Building on existing knowledge
I like the information that referred to students using their previous knowledge and life experiences as places to build their knew knowledge upon/learn new knowledge.
For example: A student works on cars and has an understanding of pumps and how they work....he was able to apply this to how much air in the chambers of the heart it might take to make it sputter/quit (air embolism)....I thought that was awesome. He was able to use his previous knowledge to make understanding and application to his learning of the functioning of the human body.
Melonie,
Great example, I hadn't thought of that correlation either. This is part of a "common sense" approach to a new situation, problem or challenge. Thanks for sharing it with us.
Gary
I like to ask students if they have made, tasted or have experience with the items that I am demonstrating. If someone raises their hand, I'll have them talk about their experience. It shows other that the items that we are making are relevent.
I think that this is very important when students have life experiences that are relevent to their new learning environment. This can be an issue for very young students. I find that students who have had prior educational experiences can do much better.
Every Friday I ask the class to experience a new food over the weekend. On monday we talk about the food and we breakdown and discuss the preperation of the item. This gives the class a new existing knowledge they all have in common.
a student gets benefit from his past exp and knowledge ,eg student who works as cna or paramedics has better understanding and handling difficult situations with pt than others.
I find that using analogies, particularly those that I can diagram, can often work well. It's amazing how many experiences (or how much relevant knowledge) adult learners have. If it's a medically related course, adult learners can relate to that which they have experienced. So amoxicillin is often more easily remembered as the "bubble-gum" antibiotic that they gave to their children when they were sick. If you explain that the company spent millions and millions of dollars doing testing to determine what flavor children like best, all of a sudden another information link may form that will help their recollection down the line.
In using analogies, for me "simpler is usually better". If you look at the "verbs" that you are going to use in presenting the information, often it becomes easy to find analogies and often immediate analogies will pop into your mind.
For example: the heart "pumps" and blood "flows". Things that usually pump/are pumped/flow usually will have similar characteristic things that can happen. So by talking about the heart as a pump and blood flowing in the circulatory system as water flows through a hose, it will often becomes conceptually easier for students to grasp and understand what is actually happening.
For example when the heart has to pump against added resistance (hypertension), explaining it in terms of "water having to be pumped through a narrower hose", most students will find it easy to understand in terms of water backing up because the pump can't push it out fast enough, the pump may back fill, and the pump eventually ends up "breaking down", etc". All of a sudden it seems as though the material becomes real to them and they can think it through, and understand.
I try to show students how to think in terms of concepts and understanding what's happening in terms of concepts that they might already understand. My belief is that once a student becomes confident that they are able to think their way through questions that might initially "stump" them, it takes away the fear that they are going to panic and go blank on everything else during an exam.
I usually try to ask at least a few questions that really require thinking, "reasoning" and true understanding of the material. These are the questions that really help me to gauge what the students really have learned.
Ernest,
Thank you for these great comments. Not only do they explain how you approach teaching a complex subject but you also gave me insight into how the heart works. This is the fun part of being a teacher I get to keep on learning about topics to which I normally would not have access.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
