Snickerdoodle Posted January 27, 2009 Share Posted January 27, 2009 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTwjFHorQhk&feature=related or this: What is with all the hand gesturing? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snickerdoodle Posted January 27, 2009 Author Share Posted January 27, 2009 The kids seem to be getting some kind of credit for how enthusiastic and how many hand gestures they are using. I honestly don't understand it. Do any of you with kids in the school have this kind of teaching going on? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hornblower Posted January 27, 2009 Share Posted January 27, 2009 Ok, I couldn't watch for more than a few minutes but - whoa! Weird! The hand gesture thing was kind of interesting - I guess we're looking at kinesthetic ways of anchoring info in the brain. I can see how that may be helpful. The part where I had to turn it off was when the kids 'teach' each other. Um, that's not teaching. That's being talking very loudly & flapping your arms while the other person is not listening to you at all because they're talking to you & flapping their arms at the same time. What on earth? The animation of the kids is I guess a nice change from kids who are passive and glazed over & staring out the window or playing video games under the desk but it seems really frantic and manic. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wendi Posted January 27, 2009 Share Posted January 27, 2009 My son would go into sensory overload during the "kids teach each other" portion. It's good that they want all the kids to be engaged, and I can see that the hand gestures could be very helpful for many kids (although having a hand gesture for EVERYTHING seems too much to me). But that noise and activity level, when all the kids are shouting to be heard at once, while flapping their hands madly, would NOT be a good learning environment for a sensory-sensitive kid. I'm hoping that they also do some quieter work to review the concepts (something visual but on paper), for the kids who need some quiet to process. Wendi Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
klmama Posted January 27, 2009 Share Posted January 27, 2009 What is with all the hand gesturing? I think the teacher is trying to meet the needs of the kinesthetic learners. If they have gestures, they'll remember the facts better. I know it does work, as I used to teach middle-schoolers a lot of info in rhyme with gestures, and not only did they remember it then, they would come back to me from the high school a year or two later saying they had just taken a test with that same information and had run through the motions during the test to help them remember. I agree with the sensory overload concern about the video classroom, though. I wouldn't be able to handle it! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karen sn Posted January 27, 2009 Share Posted January 27, 2009 I know one kid who would thrive in this classroom. As it is now - he chews his nails to nothing in order to sit still. My dd would *not* at all thrive in this structured chaos. I wish schools would divide the different learners into their appropriate styles and let the ADHD types have a teacher like the guy in the video, and the other kids can have the docile quiet old ladies. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deece in MN Posted January 27, 2009 Share Posted January 27, 2009 I think it is a way to try and incorporate different learning styles into the classroom. It can certainly be done in a more effective manner. :blink: The kids "teaching" each other is very chaotic and though, in theory, it is a good concept they need to come up with a better way to implement it. Again, it just illustrates that in a class of 25-30 students, it is next to impossible to accommodate all types of learning styles. There are going to be kids in that classroom who cannot handle that process and kids who will do well with it. A more varied approach that touches on multiple learning styles would be a better avenue of teaching to try and benefit all students, but even that is tough to implement well. Anyway, just preaching to the choir here I am sure. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dawn of ns Posted January 27, 2009 Share Posted January 27, 2009 I just found it funny that it's a critical thinking lesson but it's done in a groupthink-memorize the facts kind of way. :001_huh: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nicole M Posted January 27, 2009 Share Posted January 27, 2009 I just found it funny that it's a critical thinking lesson but it's done in a groupthink-memorize the facts kind of way. :001_huh: But it seems like there's not much thinking, and not much that's critical, in most of what we call "critical thinking" these days. It's a buzzword that gets a lot of attention, but doesn't really mean anything. IMHO. If you're going to have to engage that many children (probably some of whom have learning or behavior issues) and have them leave the classroom with anything at all, it seems like this would work. But what creeped me out is that there seems something almost Hitler Youth about it. Off. Bad. My 12yo son watched a bit and said, "Too much noise. Too many kids. I mean, teaching themselves! That's ridiculous." But he's never been to school. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SonshineLearner Posted January 27, 2009 Share Posted January 27, 2009 What I got out of this is that they are teaching themselves what the leader/teacher was trying to teach them. By demonstrating to their neighbors, they were memorizing (in theory) the information. I do think that this would work with alot of students, if it wasn't quite so loud. For me, at least, I would go a bit crazy. BUT, if the class is loud anyway, they might as well be learning. My step-daughter's classes were loud...and they weren't concentrating on the subject matter. :-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kalanamak Posted January 28, 2009 Share Posted January 28, 2009 The animation of the kids is I guess a nice change from kids who are passive and glazed over & staring out the window or playing video games under the desk but it seems really frantic and manic. Oh yes. I can't imagine this is done for 3 hour chunks, but listen how fast the class in the first one said yes they were ready. They love it, and they were sitting in RAPT attention. I also know that when I started the finger clues in SWR, kiddo started doing them to me, right off, and that he loves them. Now he'll do them for himself. Because I work and have to cram school in at the end of the day, I really ask kiddo to *concentrate* intently for our short lessons. I am inspired to add more finger and hand gestures to my teaching. Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snickerdoodle Posted January 28, 2009 Author Share Posted January 28, 2009 This one stands out to me too: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCGC_5u9ya8&feature=related She seems to be belaboring the point about the size of the bowls. :confused: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.