Wilhelm Chs. 1 & 2

          When I read the text by Wilhelm, I noticed quite a few connections between the concepts he discusses in both chapters.  The first thing that stood out to me was the idea of “Wide Awake” teaching.  This idea claims that teachers need to be constantly vigilant about what and how they teach and base the success of their practices on students’ understanding.  I picture it like a checks and balances system—if what you are doing is not working, how can you fix it to help students?  The idea of adjusting instruction to cater to individual groups is something that I have experienced from many teachers I’ve had in the past.  In fact, “Wide Awake” teaching sounds a great deal like differentiated instruction, which is something all teachers should strive to provide for their students. 

            The author points out that instruction should move from being teacher-centered to learning-centered.  The illustration which depicts the levels of learning was incredibly interesting (p. 11).  The chart moves from the teacher doing the activity while the student watches and eventually ends with the student doing the activity while the teacher watches.  My mother, who also happens to be a teacher, used this instructional practice with myself and my sisters when we were growing up.  From a very young age, I was interested in baking.  My mom would pull a chair up to the counter and let me watch her measure and mix ingredients.  After letting me watch a few times, she would hold my hand and help me measure and pour the ingredients into the mixing bowl.  After showing that I was able to complete these tasks with little to no help, my mom would stand next to me and watch to make sure that I did not do something like confuse baking soda and baking powder (I do not suggest doing this, by the way.)  Eventually, I was baking without any help.  My mom’s method of teaching me how to bake proved that learning-centered instruction is a successful way to teach.

 

           The second thing I noticed in the reading occurred throughout the both chapters.  The author states that “kids particularly need to know how to do things so they can deal with information and use it to think—so they’ll possess generative kinds of knowledge that they can use in new situations” (p. 2).  How can we teach students to understand learning?  How do we reach them in their Zones of Proximal Development?  The author briefly discusses lending students our expertise so they may become master readers, writers, and thinkers.  To do this, we must teach students that reading is an interactive form of work.  It is our job as future educators to instruct our students to not be passive readers, but active ones who use the text to form opinions and glean meaning from the words.  The author also mentions that we need to teach students the rules so they know how to play the game.  The game of reading is complicated, difficult, and time-consuming work, but it is the basis of every type of learning.  If we can teach students to be effective readers, their potential is limitless.