Introduction
Declaration of Independence
Teachers and parent-teachers can't go it alone. They need good materials to assist them. With good materials students will work independently and will persist at their work. With good materials your teaching task is manageable.
It is virtually impossible to individualize instruction without individualized learning materials. Having students work on their own is a hallmark of individualized instruction.
Section I provides background. Section II makes suggestions about how teachers can best manage students' independent work. Section III provides lists of available independent-learning materials. Section IV is a list of the publishers referred in Section III.
Plan:
Section I
1. Background: Principles of Teaching Two Kinds of Assignments
2. Assigned School Work: Part of a Continuum?
3. Mastery: Is It Practical?
4. School Work: Do Students See It as Purposeful?
5. Asking Students Questions
6. Whole Class Instruction: Is It Out of Date?
Section II
1. Strategies for Managing Students' Independent Work
2. Choosing Work According to the Curriculum
3. Test Often, Test Widely
4. Keeping a Studious Classroom
5. Obtaining Student Commitment to Independent Work
6. Providing for Student Management of Classroom Materials
7. Choosing Learning Materials for the Independent Learner:
8. Using Trade Books
9. Using Workbooks/Kits/Centers
10. Using software
11. Using the Internet/On-line Services
12. Sending Independent-Study Work Home
Section III
1. Learning Materials for Independent Learners
2. Learning to Use Computers/Using Computers
3. Foreign Languages
4. Language Arts/Reading/Literature
5. Library/Work/Study Skills/Research
6. Logic/Critical Thinking/Creative Thinking/Art/Interpersonal Skills/Across the Curriculum
7. Mathematics
8. Science/Health/Social Studies/Environment
INDEPENDENT-STUDY COURSES
1. Independent-Study Courses By Correspondence
2. Courses on the Internet/On-Line
3. Internet Resources for Students
Section IV
1. List of Publishers
2. Teachers grades 5-12: willing to try out my reading comprehension tests?
3. Test Directions
Section I
Mastery: Is It Practical?
Mastery is the goal of all teaching. In a classroom there is a special problem: the students vary so much in knowledge and abilities that it is impractical to expect all students to master the material taught.
Even in first grade not every student masters the material for the grade. When it was common practice to "hold back" students, many students failed first grade. Although nowadays few students are held back in first grade, nevertheless not all students master the material for the grade.
As students grow older, the gap in knowledge and abilities among them widens, and getting all students to learn the basic materials for the grade or course becomes even more difficult than it was in the early grades.
Should teachers throw up their hands and give up on the slower learners? This is a mistake that some teachers make.
Slower learners respond to conscientious instruction. There are several strategies that teachers employ:
1) The teacher teaches a single student or a small group during class time or after school.
2) A faster student is assigned to help a slower student.
3) The teacher finds special instructional materials for slower students to work on independently either during school time or at home.
4) The teacher enlists the parents to teach the child at home using instructional materials supplied by the teacher.
5) When mastery is sought, as it should be, the importance of testing is readily apparent. With test results in hand, both teacher and student can see how well the student has learned, and plans for next steps can be made.
Asking Students Questions
There are two parts to any school's curriculum - one, the curriculum prescribed by the school, and the other, the curriculum determined by the teacher.
The prescribed curriculum is often laid out in manuals or guides written by committees of teachers and principals, either at the school system level or the state level. These manuals or guides list learnings and suggested means of achieving them by grade level. The prescribed curriculum goes hand in hand with textbooks. As students move upward grade by grade, the textbook plays a greater and greater role, until in secondary school it takes a commanding place.
The part played by teacher-determined curriculum is considerable, particularly in the elementary years, before the advent of courses. This is to say that teachers have much latitude in what to teach. There is no teacher who only covers what is in the textbook or what is in the curriculum guide. One reason for this is that the teacher is responsible for making the learnings relevant to daily living. Our fast-changing world demands that new developments in any field are taken into account. Our times are so complicated that students are always challenged to understand and make sense of their lives, and they challenge the teacher to help them.
Another reason for the large part played by teacher-determined curriculum is the great variation among students, not only in knowledge and ability but also in interests and world-view. Teachers who test often and test widely see needs aplenty and feel a responsibility for accommodating them. It is in this environment that a variety of learning materials becomes so important.
Chapter II
Introduction
Declaration of Independence
Teachers and parent-teachers can't go it alone. They need good materials to assist them. With good materials students will work independently and will persist at their work. With good materials your teaching task is manageable.
It is virtually impossible to individualize instruction without individualized learning materials. Having students work on their own is a hallmark of individualized instruction.
Section I provides background. Section II makes suggestions about how teachers can best manage students' independent work. Section III provides lists of available independent-learning materials. Section IV is a list of the publishers referred in Section III.
Plan:
Section I
1. Background: Principles of Teaching Two Kinds of Assignments
2. Assigned School Work: Part of a Continuum?
3. Mastery: Is It Practical?
4. School Work: Do Students See It as Purposeful?
5. Asking Students Questions
6. Whole Class Instruction: Is It Out of Date?
Section II
1. Strategies for Managing Students' Independent Work
2. Choosing Work According to the Curriculum
3. Test Often, Test Widely
4. Keeping a Studious Classroom
5. Obtaining Student Commitment to Independent Work
6. Providing for Student Management of Classroom Materials
7. Choosing Learning Materials for the Independent Learner:
8. Using Trade Books
9. Using Workbooks/Kits/Centers
10. Using software
11. Using the Internet/On-line Services
12. Sending Independent-Study Work Home
Section III
1. Learning Materials for Independent Learners
2. Learning to Use Computers/Using Computers
3. Foreign Languages
4. Language Arts/Reading/Literature
5. Library/Work/Study Skills/Research
6. Logic/Critical Thinking/Creative Thinking/Art/Interpersonal Skills/Across the Curriculum
7. Mathematics
8. Science/Health/Social Studies/Environment
INDEPENDENT-STUDY COURSES
1. Independent-Study Courses By Correspondence
2. Courses on the Internet/On-Line
3. Internet Resources for Students
Section IV
1. List of Publishers
2. Teachers grades 5-12: willing to try out my reading comprehension tests?
3. Test Directions
Section I
Background: Principles of Teaching. Two Kinds of Assignments
Teachers make both closed and open assignments.
Closed assignments are a follow-up of material taught. Often, they are practice. All students do the work of the assignment in the same way. Examples of closed assignments are:
- Do all the calculations on page 120 of the book.
- Write the transcription twenty times as carefully as possible.
- Memorize the poem on page 50.
Open assignments provide for student diversity. Examples of open assignments are:
- Write a half page about your weekend.
- Find three new words in the dictionary and write sentences using them.
- Continue working in your workbook.
Using the techniques taught to the whole class, draw a picture with crayons illustrating the season. Although closed assignments are necessary for the sake of mastery, they do present problems:
- Students vary in how long they take to complete an assignment. Take an example. The teacher teaches a whole-class handwriting lesson on forming the capital B. Posture, hand position, and how the pencil is held are all taught in the lesson. The students are then given an assignment to practice the formation of the capital B. The fast students get the work done in short order. The slower students complete only part of the assignment.
What should be done with the students that finish the work quickly?
Should the laggards be required to complete the assignment?
This frustrating situation exists every day in every classroom in the world. There is no excellent solution. However, the students are least frustrated when the work seems easy to them. Rather than gearing the assignment for the average student, the teacher can gear the assignment for the below average. Students who complete the work quickly can turn to open assignments.
The effect of this is that the slowest students work on closed assignments most of the time, while the fastest students work on open assignments most of the time.
Дата: 2019-07-24, просмотров: 238.