Reading Reflection Chapter 7

Chapter seven pointed out a great point on page 113 which stated “keeping a project moving requires teachers to support students on their learning journey” this quote I think is something that I think teachers need to remember as it is important.  This chapter discusses the levels of classroom discussions which includes teacher to teacher, student to student, and teacher to student.  Teacher to teacher is a conversation between two teachers or a group of teachers which gives them a chance to communicate and is a collaborative tool to keep your teacher to teacher conversations going.  Student to student is to get students communicating about their learning experiences as they are happening to deepen their learning.  Lastly is teacher to student which I think is extremely important because it keeps the connection open, this method as the chapter pointed out “is ideal for practicing your own listening skills and asking probing questions that push students toward higher order thinking”.  Getting students to higher order thinking is a key thing that teachers need to implement because it will only give them a higher level of understanding and knowledge.  I found it interesting that “60 percent of the questions asked by teachers are lower-order questions, calling for recall or recitation of facts.  Another 20 percent are higher order questions asking for evaluation or analysis, and 20 percent are simply procedural”.  I am shocked that more teachers do not use higher order questioning but maybe it is because they are not as educated about it.  This is something I can connect to my lesson/topic/project because we use higher order questioning to deepen learning.  There are ways for teachers to check in on student progress to help you as the teacher make adjustments to the project/lesson.  Depending on the questions and information you want a teacher can ask the following types of questions; procedural, teamwork, understanding, and self-assessment.  The more questions a teacher asks students the higher level of learning they will get which is why higher level questioning is so important.  There are benefits to students when optimizing the use of technology but teachers need to be monitoring and paying attention to simple things like is the technology helping students reach the learning goals you as the teacher set, is it helping them stay organized, is it accessible, are they expanding their horizons by using the technology, all of those and many more can help to optimize the use of technology.  The topic of group dynamics was interesting and groups work if everyone does their part and pulls their own weight. I have had groups that I have loved working with and ones I have hated working with but overall I would still implement them in my classroom but I would be sure to pay attention to them to make sure that it’s not one student doing it all and that it is equal participation. This chapter has been very interesting and I am enjoying the book and all the great information it has.