writing 11

Discovery learning
Discovery learning is a powerful instructional approach that guides and motivates learners to explore information and concepts in order to construct new ideas, identify new relationships and create new models of thinking and behavior.
By using the discovery learning, it incorporate three key ideas:
• Problem Solving: They guide and motivate learners to find solutions by pulling together information and generalizing knowledge.
• Learner Management: They allow participants, working alone or in small teams, to learn in their own ways and at their own pace.
• Integrating and Connecting: They encourage integration of new knowledge into the learner's existing knowledge base and clearly connect to the real world.
Discovery Learning provides students with opportunities to develop hypotheses to answer questions and can contribute to the development of a lifelong love of learning. Students propose issues or problems, gather data and observations to develop hypotheses, confirm or refine their hypotheses, and explain or prove their problems
Advantages
The discovery learning literature often claims the following advantages:
 Supports active engagement of the learner in the learning process
 Fosters curiosity
 Enables the development of life long learning skills
 Personalizes the learning experience
 Highly motivating as it allows individuals the opportunity to experiment and discover something for themselves
 Builds on learner's prior knowledge and understanding
 Develops a sense of independence and autonomy
 Make them responsible for their own mistakes and results
 Learning as most adults learn on the job and in real life situations
 A reason to record their procedure and discoveries - such as not repeating mistakes, a way to analyze what happened, and a way to record a victorious discovery
 Develops problem solving and creative skills
 Finds new and interesting avenues of information and learning - such as gravy made with too much cornstarch can become a molding medium
These sorts of arguments can be regrouped in two broad categories
 Development of meta cognitive skills (including some higher level cognitive strategies) useful in lifelong learning.
 Motivation
Disadvantages
.
 (Sometimes huge) cognitive overload, potential to confuse the learner if no initial framework is available, etc.
 Measurable performance (compared to hard-core instructional designs) is worse for most learning situations.
 Creations of misconceptions ("knowing less after instruction")
 Weak students have a tendency to "fly under the radar" (Aleven et al. 2003) and teacher's fail to detect situations needing strong remediation or scaffolding.
 Some studies admit that strong students can benefit from weak treatments and others conclude that there is no difference, but more importantly they also conclude that weak students benefit strongly from strong treatments.
Advantages and disadvantages -http://edutechwiki.unige.ch/en/Discovery_learning

Writing 10

Cooperative Learning.

“Cooperative learning is the use of small groups  through which students work together to
accomplish shared goals and to maximise their own and others’ potential.”  Johnson, Johnson and Holubec (ASCD 1994)
Using co-operative teaching and learning structures (Kagan, 1992) in the classroom can have many benefits for both teachers and pupils. Teachers can:
• organise classes into small groups with a common goal;
ensure that pupils within a group work collaboratively until they understand
and have completed the task;
• ensure that pupils engage in peer teaching, learning and assessment;
• celebrate collaborative efforts with pupils.
Group work can also encourage and help pupils to:
• use and manipulate knowledge in practical situations;
• develop language and social skills needed for cooperation;
• use exploratory language to try out ideas;
• stretch their language as they talk critically and constructively;
• support and build on each other’s contributions;
• take turns in discussion;
• develop other important life skills including:
 organisation;
 negotiation;
 delegation;
 team work;
 co-operation;
 leadership
• Develop and increase their thinking skills by explaining and negotiating their contributions to a group. In other words, they are able to use this “low risk” situation to begin to establish what they know and to find out what they have yet to learn;
• Acknowledge and utilise the strengths and talents of individual pupils;
• Explore a topic in a limited time frame;
• Develop a sense of responsibility through group accountability and assessment

writing 9

Jigsaw in 10 Easy Steps
The jigsaw classrom is very simple to use. If you're a teacher, just follow these steps:

Divide students into 5- or 6-person jigsaw groups. The groups should be diverse in terms of gender, ethnicity, race, and ability.

Appoint one student from each group as the leader. Initially, this person should be the most mature student in the group.

Divide the day's lesson into 5-6 segments. For example, if you want history students to learn about Eleanor Roosevelt, you might divide a short biography of her into stand-alone segments on: (1) Her childhood, (2) Her family life with Franklin and their children, (3) Her life after Franklin contracted polio, (4) Her work in the White House as First Lady, and (5) Her life and work after Franklin's death.

Assign each student to learn one segment, making sure students have direct access only to their own segment.

Give students time to read over their segment at least twice and become familiar with it. There is no need for them to memorize it.

Form temporary "expert groups" by having one student from each jigsaw group join other students assigned to the same segment. Give students in these expert groups time to discuss the main points of their segment and to rehearse the presentations they will make to their jigsaw group.

Bring the students back into their jigsaw groups.

Ask each student to present her or his segment to the group. Encourage others in the group to ask questions for clarification.

Float from group to group, observing the process. If any group is having trouble (e.g., a member is dominating or disruptive), make an appropriate intervention. Eventually, it's best for the group leader to handle this task. Leaders can be trained by whispering an instruction on how to intervene, until the leader gets the hang of it.

At the end of the session, give a quiz on the material so that students quickly come to realize that these sessions are not just fun and games but really count.


(http://www.jigsaw.org/steps.htm)

Writing 8

Assessment of, for and as Learning
The purpose of this kind of assessment is usually SUMMATIVE and is mostly done at the end of a task, unit of work etc. It is designed to provide evidence of achievement to parents and the students themselves
 “Teachers have the responsibility of reporting student learning accurately and fairly, based on evidence obtained from a variety of contexts and applications.
Effective assessment of learning requires that teachers provide:
• a rationale for undertaking a particular assessment of learning at a particular point in time
• clear descriptions of the intended learning
• processes that make it possible for students to demonstrate their competence and skills
• creating differentiated teaching strategies and learning opportunities for helping individual students move forward in their learning