New Insights & Their Implications

Since this class has started, I have already gained many new insights in regards to teaching. I now understand how important it is for students to be able to think for themselves and engage in a learning process in which they are able to independently create solutions from the information and material given. As we have talked about numerous times in class, it is beneficial to students' learning if the teacher lets them struggle a little to figure out solutions instead of giving them the answers. This way, the students are more active learners and will take responsibility for their learning. We also discussed in class how it is extremely important to not only refer to state standards when planning lessons, but also consider national standards. It was made very clear in class how the state standards are very vague and may be missing vital components. The national standards are more detailed and help provide a better description of the learning that is expected to take place at each grade level. In other classes, we have not talked much about national standards, so it was very helpful that we covered this in class. These are some of the new insights that I have gained so far in class.