Vocabulary Lessons

This week in class we discussed the Teacher Knowledges and Skills that all successful teachers develop for themselves. These knowledges help the teacher develop the way they teach and why they teach the way they do. The five categories of these skills are declarative, procedural, conditional, volitional, and metacognitive.

Declarative skills are the  knowledges that go along with what something is. An example of declarative skills would be a concrete definition of a literary term. (Ex. Repition-the act of repeating; repeated  action, performance,production, or presentation.)The second skill is procedural, this skill is related to how to do the skill. This skill would be modeled in having students using repetition in their assignments. Conditional is the third skill. This skill is the when and where to use the above skill. An example would be having students know when repetition would be best suited for advancing their theme or topic in their writing. A teacher could have students look at Winston Churchill's use of repetition in his "We will fight" speech, and try to rewrite it with the same effect with out the use of repetition. Volitional is the reason why this teaching strategy woks for this teacher and these students. The metacognitive knowledge and skill requires bringing  everything together and making sure it all works.

Teachers do this everyday and do not even realize that they do. Every lesson plan layout and format demonstrates the here is what we are going to do, here is how we are going to do, when and were we are going to use this skill, why we are doing it this way, and the big picture format. I really like this format because it shows the best way to present new information. With concepts and skills it is easier to start with a concrete definition and work from there to build more knowledge and skills.

I like this way because it also requires the teacher to know themselves and their students. I do not think this way of learning would work for every student, but that would be up to the teacher to decide and plan for. This model requires not only the teacher to teach the students but to have an understanding of themselves, the students, and the material.