Fortino Tafoya Essays (1335 words) - Education, Learning

Fortino Tafoya CURR-119 Prof. Won-Jones 7/5/18 20 Strategies to Teach the Common Core One of the best benefits to assist a new teacher is talking to your colleagues. Having a friendly and supportive group or mentor to go to with teaching and strategy questions is very important for a young teacher's success. Watching Marcia Tate's webinar "20 Strategies to Teach the Common Core" I felt as though I had met a new colleague, a new mentor to help me become a better teacher. Aside from Marcia's use of humor and true to life story telling I was pulled in and comforted by some of the blunter things she had to say. It wasn't that she had some huge deep insight into pedagogy, but rather some very practical things about students that I think many people in higher levels of academia forget. One such quote that I will never forget from the webinar comes from the story of Tate's youngest son who was having trouble with the teaching strategies used at his first high school. In describing why the heavy use of lecture didn't work for her son Tate says, "If students aren't learning the way we teach, then we need to teach them the way they learn." This was, to borrow a phrase from a former student of mine, a total-mind-blow for me. I had never heard anyone use that phrase before and I have rarely heard such an accomplished instructor give students so much respect. It makes perfect sense to me to give students more ownership of their education. Tate uses several analogies to illustrate this point, one that I liked was explaining how athletes use diagrams, peer feedback, muscle memory and repetition to learn plays instead of taking notes for a long lecture about a pick n roll offense. She also uses scientific research to show how a diverse use of the strategies can be good for brain health, blood flow, retention, lower stress levels, etc. Her example of a brain biology lesson was high effective because it used her strategies to introduce a complex topic: the brain, dendrites and how we remember things. Teachers must be able to adapt to their students and this means using flexible strategies that avoid the 15-17 minute attention span blowout of teenagers that Tate also describes. Another phrase that stood out to me from the webinar was towards the end when Tate was describing the traits of a brain compatible classroom. When she talks about "connecting ideas" she says, "brains weren't for school, they were meant for life." This was another huge insight into the thought process of a student, especially a modern student who grew up in the smart phone fueled "google-it" era we are now in. As knowledge has become easier to access for just about any topic, learning much also change. If certain pieces of information are too easy to grasp then students need adequate challenges, but those challenges should relate back to a real-world application. This phrase also reminds me that not every student has a goal of going to college, but those students still need to be prepared for the real world and the job market, maybe even more so than college prep students since they may have to use the skills of language arts in relation to income much sooner. Tate describes this p hrase as a way to keep the content relevant so students remain engaged and she is absolutely correct. High school students especially are very critical of why they are learning something, and you may lose them at the onset if the hook and anticipatory set aren't strong enough or relatable. These phrases and the rest o the webinar have helped me create a connection between how I was taught in high school and how I felt about high school. I've realized the lack of strategy diversity that I experienced in high school and junior high and how it might have saved me from bad grades and so much ditching. My 12th grade English class was especially devoid of strategy diversity. We used visual arts in almost every essay and had a decent amount of class discussions, but the content was hardly ever connected to the real world