengthening new neural networks. This could be part of the reason why people often look back on their lives ten or twenty years prior and think “wow, I am such a different person now than I was ten years ago.” For many people, this change could be frightening as it challenges their ego and sense of self. In the ESOL classroom especially, students may be resistant to some learning because the classroom environment, teacher role, student role, and ideas being communicated are likely to cross cultural boundaries and directly challenge perspectives and worldviews. As an educator who also has a brain that is constantly changing, the most effective way of promoting learning under these circumstances is to model it. When I teach adults, they often come with a breadth of knowledge and perspectives very different from my own. By allowing my adult learners to teach me, and by allowing myself to accept my own neural changes, I am showing my students that developing new perspectives can allow us to understand and appreciate the world more fully. Secondly, learning about something doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to change your entire worldview, but it can help us to understand one another better. For instance, Carter states that scientists have found an area of the brain linked to spirituality and that when this area was activated in study participants they felt as though there were a spiritual presence in the room. For many readers, this may be shocking and uncomfortable, as it calls into question the origin of religion. Deeply religious individuals may choose to ignore this information. As an educator, we can encourage our students to question and inquire on new knowledge that so directly contradicts their perspectives. Without questioning the learners’ religion, we can discuss how and why many people do not have religion and how they may believe that it is a cognitive phenomenon. Students can learn about another perspective and come to appreciate it without necessarily changing their own perspective. Creating an environment that does not place one perspective over another and allows for safe learning and inquiry without outright persuasion will help protect egos and facilitate new learning.
Q: If self could be best captured by the concept of "emptiness", what is the best approach to help your students overcome their egos and see the changes that learning brings about within them positively?
R: As a secondary teacher I was struck by the passage "learning is the event that happens because there is no definite "you". During the teenage years, there is so much "finding yourself" that happens, I think this needs to be taken into consideration when adjusting our teaching.
When someone takes, say, golf lessons (or tennis lessons!), sometimes the instructor has to have the student "unlearn" bad habits. For players who have been at it a long time, this can be difficult because those old habits are well established. If we were teaching adults, I think getting them empty would be harder than working with children. At that formative age It seems like there would be more apprehension in a wrong move -- one that is perceived by peers as undesirable -- than changing "you".
If that's the case, then maybe a good strategy for teenagers is to concentrate on directing and guiding the development of self. Maybe this underscores the importance of positive examples and good role models. Of course, there are some ideas about self that are established already, but even a strategy of showing a student that "if you change, it looks like this" is a worthy strategy.
Study Question: How could you incorporate the concept of “emptiness of self” in your professional development? What serves as possible barriers and how could you overcome them?
The term “emptiness of self” from what I understood is a process of learning new information and leaving your “old” self behind. It means that you learned a new set of beliefs or your viewpoint on something has been changed or updated. I feel that as an educator it is extremely important to constantly be updating and learning new techniques and ways to improve your classroom. I think the concept of “emptiness of self” applies to being a good educator, because you have to be willing to change. You have to be willing to think outside the box and venture out into new territory that makes you uncomfortable, but in the long run it helps you. I think the point of professional development sort of coincides with the idea of “emptiness of self”. However, I feel that not all educators see the benefits of professional development. Some educators are stuck in their ways and do not want to learn new techniques because they feel that what they are doing works. Their techniques do probably work, and I am not saying that they do not. I can understand being hesitant with something new, or having to change your ways. However, I feel that it should at least be given a chance. I feel the barriers that might come up in professional development would be being told to do something in the classroom differently, that you do not want to change. However, I think trying it at least once would be a way to overcome that. Try it out and see if it works, and if it does not, you still have this new you.
study question: If the gut feeling is an important ingredient for intellectual development, how should you structure your educational practice differently? How could educators elicit the gut feeling in the student`s mind in educational practices?
I think gut feeling in education could function in many ways. In learning, and in developing as a teacher, or a student. When one is in primary education it is very important to develop social skills, and independence. When one is in higher education it requires you to analytically, and critically think information. There are different levels or types of gut feeling in different stages of development. I think that gut feeling of a student should lead them to come to a rational and healthy choice for themselves, and their study. As an educator I think that holistic education is very attractive. To develop a student as a whole, and not just memorization or one fit for all kind of education. When I am teaching I think the ideal is to think of the subject as well as how effects the student as a human being. To show this in my classes I would have multiple means of input, and value individual responces to the subject from different perspectives. A teacher can teach the subject, but not touch the student as an individual. For the student to grow mentally through the lessons, and grow as a person is an important factor. This requires listening to your gut feeling. When the student is reinforced in good ways for following his gut feeling he will want to follow this, and learn to grow.
Study Question: If self could be best captured by the concept of “emptiness”, what is the best approach to help your student overcome their ego and see the changes that learning bring about within them positively?
A possible approach to help students overcome their ego is by having them set personal goal and keep track of their progress throughout their learning process. By having them continuous reflect and compare where they started from and where they are presently may give them a sense of accomplishment and impact their intrinsic motivation. At the same time, having periodic discussions - whether in small groups or one-on-one - can help students realize that they are not only ones struggling to redefine themselves and they can help support one another. These discussions also allow teachers to gage how their students are feeling about their growth, which can help teacher pick lessons that will help them see the gains that learning opens up for them. They are allowing themselves to broaden their worldviews, increasing their amount of people they can converse with, and that everyday results in themselves becoming someone new.
How can we elicit our students’ first person experiences and perceptions in our educational practices? What does it take for us to promote the process to occur, and what roles should we play?
ReplyDeleteI believe that as educators we should provide our students with substantial and authentic learning experiences, as well as encourage them to take ownership of their own learning process. Teachers should also guide and mentor them throughout their development by motivating them to hypothesize about a specific content, experiment, test, analyze, discuss, reflect and reach conclusions. By actively engaging in investigations, students may be able to relate new knowledge to previous knowledge, stimulating the activity of neurons (brain plasticity). Teachers should conceive a thorough pedagogical strategy by conceptualizing the learning process as a dynamic activity that works better through its “wholeness”. The more they are able to actively involve students in the process, the more qualia this student will sense during his/her experiences and that will allow him/her to have a broader understanding of what is being taught. As students see purpose and significance in what they are learning, information is more likely to be retained in their intellect and become long-term memory. The more contextualized the learning process is, the more consciously students will experience it, and the more they will value and remember what they learned.
STUDY QUESTION: How can we elicit your students’ first person experiences and perceptions in our educational practice? What does it take for us to promote the process to occur, and what roles should we play?
ReplyDeleteAs a language teacher, I think it is not difficult to elicit students’ first person experience. English is such an international language. The use of the language is common in our daily life, let alone American pop culture has been spread throughout the world by multiple ways of media. I believe students have more or less encountered the language in their personal experience. The difficulty for teachers, though, would be to know students’ personal interests and try to relate the learning material to their interests. In this way, a communicative and tasked-based teaching technique is preferred. After class, students are encouraged to find opportunities to use the language more often in life situations. When they met difficulties in real experience, they will be more motivated to learn in class, which again promotes more practice outside of class to enrich person experience. The positive cycle depends on how teachers approach to the teaching material with the consideration of students’ interests. In this process, teachers are facilitators to help students remove the language difficulties in life situations.
How can we elicit you students’ first person experiences and perceptions in our educational practices? What does it take for us to promote the process to occur, and what roles should we play?
ReplyDeleteThe concept of qualia is very important in education. As educators we want our students to understand concepts and languages on various levels. Developing meaningful interpretations in the classroom will help our students understand the material as well as stimulate their intrinsic motivation to want to learn more. In sixth grade, while learning about life in Mesopotamia, my teacher brought in all the different types of fruits and dried foods that they ate during that time period. Having the opportunity to actually taste something that another person ate thousands of years ago gave me a new appreciation and deeper understanding of the time. I could make a personal connection to the people and the time period through my own personal experience of tasting the food. We can elicit our students’ first person experiences and perceptions in the classroom by giving them a wide variety of ways to interpret the information; using different methods of teaching that can reach the varieties of learning styles. Our role as educators is to help teach students the skills that will help them make these personal connections and not just look at what is being taught as just material for a test, but information that they can use in many facets in life.
If self could be best captured by the concept of “emptiness,” what is the best approach to help your students overcome their ego and see the changes that learning brings about within them positively?
ReplyDeleteAccording to this concept, humans are constantly changing a part of their identity by learning, as they are physically creating and strengthening new neural networks. This could be part of the reason why people often look back on their lives ten or twenty years prior and think “wow, I am such a different person now than I was ten years ago.” For many people, this change could be frightening as it challenges their ego and sense of self. In the ESOL classroom especially, students may be resistant to some learning because the classroom environment, teacher role, student role, and ideas being communicated are likely to cross cultural boundaries and directly challenge perspectives and worldviews.
As an educator who also has a brain that is constantly changing, the most effective way of promoting learning under these circumstances is to model it. When I teach adults, they often come with a breadth of knowledge and perspectives very different from my own. By allowing my adult learners to teach me, and by allowing myself to accept my own neural changes, I am showing my students that developing new perspectives can allow us to understand and appreciate the world more fully. Secondly, learning about something doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to change your entire worldview, but it can help us to understand one another better. For instance, Carter states that scientists have found an area of the brain linked to spirituality and that when this area was activated in study participants they felt as though there were a spiritual presence in the room. For many readers, this may be shocking and uncomfortable, as it calls into question the origin of religion. Deeply religious individuals may choose to ignore this information. As an educator, we can encourage our students to question and inquire on new knowledge that so directly contradicts their perspectives. Without questioning the learners’ religion, we can discuss how and why many people do not have religion and how they may believe that it is a cognitive phenomenon. Students can learn about another perspective and come to appreciate it without necessarily changing their own perspective. Creating an environment that does not place one perspective over another and allows for safe learning and inquiry without outright persuasion will help protect egos and facilitate new learning.
ReplyDeleteQ: If self could be best captured by the concept of "emptiness", what is the best approach to help your students overcome their egos and see the changes that learning brings about within them positively?
R: As a secondary teacher I was struck by the passage "learning is the event that happens because there is no definite "you". During the teenage years, there is so much "finding yourself" that happens, I think this needs to be taken into consideration when adjusting our teaching.
When someone takes, say, golf lessons (or tennis lessons!), sometimes the instructor has to have the student "unlearn" bad habits. For players who have been at it a long time, this can be difficult because those old habits are well established. If we were teaching adults, I think getting them empty would be harder than working with children. At that formative age It seems like there would be more apprehension in a wrong move -- one that is perceived by peers as undesirable -- than changing "you".
If that's the case, then maybe a good strategy for teenagers is to concentrate on directing and guiding the development of self. Maybe this underscores the importance of positive examples and good role models. Of course, there are some ideas about self that are established already, but even a strategy of showing a student that "if you change, it looks like this" is a worthy strategy.
KAT
Study Question: How could you incorporate the concept of “emptiness of self” in your professional development? What serves as possible barriers and how could you overcome them?
ReplyDeleteThe term “emptiness of self” from what I understood is a process of learning new information and leaving your “old” self behind. It means that you learned a new set of beliefs or your viewpoint on something has been changed or updated. I feel that as an educator it is extremely important to constantly be updating and learning new techniques and ways to improve your classroom. I think the concept of “emptiness of self” applies to being a good educator, because you have to be willing to change. You have to be willing to think outside the box and venture out into new territory that makes you uncomfortable, but in the long run it helps you. I think the point of professional development sort of coincides with the idea of “emptiness of self”. However, I feel that not all educators see the benefits of professional development. Some educators are stuck in their ways and do not want to learn new techniques because they feel that what they are doing works. Their techniques do probably work, and I am not saying that they do not. I can understand being hesitant with something new, or having to change your ways. However, I feel that it should at least be given a chance. I feel the barriers that might come up in professional development would be being told to do something in the classroom differently, that you do not want to change. However, I think trying it at least once would be a way to overcome that. Try it out and see if it works, and if it does not, you still have this new you.
study question: If the gut feeling is an important ingredient for intellectual development, how should you structure your educational practice differently? How could educators elicit the gut feeling in the student`s mind in educational practices?
ReplyDeleteI think gut feeling in education could function in many ways. In learning, and in developing as a teacher, or a student. When one is in primary education it is very important to develop social skills, and independence. When one is in higher education it requires you to analytically, and critically think information. There are different levels or types of gut feeling in different stages of development. I think that gut feeling of a student should lead them to come to a rational and healthy choice for themselves, and their study. As an educator I think that holistic education is very attractive. To develop a student as a whole, and not just memorization or one fit for all kind of education. When I am teaching I think the ideal is to think of the subject as well as how effects the student as a human being. To show this in my classes I would have multiple means of input, and value individual responces to the subject from different perspectives. A teacher can teach the subject, but not touch the student as an individual. For the student to grow mentally through the lessons, and grow as a person is an important factor. This requires listening to your gut feeling. When the student is reinforced in good ways for following his gut feeling he will want to follow this, and learn to grow.
Study Question: If self could be best captured by the concept of “emptiness”, what is the best approach to help your student overcome their ego and see the changes that learning bring about within them positively?
ReplyDeleteA possible approach to help students overcome their ego is by having them set personal goal and keep track of their progress throughout their learning process. By having them continuous reflect and compare where they started from and where they are presently may give them a sense of accomplishment and impact their intrinsic motivation. At the same time, having periodic discussions - whether in small groups or one-on-one - can help students realize that they are not only ones struggling to redefine themselves and they can help support one another. These discussions also allow teachers to gage how their students are feeling about their growth, which can help teacher pick lessons that will help them see the gains that learning opens up for them. They are allowing themselves to broaden their worldviews, increasing their amount of people they can converse with, and that everyday results in themselves becoming someone new.