Sunday, September 17, 2017

Say No to Lecturing, Unless When Necessary

This week, two of our readings discussed why working in groups is important. I feel that working in groups is important. I believe in inquiry based learning, but let's be honest, sometimes we just gotta lecture.

I think lecturing is important and key when you just have to get a basic foundation across to your students. In this manner, you know all your students are prepared for the more inquiry based, hands on activities that are to follow. One of the worst things I feel you can do to a student is make them feel lost and have them feel like quitting. It is crucial to inspire desire, momentum, and success in your students. If the one way you can assure you will have that basic foundation is to lecture, then by all means, do. It'll save yourself and your students a headache later.

One of the things I love most about agriculture education is the fact that I have so many hands-on real life opportunities at my fingertips, so beyond that basic foundation, I don't need to lecture. I can teach students with live animals, getting there hands in the dirt with plants, or maybe even getting some dirty oil on there hands. You can't exactly feed, plant, or change the oil of a math equation. I love being able to bring some true life skills into my classroom. If by chance it can't come in, they you bet were gonna go out and find it.

After all, we are:


Newcomb, L.H., McCracken, J.D., Warmbrod, J.R., & Whittington, M.S. (1993). Methods of teaching agriculture. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall.

Groseta, K.J. & Myers, B.E. (2006). Using cooperative learning in formal and nonformal educationView in a new window. Retrieved from https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/pdffiles/WC/WC06200.pdf (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.

3 comments:

  1. Katie, how do these things relate to this week's reading assignment? Can you highlight some ways that you plan to incorporate group work into your class? Also, how do you plan to differentiate your objectives for days when you are lecturing vs. days that your students will be doing hands-on activities?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Katie, I can think back to my time in high school to when I had teachers who utilized group instruction and those that simply lectured for an entire 45 minutes. It is easier for me to think back and have happy thoughts about the teachers that utilized variation and let us discuss things and work in groups. Do you have any specific teachers that were good at group teaching?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Katie, I really like you pulling in the FFA motto at the end because that does hold true. Administration will have a stance on lecturing and teaching introductory topics and vocabulary and it may differ from yours above. I believe there is a time and place for lecture but put boundaries up. For example, I will have media, asks prepared, think-pair-share, and/or an activity (like building something with play-doh) to have the kids involved and interacting. I also will not exceed a certain number of slides. Hope some of this helps!

    ReplyDelete