As an elective teacher I have a unique opportunity to see students learning outside of a typical classroom. It amazes me the difficulty so many students have transferring information from their English or social studies classroom to journalism. My students write during every class period and they seem unable to make the connection between using correct grammar, etc. in English and in journalism.
Part of my curriculum is discussing leads in a news article. My students look blankly at me when I say a lead is like a topic sentence. For them a topic sentence belongs only in English class. I have the opportunity to help them expand what they have learned in their normal classes and apply their knowledge to different situations.
I enjoyed reading “How People Learn” because it has helped me to understand that my middle school students have trouble making connections and thus transferring information between their courses. Students need a method in which they can organize information meaningfully so that they can store a recall the information for all necessary situations. I have always pictured our minds, or my students’ minds, as a filing cabinet in which students file away the information I give them so that they can recall it again for the test. I think this is because of an early Education class I had to take. I now try and picture the learning process as a system of spider webs. It is my job to weave all the little threads surrounding one topic so that they can connect everything and hold on to the information I give them. I can connect the little webs between information I give them and information already in their heads.
I like that as a journalism teacher I can be the person that gives English lessons an outside of class purpose. My class is about conditionalized knowledge and that it is about forcing students to apply lesson they have learned to create a newspaper.
From now on I will look at my students as little webs and not filing cabinets. I hope that I can help them to make connections and apply their knowledge so that they expand their knowledge and become better students and learners.