Due date
Feb 18thChapter 2-What is the danger in feeding students enough information to get by without reading? Provide two examples on the blog in your own experience from observing your students. What are the short term and long-term benefits and hazards for the reader?
I think the danger in feeding student enough information to get by is we provide them with the wrong skills. Students learn how to give just enough of an answer that the teacher will either fill in the blanks or call on another student. This gets them by during class discussion, the teacher thinks they read AND understand the material and kids save face. If it is a written assignment, they can use their friend, the internet,cliff notes.. which are good skills as long as they gain understanding from using such compensatory skills and not just get the assignment done.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Gail that the danger in feeding students enough information to get by is we provide our students with the wrong skills and sometimes no skills at all. To many times I hear how students should already know how to read and how come they did not learn how to read in elementary. At this rate this question will never go away, because we are going to continue to blame the teacher before us rather then trying to fix the problem. I have seen when observing my students that a lot of them will sit in the back of the room and listen to others participate and wait to get all the information so they do not have to read things for themselves. I have also seen students assume the material is to difficult for them and do not want to take the time to do it, they would rather have someone do it for them. I find myself a lot of times helping students read chapters in their books, but do not pay attention when I read and do not want to read themselves. I really think by us feeding our students, rather than teaching them the skills they need to know to become better readers is only helping them short-term. We are allowing them to just get by. One of these days it is going to catch up with them and they are not going to have anybody around to help them and then they are going to suffer because they do not have the skills to be successful on there own. We need to start teaching our students how to think for themselves rather than always having someone else think for them. If we do this we will begin to see success long-term.
ReplyDeleteFeeding students causes them not to think for themselves. I often see students when asked a question, shrug their shoulders and say "I can't think right now." I get frustrated when this happens because we can all think.
ReplyDeleteWhen we feed students, they do not need to read or do the work they can just out wait the teacher to get the answers.
I see this in at least 2 subject in my district if not more: Why do students not do well even when they are feed the information. Teachers read students the test. Are students not bright enough, are they too lazy to write the information down, do they still not understand the information or are they just not listening? Sometimes I think that the information isn't important and doesn't pertain to them or they get it and are bored.
Hazards of feeding the students are they have no problem solving skills and they want to be told what to do and think. Students who want to get good grades and do well are benefited by feeding but others are learning helplessness.
One danger of feeding students information, besides what Hope said concerning not thinking for themselves, is they are unable to think past the recall/knowledge level (using Dr. Norman Webb's reading depth of knowledge levels and based off of Bloom's taxonomy). Students will not be able to think past the 1st level. The other levels involve more strategic deep thinking; using prior knowledge, pulling meaning out of the text, applying to it current situations, all are aspects of deeper thinking. 2 years ago my reading class spend 2 weeks on the presidential election. I had ordered materials for them, a combination of reading and worksheets. Any unit that discusses the gov't can be very difficult for students to get through. We took our time, read, discussed, debated, and used the computer/TV. Students kept asking me what I thought, I never would tell them, not until after the election was over anyway. I wanted them to think for themselves, have an argument either way, and be able to support their opinion. Fortunately I had a small class so it was somewhat easy to do. Out of all of the units I have taught that one was one of the most successful. One student actually went to his science teacher and explained how the electoral college worked! Getting students to think for themselves can be difficult but not impossible. A lot depends on our expectations (and patience)! A common example I see is students answering "I don't know?" when asked a question but then agreeing with the teacher when the answer is provided. Pushing to student to give something rather than nothing is a step in the right direction. It is more time consuming to wait for those students to answer questions but more beneficial for the student in the long run!
ReplyDeleteI agree with Carol that feeding students information does not move them past the knowledge level of Bloom's Taxonomy. Those higher level thinking skills are what they need to survive in this increasingly complicated world. I also agree with Carol that much patience is needed when dealing with these kids. They often get to middle school having been "fed" a lot and they are overwhelmed with the expectation that they will be more independent. I have a student who is cooperative when she is getting lots of help, but when you teach and re-teach and then ask her to try something by herself she will just write down anything to get done. Another student refuses accommodations and is rather rude to the para in his classroom until it is time to independently complete an assignment and then he is polite and "needs" lots of help. I have been trying to wean my students away from the feeding spoon, but it takes time and patience.
ReplyDeleteAs I read this chapter, I caught myself going "oh no!" I do just what some teachers do. I ask the kids a question, I give them wait time, then the students reply, but there is always 1 kid that takes for ever to answer and I have to move on so I end up giving him/her the answer. Grr! I realized that by doing that, he/she got exactly what they wanted, my answers and they didn't have to think for themselves. Many, many sped kids have been given the answers so they can keep up with their peers that we have really hindered them. I find that when I get my new class of 5th graders every year, I always have 1-2 parents who feel I am so mean because their kid might have a C in my reading or math classes because I don't spoon feed anyone and I expect them to be able to think for themselves. Usually (not always) by the time they move into 6th grade, the parents figure out that I am trying to teach their kiddo how to get along in the real world where they have to think for themselves and no one is going to be there to hold their hands after graduation.
ReplyDeleteOh my. I had a professor of reading at college who instigated 'asking an expert' when we didn't know or unsure of an answer. This usually was another student we knew had read or finished the assignment. A few years ago I tried it in one of the classes I was teaching. The one stipulation I put on the technique was that the same person couldn't be called on. On occassion I think it's okay to use, it does 'save face' as Gail pointed out. Another point, my math class, that I've had the past two years, are the quietest bunch. They wait on someone else to answer. I've taken to ask each one a question. Now they don't wait until I give them the answer (I've waited beyond 15 minutes! which is unsettling knowing everything got pushed back in my 'wonderful' lesson plans). Reading this article also makes me think about the workshop we had in Dodge at the beginning of the year 'Worksheets don't grow dendrytes'. When school got started, several collegues started using music and several other strategies to teach. It was really cool to hear 'Celebrate' down the hall. I even used some (playing hopscotch in the room for math). But how easy it was to fall right back into the same old habit of getting through the book. Since January we get consumed by what is on the state assessments. While I was reading questions for a practice reading test, I was looking through the book. There were several highlighted key points. One student to my left had used the highlighter on the computer to aid in his comprehension. The student on my left had not. When we were finished, we talked a bit about highlighting. I mentioned that readers often times use the highlighter to point on facts they want to remember. It's unfortunate that we aren't aloud to highlight in our textbooks. However, there is highlighting tape that can be used and it doesn't hurt the book. I do think I'll be buying stock. Back to the point, the student on the right got a 92% and the student on the left got a 83%. Question is: why did one student do better without highlighting than the other? Did he use his background knowledge (that we had drilled in years ago) or just better at constructing meaning?
ReplyDeleteThe danger in feeding students too much information is that they won't have to read for themselves. They will not think for themselves and they won't use critical thinking or problem solving skills. They will not learn how to apply their own experiences to create schema, or background knowledge when they read. I have a lot of students that have been given too much help or too much information. They learn that they don't have to think for themselves or search for answers if they are given to them. They have learned helplessness. They don't know how to find answers in their text books, because they've never been asked to use the glossary or index. They don't use text features. I try to make students find answers for themselves before I just give them answers.
ReplyDeleteI think all of the comments support why we must be proactive in our planning for students and model strategies to use IN CLASS W/O a tapping para. We have got to learn to use our paraeducators more efficiently. I can't imagine a more boring job than listening to the same lecture/topic year after year just waiting for independent work to start.
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