thank you for sharing this. I really enjoyed the information shared and found immense value in it from a instructional perspective. Keep up the great work Lauren!!!!
Me too. I find it both baffling and infuriating that I've been in education for 30 years and am only now putting this puzzle together. And only because I was curious about things and made the time to read about it. Not part of any official training or education.
Love this! Learning a new language as an adult is such a great opportunity to revisit learning from the ground up. Doing so in parallel with your student models an open mindedness for being a beginner at something, even when you're the adult in the room. I'm on my own journey learning Cantonese as a beginner which has been humbling and helps me empathize with these experiences many students face.
Yes, so humbling to be learning as an adult! Taking on a language like Cantonese with a different alphabet is ambitious!
I'm currently in a Spanish class where it is clear that I'm the lowest performing of the group. One way I know this is because every now and then the teacher or another student will say something and everyone will laugh. I don't laugh because my oral comprehension no es muy buena. As someone who has always been one of the strongest students, it gives me so much more empathy for students at the other end of the continuum. As an adult who has chosen to do this by choice, I'm okay with the fact that I'm struggling. It pushes me to work harder so I can catch up to the others.
But here's another key point: I know what I need to do to improve! And I have the resources to take an extra private lesson if I want (time is the resource I'm short on).
One of the problems with struggling students in "regular" school is they don't always know what they need to do and/or are reluctant to ask for help. Those who have the means ($, parents who have time to advocate) can more easily overcome their challenges. Teachers don't always know what the weaknesses are nor how to remedy them because so many of us haven't had the kind of training in cognitive science we need and/or because we have so many students, some slip through the cracks. When we are able to identify issues, the bureaucracy to get students the help they need is another barrier. Not enough support staff is yet another problem. Some days I feel like there just couldn't be enough special ed teachers, reading specialists and social workers to meet the needs of all our students.
thank you for sharing this. I really enjoyed the information shared and found immense value in it from a instructional perspective. Keep up the great work Lauren!!!!
I'm starting to convince myself that cognitive load theory explains the vast majority of issues we see in the classroom.
Me too. I find it both baffling and infuriating that I've been in education for 30 years and am only now putting this puzzle together. And only because I was curious about things and made the time to read about it. Not part of any official training or education.
I love this so much! I always have so many teacher-realizations when I struggle to learn new things.
Thanks, Jenna! Yes, so good for us to reverse our role sometimes.
Love this! Learning a new language as an adult is such a great opportunity to revisit learning from the ground up. Doing so in parallel with your student models an open mindedness for being a beginner at something, even when you're the adult in the room. I'm on my own journey learning Cantonese as a beginner which has been humbling and helps me empathize with these experiences many students face.
Yes, so humbling to be learning as an adult! Taking on a language like Cantonese with a different alphabet is ambitious!
I'm currently in a Spanish class where it is clear that I'm the lowest performing of the group. One way I know this is because every now and then the teacher or another student will say something and everyone will laugh. I don't laugh because my oral comprehension no es muy buena. As someone who has always been one of the strongest students, it gives me so much more empathy for students at the other end of the continuum. As an adult who has chosen to do this by choice, I'm okay with the fact that I'm struggling. It pushes me to work harder so I can catch up to the others.
But here's another key point: I know what I need to do to improve! And I have the resources to take an extra private lesson if I want (time is the resource I'm short on).
One of the problems with struggling students in "regular" school is they don't always know what they need to do and/or are reluctant to ask for help. Those who have the means ($, parents who have time to advocate) can more easily overcome their challenges. Teachers don't always know what the weaknesses are nor how to remedy them because so many of us haven't had the kind of training in cognitive science we need and/or because we have so many students, some slip through the cracks. When we are able to identify issues, the bureaucracy to get students the help they need is another barrier. Not enough support staff is yet another problem. Some days I feel like there just couldn't be enough special ed teachers, reading specialists and social workers to meet the needs of all our students.