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This week felt like we were having the same concepts about teaching drilled into our heads, in a good way. The week starts off in instructional planning, this week we discussed James Banks and the four approaches to multicultural reform. The four approaches were contribution, additive, transformation, and social action, each one offers a different style to teaching. While discussing the different approaches, we all came to a general agreement that each approach was meant for a general age group. For example, kindergartners might not be get the most out of the social action approach, this is where students identify important social problems and then research them. In teaching mathematics, we discussed approaches to problem solving and the affects they can have on students learning and retention of material. The textbook discussed three specific approaches: teaching for problem solving, teaching about problem, and teaching through problem solving. The current belief is that teaching through problem solving is the most effective manner to get students to learn and retain. If you give students appropriate problems, ones that don't give students a chance to actually think about what the question is asking. In seminar, we spoke about testing and assessment. It was interesting listening to the various opinions each one of the other interns held about assessment and what we could be learned about the data gathered from assessments, both from the actual test and just from students.
And thats all for this week,
Ms. Brookes