Know Your Students

What I Learned
This isn't necessarily new learning.  But it really does affect me differently each time I hear it.   It doesn't matter how much technology I know or can use if I don't know how to adapt it to my students.  It's interesting to think about shifts in technology and how that is going to affect how we look at a school day.  I love the idea of assigning a lecture as homework and collaborating in class the next day to elaborate on concepts from the previous night's learning.  This will give students a more equal playing field (if they choose to take advantage of it) in class the next day.  It would also allow students to take the time to think about what they don't know and give them the chance to come up with relevant questions.  Hopefully, this would better engage students in the learning the day after they do their "homework."  For me, there is a huge different in my level of engagement when I have some sort of background knowledge rather than feeling completely lost.  In terms of knowing our students, it is important to know what kind of access students have to outside technology can help us create assignments that .  We need to teach students to advocate for themselves in order to have access to the resources they need to be successful.  It's true that not all students have the same access to technology at home, but they will need to learn to take advantage of the resources that are potentially available to them outside of their homes.




Implications for Instruction
Knowing our students is the most important thing to remember no matter what subject we teach.  We need to be aware of what kind of background (academically, culturally etc).  In our science class this morning, we talked a lot about knowing our students in terms of how their cultural practices affect how they view themselves as learners.   If we ignore the connections between cultural practices and areas of expertise, we could be ignoring some of the main ways to connect the curriculum to their students’ lives. In terms of what this means for instruction, I want to be able to connect students' lives to all aspects of my curriculum.  Whether this means incorporating their favorite things into their math problems or constructing a curriculum around what you know about their scientific interests, students need to know that we notice things about them and that those things matter to us too.