After reading the article ‘Learning is not a mechanism’ by Jesse Stommel, I was very touched by his thoughts on teaching, and I believe he will be a excellent teacher whether which subject he is teaching, because he was aware of one basic thing is that the task of teaching is about how to have student accept thought knowledge and willing to absorb them, which is very critical. There are few points that I feel like I’m totally agreed and impressed by Jesse, the first is when he mentioned ‘Often, this means knowing when and how to put tools down, as much as it means knowing when and how to take them up.’ That would be a very common mistake that some of the teacher is making nowadays, there are teachers is either too rely on the technologies of teaching or completely refusing it. For example, what happened in China nowadays would be most likely the second occasion, most of the public school in China rarely use any digital pedagogies in the class beside powerpoints, which should have been improved. Secondly, when Jesse mentioned ‘The problem is that lesson plans and assignments can’t be expected to work exactly the same with every set of students, with every teacher, or on every given day.’, this idea is so true that every student and every teacher is unique in their way, just like doctors can’t treat all patient have different symptoms with asprin, which we need to find out each source of disease within every patient. Every student will have their sweet spot, so students are better learning by listening while others may prefer reading, teachers should treat each student accordingly. And since there are limited resource of teachers, it could be done by categorize students carefully by deep observation and comprehending. I would definitely love to reading more articles about Jesse, and some solid examples of his teaching method, which will help me as a student for future studying.
Reference:
Stommel, J. (2018, September 12). Learning is Not a Mechanism. Retrieved July 7, 2020, from https://criticaldigitalpedagogy.pressbooks.com/chapter/learning-is-not-a-mechanism/
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