How People Learn

Okay so I have a few comments and questions on parts of the readings. It's all over the place, but here I go!

Pg. 4 I read that, "...all learning takes place in settings that have particular sets of cultural and social norms..." A few years ago, my boss told me that studies have shown that having females and males separated helps them concentrate better in class. What is interesting is that this trimester, my B block has mostly all boys and they definitely do concentrate better. I have had no issues with this class, and they participate all the time. What do you guys think?

On page 8, the article mentions how students have limited opportunity to understand because many curricula emphasizes on memory rather than understanding. I definitely agree with this because I have taught like this for many years..boo. I taught this way because in high school and my early years of college this is the way I "learned" the material. Memorizing was the way to go!!! I didn't care about understanding all I cared about was my grade. So of course, I transferred this way of thinking to my students during my early years of teaching. Now it's definitely different though (thanks Victoria), I try to teach for understanding and fall back on memorizing if nothing else works (I'm just being honest).

I also think it's cool to teach using pre-exisiting knowledge (pg. 10), but we definitely do need to be aware of any misconceptions our students have. I've had many instances where my students swore they knew the material and they really didn't. And if Chris L. is correct it takes six weeks to undo this...correct?