Field Experience Observation Report - Essay Example

they will ask themselves as well as the explanations they will give will improve their gaining of problem solving skills. Explicitly prompting self-explanation in the case of teaching declarative knowledge that comes from a suppository text is significantly effective. This is because students will be exposed to more ways of self-explaining thus enhancing their skills and understanding. This method works best when students have prior knowledge to the topic in question because the more the knowledge the students have about the topic, the more the self-explaining they do, thus the greater the understanding. Reasoning and argumentation are also another practice I am observing in my classroom that reflects on the topics in the module. This method involves engaging students in argumentative discussions that will prompt them to develop ideas about the topic. During an active argumentation, students express their ideas about the topic, defend their ideas, and come up with counterarguments to other students ideas that are different from theirs. Argumentation helps students to understand the topic and makes them more interested and motivated. It also improves their problem solving skills as well as their argumentation skills. Collaborative reasoning, on the other hand, involves discussing texts that aim at promoting the critical and creative skills involved in thinking by students while personally engaging all the participants (Walton, 2000). When students engage discussions, collaborative reasoning and argumentations are the most effective ways of enhancing the learning process. According to Walton (2000), whenever a student has to present his or her idea, the first thing they do is to rate how relevant the idea is to the discussion, and in so doing, they are able to evaluate their understanding of the topic. During these discussions, students get together after