Working Theory of Practice
I find the content I teach interesting and engaging to discuss and explore with my students. While there are students who are interested in the content and find it worthwhile to learn there are others who are disinterested. This disinterest seems to stem from the lack of understanding the application of the material in their future. As I began focusing on the enduring understandings of my lessons, topics, and science as a whole I could see why such disinterest would arise. I noticed I was very unsure of how to formulate a worthwhile and durable aspect of what I am teaching to students on a daily scope, let alone the entire year. I struggled finding a strong way of articulating to students the significance how what they are learning on a daily or yearly scale will be useful for them later on in life. This inability to construct enduring understandings that were sufficient for my students and myself was very concerning. This made me realize that I needed to further explore these concerns.
Reflecting on my education I can see that I found the drive to do well on a test as the incentive to work hard in high school and in higher education. I was never introduced to an enduring understanding by any teacher throughout my education. I was able to be successful in school without directly be told what the bigger picture or enduring understanding was. I never made the connections to how the information and skills I was learning could have real world implications beyond strictly going on to more school to learn the material at the next level. How can I get students who may already feel like failures and don’t see the point in learning the topics taught to them in their science classes to be engaged and see that there is worth to applying themselves? Simply learning scientific theories and concepts is the bear minimum of what learning science is about. However, just verbally explaining this to students this is not connected to how they are assessed on their summative assessments. These assessments require students to show their ability to apply the content in an isolated context. Their fact retrieval or specific skill set, such as drawing Lewis dot structures, are typically not utilized outside of the context of the classroom. I want to find a way to get students who do not find just doing well for a good grade a good enough reason to learn or be engaged with the content.
Reflecting on my education I can see that I found the drive to do well on a test as the incentive to work hard in high school and in higher education. I was never introduced to an enduring understanding by any teacher throughout my education. I was able to be successful in school without directly be told what the bigger picture or enduring understanding was. I never made the connections to how the information and skills I was learning could have real world implications beyond strictly going on to more school to learn the material at the next level. How can I get students who may already feel like failures and don’t see the point in learning the topics taught to them in their science classes to be engaged and see that there is worth to applying themselves? Simply learning scientific theories and concepts is the bear minimum of what learning science is about. However, just verbally explaining this to students this is not connected to how they are assessed on their summative assessments. These assessments require students to show their ability to apply the content in an isolated context. Their fact retrieval or specific skill set, such as drawing Lewis dot structures, are typically not utilized outside of the context of the classroom. I want to find a way to get students who do not find just doing well for a good grade a good enough reason to learn or be engaged with the content.