Week 2 Reflection

The article that I sound most surprising was Are Your Students Engaged? I think every person has a different idea of what engaged is. Some people think it is having fun, paying attention, or actively listening. No matter what your definition of this word is, it is difficult to measure as stated in this article. I also really like how this article says that just because students are having high test scores it doesn't mean they are engaged. There are many other factors that tie into high test scores that just engagement.  This article challenges us as educators to be designers of learning, not just handing out worksheets. I dismissed the myth about learning styles. I personally know that when I study, I retain information better when it is written out and I can see a visual image of it. Although it can be true that there is no such thing as being a visual learner, this is how I learn. Even though there is no evidence that people learn differently, I do believe that people have different preferences on remembering things or learning them.  My CT last semester always said that she would vary her lesson plans for all of her different types of learners. For example, she would read the directions out loud once and then put them on the screen and read them again. It seemed to work for her students in the class! In high school one of my teachers made us take a test that told us what kind of a learner we were. There were about 50 questions with varied responses. I thought this was interesting because no one fell into exactly one category. This makes sense for the myth that every person learns differently. I can change the mind of a person who wants to use the strategies by offering a different alternative. I can change the mind of the person by politely saying that it is not proven to be true and that we should work together to explore other options.