Classroom Technique Question

I have no idea where she gets this..

Welcome to A2K.

Ah, yes. Knowledge for its own sake.

I've no idea where she got this idea. Possibly, she's bothered by the idea that many lessons have no aim (purpose)?

How strange. Did she give you any reasoning?

What I am coming up with is that you want to help the students along in a voyage of discovery, rather than giving away the punchline. For example, if an objective of the lesson is to show that statistics can be manipulated, you wouldn't want to state that at the outset, but create a situation in which that becomes obvious to the students.

Can you give more details?

Welcome to A2K!

expectations and role of authority - my bet she \ he is old school

welcome aboard!

I can see sozobe's point. Make them learn by doing and seeing the result - the aim becoming apparent through the process instead of risking them taking shortcuts to get to the aim that has already been made evident.


Unless it's this -

Maybe she's a bit "new school". Perhaps she is one that feels a student should not feel the need to get to a specific point - there is no "right" answer, so by asking them to define the aim there is the suggestion that there IS a specific point. Peace, love, hugs, self-esteem and all that. If there is no specific aim then there is no specific lesson to be learned - it's all just a philosophical discussion of ideas. Great for philosphy, not so good for algebra.

I had a prof. that used to do this with Critical Analysis of text - that any observation was valid. Which, in my opinion, is a crock.

Add on
It was an activity that I had teased all week, so they knew it was coming. I am a science teacher, and we had done labs all week leading up to it. She told me I should always give the aim. It is my direction, my roadmap. Her words were "Eliciting the aim from students is WRONG"

Whether she is old or new school is a tough one. She was a nurse administrator who became a school nurse/health teacher who became a school administrator. I was hoping that maybe she was subscribing to some philosophy so I would know where she was coming from.

Here is another question. In my lesson I had a quick discussion question for the students for the beginning of the period as I checked HW. I referred back to it before the aforementioned activity. She challenged this as well. Any thoughts?

I am also a science teacher and just last week my principal criticised one aspect of my teaching. Basically I'd given the kids 5 minutes free time at the end of a heavy theory lesson to play around with magnifying glasses, and also I often let the kids listen to the radio whenever we are doing theory stuff so long as they are behaving and doing there work. She made the point that I was being too slack on the kids and I should be trying to make every minute count.
I took it home and looked at it and could see her point, but I also could see how the relationship I have with my students is an important aspect of my teaching and that as long as the kids are learning and enjoying themselves that's more important to me than what my principal thinks. I have very few (virtually none) behavioural problems in my classes because the kids like and respect me, and because the kids have a good attitude towards me they bring a good attitude to my classroom. It all starts from there.

My Thoughts
Hi,

I am not sure where she/he got this idea. I teach English as a Second Language. Usually, I do not tell the students the aim of the lesson, especially when focusing on grammar. I find that it is useful when the students deduct the aim of the lesson.

However, there are times when I do specify the aim.

Alan