The last few class periods have been mostly about Developmental Learning Theory, which to me is sometimes a hard concept to grasp. There doesn’t seem to be an exact definition for DLT on the internet, and when we try to come up with a definition in class Professor Kruse often directs our attention to something else which makes defining DLT unclear. At one point during our last class period I found myself being confused after we had been given multiple questions to talk about with our table groups. Maybe it takes me longer to process all of this DLT information, but slowly I’m sure I will get the hang out it.
Our question for this week was: how does DLT inform all aspects of teaching? When I first thought about this question right after class I couldn’t quite get what Professor Kruse was getting at. For example, what exactly does the word “inform” mean in this case? I came up with inform meaning to supply knowledge, but how do I know that is right? Of course there are many meanings for the word inform, just like there seems to be with DLT. We were told that DLT is a representation, meaning it represents how the topic being taught is explained. So I am guessing that the question is asking how Developmental Learning Theory represents and supplies knowledge about aspects of teaching. However, teaching can be anything and everything, so there could be many answers to this question.
Supplying knowledge to students across all aspects of teaching seems like it would possibly take more time to explain than the teacher might have time for. The teacher would have to find a way to represent the information in a concrete way so their students could grasp the idea at first. Then he or she could slowly move across the spectrum using more abstract ideas. The instructor could do so by introducing videos, pictures, and more text into their lesson plan. However, if these abstract ideas are introduced to the students too soon, then they might not be able to fully grasp all parts of the given information like the teacher would like. Using DLT can not only help the teacher find ways to give new information to their students, but it can also help allow students to learn information in multiple ways.
My response to this would be that each student has a different level that they start at when it comes to things that are concrete. Last semester I learned that each student is unique, which means they learn at different levels. This has to be taken into account when deciding where on the scale the teacher starts. Some students are ready for something more abstract while others need to start with something concrete. This was seen in Prof. Kruse's example with the precipitation on the mountain. The one student needed a different representation in order to understand it. There are different things to take into consideration when using the DLT to plan a lesson, which makes our jobs that much harder
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with you on multiple aspects of your statements. It IS really confusing trying to understand the concept of DLT, and there really isn't a way to research or find the true definition of it's origin. Also, spreading knowledge to students throughout all aspects of teaching is...I'm not really even sure how to describe how I feel about that one! It's all just so complicated! (lol)
ReplyDeleteAs I read this I was trying to think of a reason as to why we wouldn't be given a definition of DLT. My first thought was that a definition is concrete but reflecting over class I can now see that having us do an activity with the moon as an example was more concrete. It was hands on concrete and didn't allow us to simply allow us to memorize the information about DLT but to truly understand it. I really like the way you explain how DLT informs all subjects of learning. There is a lot of information that teachers must get to children and make sure they understand; starting with the basics in each subject and then using the more abstract ideas to bring it all together is a way that I had never thought about it before.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with pretty much everything you said. When I sat down to write my blog entry last week I had a really hard time with it because I couldn't come up with a concrete definition of DTL anywhere in my notes. Like you said in your post, though, the definition isn't as important as understanding the concept of DLT. Now that I am slowly starting to understand DLT I have decided that Professor Kruse probably didn't give us a definition of DLT because it would have defeated the purpose of teaching us about teaching using the DLT. By not giving us a definition he was about to teach this concept to us by actually utilizing the term instead of us giving us a defintion to go by.
ReplyDeleteEmily, I can empathize with your struggle to understand the whole Developmental Learning Theory being difficult to grasp, I think this is especially tough because it is very abstract concept in and of itself. I have found it helpful that Professor Kruse is using DLT to teach about DLT (in a sense DLT is informing his teaching), though it can be confusing at times, I think we will get the hang of it. Also I agree that it’s so important that kids are not taught strictly the abstract concepts before they understand/realize the concrete aspects of a particular concept or subject. Which is why it will be important for us as teachers to move back and forth on the “spectrum” to ensure that students really learn and retain the taught material. What good is it if students know a hundred vocabulary words, but have no idea how they may connect these back to the concrete world around them. Is knowledge for the sake of knowledge all it’s cracked up to be?
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