Aims in our classes are extremely important when taking a lot of aspects to be reached into account about teaching. Authors give us an understanding of how to deal with these aims in our teaching practice. Desired goals need to be clear at the moment of starting a lesson plan and help, in one way or another, to do the curriculum for a specific course.
Time has been always an issue to struggle against. As teachers, we may have our plans ready to get them through, and they may work in some lessons, but it is obviously in others will not. Why? Just because the variety of students we have in classes, or because pace is not the same in all our classes or just because we are not in the same mood. We try to cover as much as we can, but we know reality in the classroom is completely different and we have to skip some sections and be careful when choosing what to teach and what not to. We need to set our priorities.
It is really hard how to make that decision. Who decides? Who knows best what is the best for our students? The institution? The teacher? Too many questions to be answered just after reading this chapter.
As the text is concerned, we need to have in mind the three aspects when we set our priorities: worth being familiar with, important to do and to know and big ideas and core tasks.
To finish, I insist we have to be realistic and also flexible. After some experience teaching, we can decide better.
I think that nobody knows better than teachers the necessities and how diverse our students are... but... is there someone who wants to hear us? that my point...
ReplyDeleteTime, contents, goals and big ideas...a lot of element to consider that need to go perfectly mixed so as to get the most out of our students.
ReplyDeleteIs that possible? Hell yeah...just ask teachers everywhere!
We really are a valuable resource... It wouldn't hurt just sit down and listen to what we have to say
Knowledge of content, of our students,of objectives, having flexibility and creativity,among other issues, are lots of things to consider when building the appropriate context for learning.
ReplyDeleteMost of the time we have some certainty of what is best for our students. As you stated, it is quite important to set up our priorities always bearing in mind our students'differences.
ReplyDeleteI agree, if we don't set clear objectives and priorities, it is quite difficult to teach in a proper way, and giving students the time and tools they really need in order to learn in a meaningful way.
ReplyDeleteAs you mentioned, TIME has become and issue nowdays and the problem seems to be that we have accustomed to living in a hurry .We are lacking of time to talk, to listen or to share.
ReplyDeleteAs teachers we also have to face this common problem. We are deprived of certain conditions to state goals, plan our lessons and assess them.No doubt, this is an overloading job.
Time, time, time!! We seem to be certainly short of time! Too many contents to cover in a class and too little time to achieve this goal. This is the reason why establishing priorities and setting clear goals is a very important aspect to consider when planning a lesson. Otherwise we will be overloaded with lots of tasks and big ideas that are meaningless.
ReplyDeleteToo much to teach, little time, too much extra work, too much stress, little money. Certainly anybody would be reluctan to continue this path... but why are we here? why did we chose teaching? are we willing to continue?
ReplyDeleteBeing realistic, I do my best and I don't like my performance. Reading this kind of texts makes me feel down because I cannot agree more with these ideas but I know I wil never be able to take them to real practice.
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