How do you get students to care about reading? In this week's readings Buehl makes an interesting point that when it comes to thinking in the way of any specific discipline they are novices, they see reading as an obligatory necessity to complete the bare minimum to pass the class. Whereas an insider of a disciplinary field approaches reading with an inquiry mindset; to use the readings as a way of accessing information to inform actions or answer questions.
As future teachers, we are all aware how easy it would be to simply select from a list of basic literacy strategies, however we also know that to deepest form of learning comes from learning how to think like an expert. I remember the teachers that simply gave me an activity just to answer the questions but they never facilitated the inquiry mindset. It was these teachers that I never felt engaged in the learning process of their specific discipline. In order to facilitate this mindset, the students must think on a deeper level than to just remember the information.
The teachers that did facilitate this inquiry mindset always had me more engaged and excited to learn about the deeper meanings of certain texts. Ever since I was a kid, I have always been interested with the inner workings "behind the curtain" of what was being presented to me. Like when watching a tv show or movie, I was always curious about why they chose to show me this certain detail that seemed to be inconsequential to the plot at the time. I would then try to predict how this detail would later come to be very important to the plot. It was the teachers that facilitated this kind of mindset in the classroom that always captured my attention and made me curious about the "why". Why did things happen in history the way they happened. What is the author trying to achieve for the reader in this text?
How did some of the teachers you had keep you engaged in deeper learning and to develop this inquiry mindset?
Another thing I really liked about what Buehl talked about was embedded literacy strategies into the regular flow of instruction. The best kind of instruction is the kind that teaches the student to think critically without even realizing it. Many teachers had me engaged in activities throughout the instruction that facilitated multiple goals for a teacher but I always saw them as a more entertaining way of learning. Thinking back now, the teacher likely had a check list of ways they facilitated deeper learning from just one day of instruction. As for me, I had no idea I was learning as much as I did at the time.
Training the student to look through a disciplinary lens requires more than just covering the content. It requires metacognitive conversations that answers the question "why". Why is it important for me to understand the authors intentions? Why is it important for me to learn these materials? "Why" is what defines the intersection between literacy demands and disciplinary thinking (Buehl, 300).
I think that in order to really engage your students, as a teacher you should get to know your students' interests as well as design your lessons around inquiry. I think we've all gotten the spiel about "I want you to understand the 'why' of this concept" but teachers so seldom provide us with the questions or lesson plans that get us there.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the post! I agree with the points you are trying to make, saying that its the teacher's responsibility to get the students engage into the reading. Having them answer simply questions will bored them but using the reading for a discussion to relate it to themselves is one way to get students engaged.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing your thoughts! In looking again at the section of Chapter 7 you last referenced, I noticed that the "why" for us as teachers in focusing on the "why" of an instructional practice to students is that they "become increasingly independent with handling the reading, writing, and thinking demands in a discipline." I like that he emphasizes the gradual release of responsibility from teacher modeling to peer collaborations in learning how to read a challenging text in a disciplinary way.
ReplyDeleteI also noticed that he inserted a plug for his own Classroom Strategies book when talking about the "what" and "how" of a particular practice. :)
Thanks for sharing. I think the best way to let students caring about reading is to find what they really like. I mean that if we give students something that is really boring or they don’t like it. I think they probably wouldn’t read it. The first is that we should make sure they have background of the readings that means they can understand the readings. And the second thing is that they are interested in those reading. I think these two points are important.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the insightful post. As to your question "How did some of the teachers you had keep you engaged in deeper learning and to develop this inquiry mindset?" The only teacher I ever had that was able to keep me engaged in deeper learning was my sophomore year honors chemistry teacher. This teacher, while full of dad jokes and cheesy, was able to keep us interested in the class just by telling us the weather every day. We would start class with his predictions of the weather for that winter and the temperatures of the oceans and how it affected the environment and it really helped me to engage in the class. The information was not necessarily incredibly interesting, but the way it was presented gave me such wonder into what is going on that I actually went out and learned more about how chemistry is going on all around us just to create the environment that we are in. It was because of this teacher that I have an everlasting love for chemistry, no matter how boring or hard the classes here at UIC are for it. I think getting taught the "Why?" in the context of the weather helped me really understand the subject and connect it to things that I need to know for the future.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your post - Your story about the rewards of curiosity in leisure reading/viewing was really wonderful because we all hope to hook the curiosity of our students. The experience you described is a success story of student inquiry. I also responded really positively to Buehl's assertion that we need to shift the burden of questioning from teachers to students because as you point out, it is that ability to question, that sense of curiosity, that will serve our students moving forward in their chosen careers. I will also suggest that essential questioning should be expanded from the pages of disciplinary texts to the discipline as a whole. I think that encouraging our students to ask essential questions of our disciplines themselves could contribute to increased engagement overall.
ReplyDeleteHi Kyle. I totally agree that the students must think on a deeper level than just remember the information. And I have the same experience that curious about the details of the TV plot. And I think maybe teacher could be this kind of “scriptwriter” who would attract students’ curiosity and attention in order to engage our students in the class activity. The question is how we could create details just like these of the TV. In this way, I think that students could learn the knowledge in the situation rather than reciting as a robert.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your sharing. I agree with that how the teachers keep students engage in deeper learning is really important. Making students join the class activity and help students have a deep understanding and interested in literacies are significance.
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing. It most definitely is the teachers responsibility to maintain a task that has high cognitive demand. Reading something and merely answering questions will not have a good impact on students. As you said, they will not retain the information, it will be used only to then be lost. To answer your question, my AP Calculus teacher was able to engage us in deeper learning because he showed to us that he cared. I feel like this goes back to the idea of being vulnerable enough for students to then be vulnerable to you. Who would have an interest in AP Calclus? Well the teacher was able to engage us because of the way he presented the material; connecting to the real world, bringing us into the problems, and even modeling some of the problems.
ReplyDeleteGreat post. I also like their view of how differently students see reading. I think the inquiry mindset would certainly help, but I'm not sure that the particular goal of having students think like experts is a productive approach. Experts and non-experts think differently because non-experts haven't had the wealth of discipline information practiced and stored in their mind, much less at a deep, abstract and connected level. You may not be able to shortcut the process of becoming an expert. It could be similar to asking music students to think like composers before they've even learned how to play an instrument. But that analogy may not be fair in some regards. What do you think?
ReplyDeleteVery insightful post, I wanna try to respond to your question about engaging deep thinking and say it can be both a difficult thing but also an easy thing to do. There are moments when its either or and both, it can be difficult if there is a lack of perspective or concern for the students or message behind the lesson that they present. If there is a lack of thought then there is a lack of effort to connect with students. It can be easy if of course if there is a concern for the students but also an understanding on the mind or ability to connect with people/students to get them to think about some thoughts of the mind and challenge to provide some strong rooted questions, assuming of the teacher is well connected to the subject or has enough experience to ask good questions for students to think about. Careful and considerable effort needs to be kept in mind in order to engage in serious deep thought for students.
ReplyDeleteOne aspect of this class that has changed my view on learning and education is that literacy is so different across the disciplines and that every teacher needs to be promoting literacy. Something you touched on which I think is an important concept is the idea that we need to be challenging students to think like an expert in each discipline as opposed to positioning yourself (as the teacher) as the sole expert in the classroom. Although we have more expertise in our discipline, we can definitely promote disciplinary thinking and encourage our students to challenge the information they are given.
ReplyDelete