Reflection: Tell Me And I Learn

Learning is a permanent change in a person’s knowledge or behaviour due to experience. It involves building on existing knowledge that supports the construction of future learning. I feel, learning happens where there is collaboration, fun, humour and therefore I include instances where my learners can relate their experiences to build knowledge.

“Tell Me and I Forget, Teach Me and I Remember, Involve Me and I Learn”, a quote by Benjamin Franklin, regained importance in the 20th Century with the arrival of ‘constructivism’. Learners construct knowledge for themselves individually and socially as he or she learns. Vygotsky [Ref.1] felt that social learning precedes development and it plays a very important role in the process of learning. Hence, I

Each informs the other. It helps me in modifying my teaching strategies and helps my learners in modifying their learning strategies. Therefore, learning and assessment are like two sides of a coin, one cannot exist without the other. I feel that formative assessment in constructivism works best rather than summative because the focus is to improve the quality of a learner than creating evidence of their grades. It assists my learners in learning and helps in identifying their strengths and weaknesses. It helps me to decide what information or skills students still need to learn. Basically, it drives the next instruction. I have also noticed that assessment is totally class specific. What might work for one batch would not work for another. It also depends on the activity (individual, pairs, small groups or whole class). Hence, I need to understand the purpose of my assessment strategy and what is best suited for my learners. I include strategies such as questioning to gauge whether my learners have understood or not. During group activities, I constantly observe and jot down the points for my reference to understand whether class is moving in the right direction [Ref.