Focusing+Student+Thought+and+Understand

Focusing Student Thought and Understanding
Many times, in a classroom discussion environment, novice teachers make the mistake of trying to interpret what the speaking student is trying to say and then rephrasing the statement for the rest of the class to understand. You may say to yourself, "how is the class going to understand what the student is trying to say if the are not clearly defining their statement for the class." By taking this novice approach the teacher is innitiaing a more negative instruction than positive. The teacher is allowing the student to get by using an unclear thought process, and then making it clear to the students that it is ok for them to mumble non-coherent thoughts; that the teacher will correct them.

1. Create a "NO THINGS, STUFF and LIKE ZONE"
By eliminating the usage of the words "things," "stuff," and "like," the learning environment of the classroom slows down to what I like to call a thinking pace. A thinking pace is when a class operates at its full thinking capacity as students exibit the patients to analyze their thought process and the thought processes of others. With the absence of these aforementioned words, students begin to think about what they are trying to say. In a high-school environment many students understand the concepts in their own point of view, but lack the ability to express their thoughts to another person. Slowing down the learning environment gives all students to opportunity to think for themselves and think about what other students are trying to say. Furthermore is begins to teach students how to judge the validity of other responses.



2. Focus on the word choice of students.
Many times students will use words that are impertinent to the points they are trying to express. For example, a student may refer to the relationship between the patriot colonials and the British parliment as "bad." Well what does [|BAD] really mean? In its application to the patriots view of British parliment, the word "bad" is trivial.

Depending on the context of the content being taught, teachers need to press students for words that are relevent to the topic of conversation. Teachers need to allow the students the time to think of the approproiate words that fit what they are trying to say. By implementing this strategy students begin to think before they speak. The effect of thinking before speaking allows students time to develop a consistant thought process and begin to understand the thought process of other students. Implementing this strategy also help students to become better writers.