There are several ways for one to center instruction in the classroom to ensure the required material is reaching the optimal number of students and serving them in a variety of ways. If all children are unique in personality and disposition we have to remember that they are unique in their methods of learning and retention as well. While the effective teaching strategies all overlap with one another they also have distinct variables that differentiate the appropriate methods. One effective teaching strategy is to build a learner-centered classroom. In order to ensure the needs of the students are really being met the instructor must take into consideration what it is the children need to learn versus what they already know. They must evaluate which students have misconceptions about previously presented information and draw these misconceptions to light. Finally, the instructor must take into consideration that their students will learn information they actually care about more efficiently than information that does not appear to hold any relevant bearing in their life. How many of us have sat in a Calculus class and solemnly sworn that we would NEVER use Calculus EVER again no matter what? It might have taken that one special teacher to bring the concepts to life for us so we could see more than just numbers on a page. Our students do not just exist in our classroom. They go home after school and become avid readers thanks to Star Wars magazines or fine-motor experts due to practice with video games. They go to church on Sunday morning or to any number of sites of worship and are the person their family is counting on them to be. I think our students will be better learners when we present information that applies to them and not just to who they are “supposed to be” because if that worked then we would just tell the students to sit quietly and learn everything on the first try and we would all be wildly successful teachers! An activity that allows students to be led by their current knowledge and construct their education is one that I will use in my Sunday school class for three year olds. Before beginning the Story of Creation lesson I will start with a felt board activity that requires the students to place the felt scenes in order of how they were created. This tells me a lot about what they already know and how the children feel performing activities in front of their friends. Once the scenes are all in order we dive into the lesson using various media such as puppet shows, books, coloring activities, and songs and movement to find a way to impress the theme on every student in SOME way. To maintain a learner-centered classroom while also making it a knowledge-centered classroom the instructor must keep abreast of where the students are in knowledge and understanding of material. Goals for specific areas of study are set so it can be measured when the students grasp the content. No student should be left behind because the material is too complicated but rather every child has the ability to grasp on if the material is presented in relevant ways, at relevant times. Knowledge-based instruction means that we are teaching more than how to memorize a list of facts. For students to really appreciate subject content they must be able to adapt it to real life and use it in a variety of situations…not just in the unit quiz at the end of the chapter!
The two forms of assessment that should be used in assessment-centered instruction are formative assessments and summative assessments. Formative assessments can be considered a friend and desired companion of students! This form of assessment can also be known as professional feedback. Instead of marking a paper “right” or “wrong” and stopping there, a formative assessment returns the paper with feedback on where the student is excelling and where they may have some misconceptions. Students can review what they have been learning and use this feedback to pinpoint where they have gone astray. Summative assessments differ from formative assessments in that they are typically accompanied by a qualitative measurement of their grasp or knowledge of the information studied. The grade given is in response to the assessment and are considered the result of what has been learned.
Community-centeredness is important to student learning because research has shown time and again that competition does not fuel knowledge in the way that collaboration does. In a community-centered classroom everyone’s expectations and expected outcomes are made plain. In classes with even the youngest of students it is important to dispel any illusions the students might have about what will be taking place in the classroom. One cannot really be upset with a two year old that is screaming for their snack if they have not heard that the class will be having snack as soon as the morning physical activity is finished. If the teacher makes this clear they will understand (whether they like it or not) that snack is only going to be longer in coming if they do not cooperate. Incorporating a community-centered attitude in my classroom means that I accept that not all of the students are going to learn the way I do or in the way that every student I have ever had before them learns. When my students are allowed to bring their frustrations to me and I have a mind open to accepting that some of these frustrations are MY PROBLEM I am fostering an environment where they can learn all material and draw necessary information out of me to do so. In addition, when the students collaborate they end up not just meeting a specified grade goal but retaining true knowledge because of the social interaction combined with the project. One community-centered activity I have used is the Class Carwash. We pull the riding toys out on the pavement and get our buckets, water and sponges. One child runs the cash register and collects the play money from the customers that are lined up on their riding toys. Our mechanics and car washers scrub the vehicles and then the children change places. The children have to sort out who starts with what job! Generally a couple of children take leadership roles but some of the kids need to have someone lead them. Everyone knows going into it that our goal is to help each other by providing a service and if there are questions we all pitch in to figure out how to best answer them. This is a community-centered project because the children all feed off each other and help each other and no one is disillusioned about the expectations of the activity. Through this the kids are learning not just the idea of service but the actual logistics of organizing themselves to help others. They will try to do this when they get home at the end of the day but they will likely not repeat my explanation of how a carwash works to their families because it did not hold much real-time relevance to them.
An excellent way for an instructor to evaluate their own instruction is through the formative assessments they give to their students. I once had a math teacher say that since so many of us failed a test the problem had to be in her instruction of the material. She learned something from us about her teaching. This can really be done at any time during a learning unit but the instructor should not wait until the unit is over to realize there is a conflict between delivery and reception of material. How our students use their gained knowledge to aid them in parallel situations is a determining measure of how well we presented the material because often if they have just memorized facts they are unlikely to adapt it to real-life. This is also a test of whether or not the students have become self-evaluative. Many students are seriously hard on themselves but when they reach the point where they realize that while they may not be able to quip off a list of facts they’ve learned but instead use that information to be successful in other areas they are getting closer to a realistic view of their own achievements. On a preschool level, once their knowledge or capability has been assessed I can foster expansion by use of open ended questions and presenting them with the same material in a different context or through a different media source.
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