EDET 677 Mechanical
Applications of Technology
Week Three Blog
Essential
Question: To what extent should we allow students to figure things
out for themselves?
Seeley
explains that students should go through a constructive struggling stage versus
a pointless frustration stage. “Constructive struggling can happen when a
skillful teacher gives students engaging yet challenging problems.” (Seeley,
2013) To provide students with constructive struggling, teachers shouldn’t give
remote short problems but rather a longer more difficult problem that is
supported with the correct questions to lead learning if necessary. I agree
with Seeley that the classroom needs to have more constructive struggling for
students because the struggling can help develop other skills such as
perseverance, endurance, creativity, collaboration, and other skills that might
not be taught or practiced if students didn’t get the chance to struggle in
class.
STEAM is an
acronym that stands for science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics
in education. STEAM courses provide many ways to improve thinking processes.
Struggling is important for creating something to solve a problem so that
students can go above and beyond to solve it. Martinez and Stager provide some
thinking processes that are much more applicable than the linear and
traditional scientific process. These thinking models include the Spiral
Design, Iterative Development, Resnik’s Imagine Create Play Share Reflect, and
TMI (think, make, create). (2013)
There
is an art to what extent we let our students struggle in respect to the level
of the students skill set. Looking at the figure below provided by Seeley, the
most learning is happening for high level skilled students when the challenge
level is high, for middle level skilled students need medium to high challenge
level, and for low level skilled students need to focus on skills and have some
strong guidance (2009). See the figure below.
Resources:
Martinez, S. L.,
& Stager, G (2013). Invent to Learn:
Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom. Torrence, CA:
Construction Modern Knowledge Press.
Seeley, C. L.
(2009). Constructive Struggling: The
Value of Challenging Our Students. From Faster Isn’t Smarter: Math
Solutions. Retrieved from http://www.mathsolutions.com/documents/9781935099031_message17.pdf
Strauss, V.
(2015). What is the value of letting
students struggle in class? Teachers answer. The Washington Post. Retrieved
from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2015/04/21/what-is-the-value-of-letting-students-struggle-in-class-teachers-answer/
I agree that math teachers need to let students struggle. But I keep thinking how do we let students that have a fixed mindset struggle and have that struggle be beneficial? These student are quickly able to struggle and then give up, in willing to try anymore
ReplyDeleteThat is a very difficult situation. Maybe we can model a way to get past struggling such as researching a problem or looking back at the book for a similar example. I think this is where perseverance comes into the students learning of mathematics.
DeleteI struggled as a learner also, but I didn't stick with it or put the effort into my learning. It wasn't until I was challenged in college and finally figured out that I wanted to become a teacher did I finally put the effort needed. I struggled a lot but figured it out. I guess the point is a student will struggle as much as they want for any topic. A teacher challenge is to motivate and develop relationships so they are willing to struggle more than I did.
ReplyDeleteI have a hard time with this too: "Even if I ask the student and they say no, it is very tough for me to walk away and let the student try on their own." I have such a hard time letting students try things on their own and tend to want to just show them how to do it, even though I know they don't learn that way.
ReplyDeleteGood thoughts. I think it is a continuum. On one end we allow the students to figure it all out on their own and on the other end we tell them how to do everything and expect them to do as they are told. How far do we go toward which end? Most of what we teach is somewhere in the middle, but perhaps we could begin to move toward the figure it out themselves a bit more.
ReplyDelete