How People Learn (Post #2)

I believe that a major part of learning, in the past as well as in the present, is through a process of trial and error and making mistakes and then learning from them. An excellent quote from Gandhi is posted in the article concerning great quotes about learning and change; he states, "Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes. Certainly a multitude of great inventions and wonderful ideas have come from people making mistakes and thus learning from them and improving on them. I personally find, that in the classroom, many of the kids use these methods of trial and error and problem solving techniques. Learning through these methods will help the students to retain more of the information, and for a longer period of time as well. In the article on "How People Learn," the editors bring up a good point when they state that much of what people learn, often is from mass media reporting and from people’s own experiences in schools. Sadly, much of what we see through the media, is often misconstrued and biased.

The future certainly holds unbelievable changes concerning technology, and their implications on how we grow as a people and how we learn. Today's children have more information available at their fingertips than our grandparents could have ever dreamt of. Foreign languages are now being taught in the schools as early as the first grade. The world as we know it has become so much smaller, yet so much larger and open at the same time. It is a fact that technology, and computers in particular, have become permanently ingrained in our schools, and they will only become more entrenched each school year. Through technology, our young students are learning more and at a faster rate than ever before, and hopefully this trend will continue.

In the article titled, "Clive Thompson on the New Literacy," it is stated that young people today are writing far more than in previous generations, due to technology and online socializing. They found that 38 percent of this writing is taking place out of the classroom. This type of socializing and open communication is teaching our young people many new skills that would have been previously unavailable to them. However, I personally believe that although communication and socializing has grown immensely, grammar and structure is lacking in many cases. Many people have become accustomed to texting and abbreviating far too often. I still think that old fashioned reading books, improves grammar and vocabulary ten-fold. The article on literacy also made a good point in that students today almost always write for a clear audience. It goes on to say that students of the past were less enthusiastic about their in-class writing because the professor was the only audience, and that their only motivation was for a good grade. Now their work can be available to the world wide web in an instant, and can thus open up debates, chats, etc.

My Co-operating teacher for my field experience last year at Liberty High School used technology in his classroom very effectively. The class was 12th grade advanced placement American Government, and each student was supplied with a laptop computer which they used individually at their desks. Each day they had to post a current events article on their class web page, that had to do with politics in America. They would write a brief summary of the article's main points and then the class would have a discussion period where a few students would talk about their articles. The kids enjoyed this warm-up activity very much because it kept them engaged and also allowed them to discuss their own ideas and thoughts with the rest of the class.