Holly, I too, noticed that a lot of what this book stresses is that the process of understanding is a lot more important as a teacher to focus on rather than the repetition of information. In Ch. 7 Thinking like an Assessor it also focuses on why assessing transferability of knowledge rather than focusing on accuracy of knowledge (tests) is more important because transferability shows how new learned knowledge and skills are effectively used. This chapter for me reinforces the idea that the goal of learning any topic is not to ingrain students with knowledge but to have it and use it effectively later in their lives. Without learning being purposeful through the point of view of the student then what’s the purpose of becoming a teacher anyway? Ch. 9 Planning for Learning had me really thinking of more of the process it takes in planning to get desired results from students by the various instructional approaches. The K-W-L model in particular really struck me because it gives me an overall grasp of what students know, what they want to learn, and what they learned so planning can be guided. This is something I personally struggled with in the beginning of my student teaching experience last semester. I always began planning by what activities I wanted to do in class to engage students enough so they could achieve whatever the desired goal for the day was. When I realized that my students weren’t being challenged and were bored during homophones lessons I realized that I needed to better assess K (known knowledge) so I could take them where they W (wanted to learn), etc. I began assessing and planning using this model unknowingly that I was using the K-W-L form of instructional approach.

      Since the K-W-L approach helped me to focus on planning better lessons that tailored more for where my students were and helped me understand what they needed to learn to achieve my desired results; Holly my question for you and anyone else would be, which instructional approaches, resources, experiences, etc. did you find most helpful in achieving desired results from your students in your student teaching experiences.

-Elvia-