Please answer the discussion question in 150 words each, my use in-text citation and response 75-100 words.
Question 1:
There are many overarching pedagogical approaches to teaching, including a student-centered classroom, an inquiry-based classroom, a project-based classroom, a flipped classroom, and many more. Pick one pedagogical approach to teaching in your content area. Why do you like this approach? How does this approach align with your content area?
Response 1: Jacqueline: As with most topics, I had to first learn what a pedagogical approach was as I had never heard the term prior to this class. My understanding is that it is simply the approach a teacher uses when instructing. “Pedagogy is a term that refers to the method of how teachers teach, in theory and in practice. Pedagogy is formed by an educator’s teaching beliefs and concerns the interplay between culture and different ways to learn. In order to help students to build on prior learning, meaningful classroom relationships must exist.” (Tophat, n.d.) There are different types of pedagogical approaches: behaviorism, constructivism, social constructivism, liberationism. In a math course I would likely use social constructivism. This would be a combination of teacher guided and student-centered approaches. I would use a variety of group, pair, individual and whole class instruction. This theory centers on the fact that learning is a collaborative process between the students and the teacher. (TES, 2021). I like this approach for math because students don’t all learn the same way. Using different approaches or differentiated styles will allow me reach more of them for this difficult subject. I also think that they can learn a lot from each other. Sometimes they don’t want to ask questions out loud because they feel unintelligent. Being in pairs or small groups will ease their insecurities. They also may have different ways to show each other how to workout problems. Math can be explained in so many ways… sometimes it may just take a different wording for someone to “get it”.
Response 2: Christopher wrote: As with most topics, I had to first learn what a pedagogical approach was as I had never heard the term prior to this class. My understanding is that it is simply the approach a teacher uses when instructing. “Pedagogy is a term that refers to the method of how teachers teach, in theory and in practice. Pedagogy is formed by an educator’s teaching beliefs and concerns the interplay between culture and different ways to learn. In order to help students to build on prior learning, meaningful classroom relationships must exist.” (Tophat, n.d.) There are different types of pedagogical approaches: behaviorism, constructivism, social constructivism, liberationism. In a math course I would likely use social constructivism. This would be a combination of teacher guided and student-centered approaches. I would use a variety of group, pair, individual and whole class instruction. This theory centers on the fact that learning is a collaborative process between the students and the teacher. (TES, 2021). I like this approach for math because students don’t all learn the same way. Using different approaches or differentiated styles will allow me reach more of them for this difficult subject. I also think that they can learn a lot from each other. Sometimes they don’t want to ask questions out loud because they feel unintelligent. Being in pairs or small groups will ease their insecurities. They also may have different ways to show each other how to workout problems. Math can be explained in so many ways… sometimes it may just take a different wording for someone to “get it”.
Question 2:
When planning instruction, a teacher must integrate curriculum and instructional strategies that students can relate to on a personal level. Consider the community in which you plan to teach. Describe the community’s demographics in 2-3 sentences. Discuss how you will plan instruction that considers students’ unique personal backgrounds, interests, and home lives.
Response 1: Allecia wrote: I teach Foods and Art at a high school in a smaller city with a total population of 51,000-52,000. The majority of the students are white, with a smaller percentage of students identifying as black, hispanic, asian, and/or Native American. A large portion of the students receive free and reduced lunch and would be considered of lower socioeconomic status.
After getting to know my students, I have found that many students have little to no experience cooking at home. This is due to lack of equipment and access to groceries. My district’s curriculum has some higher level cooking skills to be achieved. For most of my students, I need to teach basic skills of how to do dishes, how to turn on an oven or stove, etc. The reality is, some students might get to those higher level cooking skills that might be used if pursuing a career as a chef, but I place a lot of emphasis on “life skills” and things that students will need to know how to do in order to take care of themselves. If I did not first take the time to get to know my students, and went straight into the more challenging cooking concepts, there would be large gaps in understanding.