Chapter 8 Reflection

As teachers, it is important to be observant and aware of what students are understanding and what they're struggling with.  Being able to keep the students moving toward learning important learning goals so being aware of their progress and where they're getting stuck at is crucial to helping them achieve those goals.  Teachers should be able to think on their feet when unexpected situations or questions occur, because more than likely they will! 

It is also the job of a teacher to make sure that the questions we ask our students are not generating  obvious or simple answers but more complex and the kind that open up a channel for other important questions to be asked.  Researchers have found that about 60% of the questions asked by teachers are lower-ordre questions, which means they are asking for recitation of facts.  They found 20% are higher-order questions, which is asking for evaluation or analysis and the other 20% are procedural.   The discussions that need to be done during project based learning need to take place teacher to teacher, student to student and teacher to student.  Doing whole-class discussion is one way to check student understanding, another way would be to walk around groups, observing, listening and talking with students.  Whichever method a teacher uses, it is important that teachers check their students understanding and pushing their students to higher-order thinking.