Situated Cognition and Meaningful Learning

     Last week’s readings included a lot of important information which felt a bit dense for me.  I felt quite overwhelmed with the concepts, vocabulary, and acronyms involved and was grateful for the discussions in class that unpacked all of that information.  After class discussions combined with my own take of the texts, I was able to have a better grasp of the contents in last week’s readings.  I learned from these readings, how it relates to education, and how it impacts my teaching. 

My biggest takeaway this past week is that there are a lot of things educators consider and take into account when they are designing and planning lessons that are meaningful to students.  I made this connection through all the vocabulary, concepts, and acronyms discussed in last week’s reading.  It showed all the things we need to consider as educators when we teach.  There are processes, procedures, vocabularies, tools, and more that we think about and incorporate in order to provide students with meaningful learning.  Though I knew how much we do as a teacher, it was shocking to really see all the things we do even before planning and implementing a lesson.  Knowing there is so much to do and consider, it’s quite overwhelming to see and think about all the things educators do and we do it every single day with open minds and positive attitudes.  Yes, there are days where it seems like everything’s going wrong and we feel like we’re drowning, but we still show up to work and get the job done to the best of our abilities.  I am in awe of teachers everyday and am always inspired by who we are as people.

Last week’s readings impact my teaching directly through my design process and lesson planning.  I will consider all these vocabulary words, concepts, procedures, and processes when designing and implementing lessons in order to provide students with meaningful learning.  As educators, we know how important it is to provide students with meaningful learning opportunities in order for them to be future-ready learners, and we do just that--we provide them those opportunities so that they are future-ready learners.   As with the other articles in previous weeks, my teaching will be impacted because I will continue to be intentional with designing and implementing lessons.  Each week I add to my shelf of resources I can refer to and use in order to provide my students meaningful learning that will prepare them to be future-ready learners. 

Though last week’s readings were dense and a bit overwhelming for me, I felt like it depicted how I feel as an educator--overwhelmed and a bit confused at times, and that’s okay.  After class discussions, I was able to have a better grasp of the topics from the readings and how it is related to education and how it’ll impact my teaching.