Field Experience Observation Report - Essay Example

Field Experience Observation Report Field Experience Observation Report Learning is a cognitive process whereby gain the ability to convert words, statements, and examples from a text or given to them by a teacher, into utilizable skills such as answering questions or solving problems. Therefore, students need to engage themselves in certain practices during the learning process so as to enhance their understanding. In this classroom, I have observed students using self explanations during their studies. This method involves talk-aloud protocols that students use during studying and when they participate in problem solving (Bassok, 2009). They use this method to gauge their understanding of what they are reading. I heard one student asked himself “okay, so this is what it means” as he was trying to understand the meaning of a statement he had just read. This method is usually effective during studies because it offers many ways through which they can gain knowledge. Students are able to come up with conclusions to the information they are reading, the outcomes, goals, and the meaning of the content. In the learning process, it is usually up to the learners to come up with ways to understand, retain, and use the information they learn as skills in problem solving and answering questions. As a result, students learn by generating and completing explanations through coming up with self explanations of what they are reading. I observed that using this self-explanation technique students were able to generate inferences to make up for some information that is missing about a theory or a skill. This method provides students with ways of justifying their understanding especially in cases where they have prior knowledge of the topic. The fact that students can take on instructional activities that they think will benefit them in their bit to succeed in their learning goals (Bassok, 2009). There are ways that, as a teacher, one can encourage students to devise more self-explanation methods to enhance their understanding. I can help students to develop their self-explanation skills by giving them worked out examples. The questions 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 reading on their own first. This means that they understood the concepts differently, and the discussions give them opportunities to present and defend their understanding. As a result, they are able to internalize the information they gather from the discussion because they have justified themselves to their fellow students. In addition, they will also be able to gain additional knowledge and information by asking questions and challenging other student’s ideas (Walton, 2000). Promoting reasoning and argumentation is the responsibility of the teacher in a bid to enhance the understanding of the students. Using the information from this module, I can have students collectively engaging in challenging tasks. I will assign them in groups and give them tasks for discussions so that they can put to practice their reasoning and argumentation skills. During their discussions, I will listen and in the process, ask them questions with varying complexities. By doing so, I will be able to analyze their thoughts critically before they present their arguments. In addition, using this method will make sure that students focus on the discussion topic instead of getting distracted to other topics. Students participating in reasoning and argumentation exercises enhance their cognitive processes. References Bassok, M. (2009). Self-explanations: How Students Study and use Examples to Solve Problems. Cognitive Science, 13, 145-182. Walton, D. (2000). What is Reasoning? What is an Argument? The Journal of Philosophy, 87(8), 399-419. Read More