Competency 008
The teacher provides appropriate instruction that actively engages students in the learning process.
Well-planned lessons serve as the foundation for effective, engaging, and meaningful learning for students. To me, competency 008 describes how good lesson plans should work and the purpose they serve in the classroom. I learned that effective classroom instruction does not consist of an entire class period of lecturing. In fact, lecturing is the exact opposite of what competency 008 describes. That is, in lectures, students are passive learners. Research has shown that passive learning may actually disengage students.
In session 6, I learned that questioning strategies are one way to engage all students in active learning. By asking open-ended and divergent questions and using a prompting strategy, I can help low achieving students experience success, which in turn can encourage them to participate in future activities. Redirecting questions helps to keep students engaged and less likely to engage in inappropriate behavior, since they know they may be called on at any point during a lesson.
Session 7 showed me that problem-based learning actively engages students in real world investigations, which can help them to see the relevance in what they learn in the classroom. Session 8 showed me that cooperative learning also engages students in learning and also helps them gain respect for students of various ethnic, cultural, and academic backgrounds.
In Session 4, I actively involved my own student in the learning process when I created and taught a hands-on lesson0 (lab) activity over prokaryotes and eukaryotes. I see myself using many hands-on learning activities like this in my future classroom. Hands-on activities make biology fun and allow students to see how concepts apply to the real world.