EDCI 5065 T2P Week 2

Today I further enhanced my knowledge of the concept of learning. The two articles that we had to read for class today really opened my mind to the degree that teachers impact their students. I knew the role of the teacher was to teach content and to share their knowledge with their students. However, I didn't realize how many other factors can also impact the overall learning of a student. I knew that teachers can be role models for student, but I didn't realize that this can happen in a very indirect way. It is important for teachers to realize that their actions can impact the future actions of their students as students look to their teachers to be able to judge how to act in social situations. Teachers direct this learning through their own classroom management as well as how they comport themselves in the classroom. This aspect really stuck with me today as important and especially to be aware of it in my future classroom.
I also appreciated breaking up into groups again to have discussions. This helps to solidify my learning as I enjoy bouncing ideas off of other people as everyone has a different perspective about an idea. At first my group struggled to create a new concept map, which was surprising to me because we had such an easy time last week. However, it makes sense that we struggled more this week because we have more knowledge about learning. Since we have more information, it was harder to categorize all of our thoughts. This also leads to another problem. It seems that learning is not best described through categorization, but more as a process. I believe that my group and I forgot that learning can be described as gray, which makes it very difficult to put into specific categories. By reassessing our concept maps again, it helped me realize even more how abstract learning truly is and how many ideas and thoughts can encompass learning.
Lastly, I feel that the videos we watched in class were very informative and helpful in demonstrating different methods of teaching. It is very easy to read about different methods in a textbook, but it was beneficial to actually see them in action in a video. It is helpful to examine other people's teaching preferences as it is helping me form my own preferences for teaching. Through watching the videos and class discussions of the readings I see how important the teacher's presence is in the classroom as an intrinsic and extrinsic model for students.

If students can learn to appreciate and utilize other people's differences as a resource then successful learning can occur because students will strengthen their own learning and understanding of a topic through the experiences of their classmates.