Student Role in the Classroom

I found this article about student roles in the classroom. http://www.ncrel.org/sdrs/engaged.htm

The direct quote about the student role from the article was: "One important student role is that of explorer. Interaction with the physical world and with other people allows students to discover concepts and apply skills. Students are then encouraged to reflect upon their discoveries, which is essential for the student as a cognitive apprentice. Apprenticeship takes place when students observe and apply the thinking processes used by practitioners. Students also become teachers themselves by integrating what they've learned. Hence, they become producers of knowledge, capable of making significant contributions to the world's knowledge."

Some words that really jumped out at me while reading about student roles were "explorer, reflect, observe, apply, and integrating." This was a very short section from the article, but a very important one.

I think we as teachers overlook exploration/discovery. We think that it is done more at only certain grade levels, but that isn't true. I learned how to swim by getting in some water and going at a young age. Then while a teenager I learned how to both build and disassemble computers. Exploration is a great educational tool. Just try it. Set a bunch of books or magazines down on a table and let some students come in and sit down by them to wait for something. If they are even close to age appropriate they will most likely begin looking through them. They may see a picture that catches their eye and begin reading. The funny thing is that this doesn't just happen at age 9, but at 17, or 70. We want to learn and explore.

Reflection is something my students struggle with in my classroom. Most of my students are between 3-9 grade levels behind in reading/writing. This really hinders their ability to communicate what they have done or why they have done it. They can do some math problems, but can't explain why in writing or sometimes even orally. I push this all the time. I don't care about the answer, I just want to know how you get there. If I know how you got there, I can adjust the thought process to get the right answers. I have to do mostly oral reflections because many of my students can't spell or punctuate at the 4th grade level even though they are 17 or 18.

Back to the general role of the student. I think the article assumes a certain level of responsibility and motivation on the part of the student. Many of the things it mentions as being a part of the role of the student includes things we as teachers can't control, but rather they themselves bring. We can only assist them in developing those skills.