Assistance in Learning

When students read or learn something that is new, how can we be certain that they are really retaining this new information? Providing them with strategies to construct some meaning from these concepts can help them to better retain information and develop understandings during a lesson.

One of the most important steps in the PAR framework (preparation, assistance, and reflection) is the assistance phase in which students deepen their understandings of learning activities. Teachers cannot simply force understanding or fluency onto readers, so instead we must provide the students with independent tools to self-correct, predict, and confirm hypotheses while they learn. Comprehension during reading is affected by a variety of components; the student's specific knowledge or worldly knowledge of a topic may influence his or her interpretation of the text. Therefore, teachers must encourage a variety of possible interpretations to engage students in a process known as constructivism. Based on the constructivist learning theory, constructivism emphasizes the importance of learning through actively constructing concepts based on prior knowledge, rather than passively receiving information. To me, this theory is reminiscent of a problem-based learning strategy that encourages students to inquire, consider, assimilate, reshape, or transform information into a thought that makes sense for themselves.

Another self-check strategy for learning assistance can be self-awareness while reading, or metacognitive awareness. The Metacognitive Awareness of Reading Strategies Inventory, or MARSI, is a test that teachers utilize to gauge a student's awareness of concepts while reading. The word metacognition, as defined by Merriam-Webster's Encyclopedia, means the awareness of or analysis of one's own learning or thinking process. I have often witnessed elementary teachers use this same term around students to offer up questions or discussion time for any student who is foggy on some material. Including a student in this process is a wonderful way to get the reader thinking about what they just read, and if it truly makes sense to them.

Additionally, some final in-class strategies that aide both teacher and student learning may include: reciprocal teaching, collaborative reasoning, concept mapping, and discourse analysis. All of these strategies, referenced in Richardson, Morgan and Fleener's Reading to Learn in the Content Area, explicitly encourage a kind of duel teacher/learner strategy that assists learners in conceptual understanding and allows teachers to formatively assess their student's comprehension of material. All of the listed strategies can provide a wonderful classroom dynamic while students learn together. To provide this ultimate learning climate, I think, students and teachers must both be simultaneously engaged and inquisitive in the learning opportunities at hand.