Dora
Learns to Write
The
questions that have been brought up are; “What does the teacher do to help Dora
learn how to correctly punctuate the end of sentence”, “What doesn't the
teacher do”, and “Why does it take so long for Dora to apply the concept of
sentence-end-marking”? So how do we really answer these questions without being
there in the action ourselves? We work with what we know.
What we do know
is that the teacher does many things for all of her students to help them learn
the punctuation problem. One way that the teacher helps Dora and her classmates
learn new things is through the small group work that she provides before the
lesson where the kids get to experiment with their ideas and tell each other
what they think is correct and that allows the children to create new material
and use their creativity while peers are cheering them on. This way of helping
is very positive to all the kids in the group and allows them to grow in the
fashion of learning how to create connections to concepts. The teacher also helps Dora’s class learn by
providing the definition of the punctuation at the end of the group meeting
time. She makes sure that they have the opportunity to learn in that fashion of
a small group with minor supervision, but also provides the actual concept and
provides the reason why that is so. Then later in the passage we read the
Teacher does something even more for Dora’s writing. She tells Dora to read out
loud how the passage she wrote should sound, similar to a story book. By doing
so the teacher is creating connections for Dora that she didn't see before.
Instead of regurgitating what the rule is Dora now understands that it sounds
wrong and the whole point of the punctuation is so that others can understand
your thoughts in a fluid sweep of the page, rather than a cut up story with
periods between random words.
According to the
passage we read about Dora learning to write, the teacher does many things to
help. But she also doesn't do some things very well. She doesn't keep the small
groups in check and keep them corrected all the time. What she doesn't do is
provide negative feedback to the children that are doing it wrong, but she does
help them in a different way. The teacher doesn't do any calling out on those
that are wrong and she doesn't discriminate against those that understand and
those that don’t. This teacher also doesn't reach all the kids the same with
the different learning styles. Her method isn't great for some learners that
only need definitions and memorize things that way but rather for those that
are thinkers and that do their own thing. This teacher promotes creativity
instead of giving the kids the definition straight out of the book and over
loading their brains with information.
All in all I
believe the teacher did a great job teaching her class and provided a diverse
learning environment, but she didn't really get all the concepts hard in some
of the students. Dora took a while to learn and apply the concepts of
punctuation of the period or sentence-end-marking. I believe it took her so
long because she wasn't ready for the different learning styles that the
teacher provided and because the different learning style was more group
oriented so she got confused because her peers would say “Yeah that sounds
right”, when it was actually wrong. But WHOSE
fault is that other than the teachers you would ask? I think that the parents
and previous teachers are to blame as well. Without the guidance of THEIRS the
student will more likely be left behind.
So in conclusion
the teacher did a great job but didn't reach out to those kids with different
learning styles as well, but created a very creative learning classroom where
the kids could experiment with the concepts and definitions before they were
told what they really meant. That being said I believe how she taught the class
was well suited for the children there and she didn't do anything wrong. She
taught them the basics while also teaching them how to open their minds and
learn on their own which is something many high school students don’t
understand how to do. Now if you were in this situation you would believe the
failure of the student was YOURS alone to bear but I would like to say that
teaching is a team effort and this teacher did everything she could with what
her teammate the kindergarten teacher had to bring to the plate.
[I realized that i don't really use apostrophes other than for contractions so i actually read through the paper and didn't see any.]
I liked you're response. Not only did you say that you liked what the teacher did, but you also backed it up with examples of what you liked about the teaching style.
ReplyDeleteuh-oh, Paul.
ReplyDeleteyou're response > your response.