Two-Column Notes

Date:

Name: Tanner McKinney

Class/Subject: EDTL 2760 1001

Newmann,F.M.,&Wehlage,G.G.(1993).Fivestandardsofauthenticinstruction.EducationalLeadership,50(7),
812.
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The Text Says

Notes (key concepts, direct quotes, etc.)

I Say
My notes, commentary

(1)Students construct meaning and

produce knowledge
(2) students use disciplined inquiry to
construct meaning.

I believe these are both very good things for

students to do. If students can produce
thoughtful answers and have intelligent
conversations based on the lesson, that means
you are doing something right. The ability to
spark meaningful inquire is very powerful in the
teaching world, because that means that your
students care about what you have been
discussing.
This is a huge problem in todays school system.
Teachers are often so worried about meeting
the demanded course curriculum that they
often dont give a fluent and coherent lesson
for their students. If they arent giving good
lessons and teaching in a way that sticks, they
might as well not be teaching. We need to be
more diligent in what information we are
relaying to our students.
We need to utilize the minds that our students
have, and thats not something that we are
doing. A huge reason is because the standards

Teachers list of questions, facts, and

concepts tend to make the discourse
choppy, rather than coherent; there is
often little to no follow-up of student
response.

(1)Often the work students do does not

allow them to use their minds well.
(2)The work has no intrinsic meaning or

value to students beyond achieving

success in schools.

are so packed tight, its hard to create a lesson

that challenges the students to think creatively,
while teaching the course curriculum. The
standards need reformed to allow these type of
advances in our course standards and
curriculum.

I liked some points in this, and disagreed with some. I think that this article pointed
out some very good things that we as teachers will be able to utilize in the field. At the
same time, the article points out some things that I do disagree with. For example, the
article goes discusses how there is a need for standards. While I agree with this to a certain
point, I think the standards we have now are a little on the extreme side. We discussed in
our first Blog Post what it means to teach social studies, and how we can prepare the future
of our world. We discussed how we teach out students not only the course material, but
also what it means to be knowledgably and participating members in our current society.
With our current standards, it is nearly impossible to do this. Our schedules are so packed
with what we are required to teach that it leaves barely, if any, room to educate our
students beyond the course material. It is important that we plant the seed of citizenship
within what will be our future leaders of our great country. However, I do like how this
article talked about how important it is that students have deep inquiry about what we are

talking about, and gain knowledge from it. Students need to be able to digest the subject
and have intelligent conversation about what the current topic is.