Quote: "Part of the challenge is to see how we can learn from our students and at the same time stretch their understandings in the multimodal communicative landscape." (Pahl 47)
Comment: As teachers, we are constantly learning. We are learning about new teaching strategies, new instructional planning techniques and new theories or ideas about education. However, the ones who are teaching us these things are not always professionals or other teachers but rather they are the students that are in our classrooms. Our students can teach us in so many ways. We can learn how to effectively use different instructional strategies merely by observing how our students react to our current instructional strategies. Students also teach us many invaluable lessons such as becoming not only a better teacher but a better person. The students caring nature can be an example of what we need to become more like. The quote above also mentions how we need to be stretching our own understandings in the communicative landscape. We need to find new ways to connect playground, home and school language. By finding new ways to connect these languages we will offer students a better chance of comprehending books and texts, which encompasses all these different languages.
Question: How can teachers learn ways to teach reading from their observations of students interactions and communications?
A great thought. I think that the way teachers can learn from students is by applying what the students already knows or is interested in, and takes them to the next level with it. An observant teacher can understand what will and won't appeal to the students.
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