During my 75 Hour Clinical I was to interview a student after teaching a lesson. I chose to interview a struggling student and ask them several questions.
What helps you learn?
She stated that teachers help on challenging material and revisiting information more then once. For her just going over the material is not enough. She feels that she needs to have the information presented to her in more then one way helps her to understand and retain the information taught.
What do you have a hard time with?
She expressed to me that for her in History/Geography map reading is difficult for her. That just being given a map to label is not enough for her. She would like to go over the map in a classroom setting and not just in the textbook. She would like to have a better visual to give her a better understanding of location and spacial understanding.
What would you like to do in the classroom?
She stated that she does not like doing just worksheets. That they are boring and she feels she is not learning anything from them just in her words "copy and pasting" the information with no real connection to the information on the page.
She also stated that she loves to do group work and projects. She loves history and would like it feel more personal to her, for her to get involved in the learning and being an active participant then a "copy and paster". She wants to discover history for herself in her own way. .
This student may be struggling but feels that if the lessons were more exciting and personal that she would be more interested in the learning process. She also feels that more teacher/student involvement would help her as well and that she is more then a worksheet but a member of a learning community.
