Include student's life experiences or preexisting knowledge when I introduce a concept. Incorporate reading assignments that provide the background for each concept introduced. Require students to learn by doing creative problem solving exercises, laboratory activities, and projects. Engage students in problems that are outside the realm of possibility to force them to think creatively.
Suggest that students collaborate together on their assignments rather than compete. Instill the relevant facts and procedures. When students cannot pass the state exam or do not have the prerequisite knowledge from my class in the next one they take, I have truly failed as a teacher. Assign a wide variety of tasks that facilitate learning for understanding. Sometimes learning for understanding takes longer than the administration would like, or longer than I originally planned. Cultivate scholarship and independent thinking/reasoning skills by providing optional assignments that can be done outside of class.
Tie concepts to applications in the real world. Institute a regularly scheduled time for skill building where students practice their use of problem solving. Guide students in their desire to invent new methods for solving problems and/or representing data. Introduce students to the possibility that for some problems there is no 'right answer'.
Challenge students to reevaluate their own understanding by valuing the opinions of other students. Supply students with the structure they need to recall and repeat the appropriate facts and procedures from memory to pass the end-of-unit or end-of-semester test. Capitalize on student curiosity about unfamiliar situations. Specify a certain amount of time in class for homework.
Become concerned if I feel as though students are asking the question 'Why do I have to learn this?' Insist that students follow my lecture, and frequently question them during the lecture as a check of where I am. I may require that they take notes throughout. Supply time for exploration and discovery where students have the opportunity to answer their 'what if' questions. Allow students to develop their own problem solution process.
Illuminate students’ misunderstandings by having them describe their thought processes and explain their ideas. Provide a relatively complete content structure for students to memorize so that they can build upon this foundational knowledge later. Present scenarios involving many concepts that provide material for class discussion about solutions and predictions. Devote time to skill drills where each student works alone to deepen their understanding of a concept.
Try to provide a rationale for learning that motivates students based upon relating what they are taught with what they know will help them later in life. Provide many problems of the same type. I find that repetition and practice help my students better transfer their knowledge to new situations. Introduce manipulatives or software, to permit students to represent concepts concretely. Require that students commit facts to memory.
Assign student roles for activities, such as equipment custodian, timer, measurer, recorder, evaluator, and observer. Enforce accurate application of a solution procedure by using already learned responses to solving the problem or similar problems. Foster creative problem solving that has some element of discovery embedded, forcing students to find the new rule or principle. Walk around while students are working, speaking to them individually about my observations, or asking them questions about their problem-solving process or procedures.
Help students understand that real life situations and scenarios cannot be carried out without an understanding of the knowledge I am providing. Relate the method for solving a problem as explicitly as possible. Encourage different approaches to problem solving that help students understand their reasoning skills and processes. Present the facts first.
Situate students in groups when assigning worksheets. Amplify the importance of attaining the correct answer. Assist students in moving gradually from representing information concretely to representing information symbolically. Identify and point out during lecture the finer points in my problem solving methods that should be of assistance to all students.
Scaffold upon previously understood concepts and knowledge that can be concretely examined based upon experiences at home, with friends, or activities students find interesting and valuable to them. Frequently provide quizzes (as many as 1 per week) that help me understand how well my students are able to apply the problem solving methods they have been provided. Establish activities that require collecting data, analysis of that data, making conclusions and predictions from it, followed by group reflection on the fundamental concepts involved in their data collection and analysis. Ask open-ended questions that allow students to explore their ideas and creative thoughts in whatever direction they choose.
Structure group activities that require students learn to use interpersonal skills. Maintain the position that even though a problem may be solvable empirically, students must learn the analytical solution first before they begin to make such predictive solutions to problems. Expand the ability of students to transfer their knowledge to new situations by incorporating project-based approaches. Eliminate activities where the result is not distinctly attributable to individual students.