Quotes! Quotes!

"A good teacher encourages a student to learn...
                ...A great teacher takes the back seat after."

               This quote from Teacher Yna reminded me a lot about kung fu masters.  From what I know, these masters teach everything they know to their students or followers.  It is like the passing on of the knowledge that the master also learned from his master before him.  This culture of handing down is like making that valuable wisdom alive for eternity.  It immortalizes the knowledge from generation to generation.

                In a manner like this, the teacher has that power of  preserving and enriching the knowledge that he or she has by simply teaching it.  The influence of a teacher is boundless.  And the treasure that a teacher passes on to his or her students is the one that could never be stolen nor be taken away.
          

Yey! Movies!

                In class, there was this question that was raised: “Are there situations where media becomes a hindrance to learning?"

                 It is the primary objective of the teacher to motivate the students to learn.  But  the question of how to solicit the students' attention is  another issue.  Not all students see school as fun and exciting and not all of them consider the normal classroom environment as an enjoyable event.  Moreover, teachers use a variety of strategies to keep the learning experience of the child as worthwhile as it could get.  Teachers often use media to make their job of teaching easier and also to make learning more interesting in the eyes of the students.

                  Media, then, is used as a tool to reinforce teaching  and learning, but there are indeed times when media becomes a hindrance to learning.  When letting a class watch a movie, which relates most with the topic on hand, the teacher must be aware of the possibilities of making use of this type of activity.  The students might not absorb well the important details in relation to the topic because of the fast paced interplay of events in the movie.  They might also be overwhelmed by the entertainment factor that the movie offers especially if the movie is that of a mainstream type.  In this event, the teacher must carefully select the media that he or she presents in class.  Proper orientation must also be done before the students are set to watch the movie.  Certain guide questions must be given first to be able to ensure that the students would follow the series of information that the teacher intends the students to take note of.  The contents of the movie should also be filtered in a way that it is appropriate with the age of the students who would watch it.  It is also essential to consider that the movie is not outdated in terms of facts.  If ever this is inevitable, make sure that the students are made aware of the things that need to be corrected.

Frogs...

                As we had our discussion about the role of media in teaching and learning, we stumbled upon the impacts of instructional media as well.  Some experts believed that the more senses that is used and is tapped by the instructional media, the better the avenue for learning becomes.  It is really helpful if the learner experiences the material like it was real.

                I had my high school years at Saint Agnes’ Academy, Legazpi City.  A typical biology class would normally dissect a frog to get to know the different organs and their corresponding positions inside a frog’s body but in our biology class then, we haven’t got the chance to even hold a real frog.  Our school then was against the dissection of frogs so we had a virtual dissection instead.  There was this program that we used wherein we could manipulate tools like the scalpel or scissors in the process of dissection via the mouse of the computer.  The program is just like a game where the first step was to catch a frog from the swamp and pinning it in the tray.  All commands and actions were done through just clicking the buttons on the monitor.  Through the program, the dissection process was well controlled and there was little room for human error, unless the wrong buttons were clicked.  There was this option of showing the labels of everything on the screen, including the body parts and organs of the frog.  The dissection was made easier because of the way of manipulation.  The media that we used was new and in fact was informative.  The disadvantage that I saw was that we did not experience the real thing.  It would have been more exciting if we did take a hold on a real frog, but since there was that advocacy of the school towards the preservation of the life of the frogs, it was not made possible for us.  The dissection that we did was two dimensional only but I know that the knowledge and experienced that we gained from the activity were nothing less than the ones that we could have gained if we have had the real dissection of a frog.

A teacher teaches

Today we had our first meeting in Edtech 101.  Our professor would let us, her students, to call her Teacher Yna rather than Ma’am or Miss.  During the class, she explained that it somehow serves as a reminder for her, that she is there inside the classroom to do her job, which is to teach.

That thought never occurred to me until Teacher Yna mentioned it to us.  Indeed, I’ve been so accustomed in that certain type of addressing to a teacher.  During high school, I can’t even remember calling anyone of my teachers as “teacher…” then followed by his or her name. It had always been, “Ma’am…” or “Sir…” or “Miss…”  Thinking further way back, I remember that during my pre-school years up until my early grade school years, I do address my teachers as “teacher…”  With this in mind, I wonder how it all evolved into another form of addressing.  The obvious reasons which would surface are the issues of respect, superiority and authority.  But, isn’t it a much greater praise for a teacher to be called as a teacher?  It is but the spirit in the word “teacher” which encompasses all of the persons who we call our mentors, masters, up-bringers, parents and all the others who influences us and enrich our knowledge and stimulate our growth as an individual and as a part of the society.