Oct+30-+Hyerle+and+Alper+Ch+5

In chapter 5, Jackson discusses the gaining of academic knowledge through the development of understanding and motivation in students. She mentions the difficulty many teachers express of teaching with a cultural gap between themselves and their students and Jackson suggests the use of thinking maps to bridge this gap. She stresses that thinking maps facilitate understanding and motivation through the development of critical thinking skills/high level thinking. Thinking maps also create a "language about thinking" allowing students and teachers to communicate about topics and bridge cultural gaps. Self-confidence of teachers shows through to the students according to Jackson and I agree. When I feel confident about a subject and the task I have planned my students receive the information better and do well on the task. Confident teachers can guide students to what is important and not important about the content while reading. Confident teachers can also helps students with understanding the language of textbooks and other course materials. Thinking maps are great aids for confident teachers to utilize to deal with these problem areas. The maps force students to use the content language and helps them understand through patterns and recognition. They allow students and teachers both to reflect on thinking and allows for an identification with the subject to help bridge the cultural gap by promoting discussion. I enjoyed Jackson's discussion about thinking maps helping with memorization by developing external memory patterns. In my opinion, avoiding memorization is impossible regardless of what anyone says. Yes, you must teach higher level thinking, but in biology the standards have required a certain amount of memorization. For example, parts of the cell; you can teach it several different ways, but it is beneficial for a student to make flashcards and thinking maps to remember the parts and their functions. This chapter does well with provide supporting examples in favor of thinking maps by pointing out several problems in education that can be solved with the maps.--Helen Phillips

As Helen stated above chapter 5 discusses an increase in knowledge through developing an understanding of your students and being able to motivate them. On page 51 Jackson states, "meaning they have a lot more potential than is being assessed or addressed." She is talking about children in urban areas and how they have the potential but no one is assessing their potential. The chapter also discusses the gap between teacher and students. Which I find as being a huge deal in some cases. Some teachers are so far removed from today's world that they find it difficult to relate or communicate with their students. The teacher should not try to be best friends with his/her students but they should keep up with what's relevant for today. I believe that the students want to see that their teacher is a real person and not just a teacher. I think her 3 key factors for bridging the gap between teachers and students is key for any teacher or aspiring teacher. I see where the Thinking Maps can aid in helping students understand certain material or concepts. Personally, I think they are a great tool for almost any subject. Overall this chapter does a good job of helping to bridge the gap between students and teachers as well as implementing Thinking Maps. -Ashley Knowles