Warington describes the various advantages of how students learn more by finding the answers themselves, not being taught numerous different rules. Through her experiences, teaching a basic concept and then allowing the students to think through more difficult problems is a great way to determine what each student knows. Another advantage she talks about is that the students rely on themselves, not the teacher or a classmate, to find the answer. This encourages individual thinking as well as strengthening the confidence of each individual in their problem solving skills. Also, this method encouraged group work, talking with other students in order to find the answer. This also has the potential to prevent the struggling students from getting farther and farther behind as each individual is forced into discussion of a concept, not simply copying numbers on an assignment. Due to these numerous advantages, Warington presents the idea that this is the most effective way for students to learn a true understanding for concepts.
As with every situation, there is another side to the argument. There are disadvantages to this style of teaching to contrast the advantages. Without teaching the students the proper method to arrive at the solution, paired with not giving correct answers has the potential for students to get off track and stay off track. If the students are teaching themselves, they could be arriving at a correct answer through an incorrect method, which because they have found for themselves, is harder to remove from their brains. Also, this method takes a lot longer to accomplish and is nearly impossible to use to cover all the required curriculum today. This constructivist approach to teaching definitely had the potential to be effective, but it also has the potential for students to get behind: a debate for efficiency.
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You did a really good job on your post. I liked how you identified that students can get off track if they don't learn the correct methods for solving problems. One thing that I am not sure of is if the students are really forced to share their ideas of the concept. I think they are encouraged, but not entirely forced. Altogether, you did a good job :)
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading your blog entry. Both paragraphs have strong topic sentences and are organized in a way that helps make the different advantages and disadvantages clear. The only thing I would have liked to see that I didn't would be examples from the paper to illustrate the advantages, as suggested in the assignment description for this blog entry.
ReplyDeleteI think that you have done a nice job of capturing what Warrington thinks are the advantages to her instruction. I also appreciated the disadvantages that you identified. I hadn't thought much about your first disadvantage, namely that students might go off track and stay there. Do you think there was something that she did in her instruction that would make this less likely to occur? I also liked your idea that they might arrive at the correct answer through an incorrect method. I wonder what Warrington would do then. What do you think?
I think I agree with you an almost every single part of your blog. You did a great job of analyzing the paper and more importantly the teaching style. I agree that this teaching style lacks efficiency and leaves room for students to learn incorrect principles. You brought up that this teaching method can give confidence to students, and I agree, but think that most teachers are not skilled enough to teach in such a way that a majority of the students actually gain confidence. That’s just a point you might want to think about.
ReplyDeleteI really liked what you said about how Warrington's style of teaching really strengthens the confidence of the students in mathematics. I think it really would I know that I have much more confidence when I am able to figure something out on my own.One thing I disagree about is that Warrington's style of teaching prevents students from falling behind. I think that students can fall behind when they are unsure of the answer and will believe what outspoken students are saying without figuring it out for themselves.
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