Characteristics of High School Learners

High school learners are qualitatively different than younger learners. You certainly can "teach an old dog new tricks" by understanding the cognitive and social characteristics of high school learners. Using the right instructional strategies to maximize the learning advantages and address the learning challenges of high school learners can make all the difference in their success.

High School Cognitive Development

Most high school students have achieved the formal operational stage, as described by Piaget. These students can think abstractly and need fewer concrete examples to understand complex thought patterns. Generally speaking, most students share the following characteristics:

• Need to understand the purpose and relevance of instructional activities
• Are both internally and externally motivated
• Have self-imposed cognitive barriers due to years of academic failure and lack self-confidence
• May have "shut down" in certain cognitive areas and will need to learn how to learn and overcome these barriers to learning
• Want to establish immediate and long-term personal goals
• Want to assume individual responsibility for learning and progress toward goals

High School Social Development

High school students are experimenting with adult-like relationships. Generally speaking, most students share the following characteristics:

• Interested in co-educational activities
• Desire adult leadership roles and autonomy in planning
• Want adults to assume a chiefly support role in their education
• Developing a community consciousness
• Need opportunities for self-expression

High School Instructional Strategies

To address the special learning needs of students this age, Teaching Reading Strategies uses student goal-setting and record keeping. Students assume responsibility for their own progress monitoring. For example, the high interest animal fluency passages provide opportunities for student record keeping and progress monitoring.

High school students are still concerned about the labeling that takes place, when one is identified as a remedial reader. Labels and stereotypes are both externally imposed (by other students and, sometimes their parents), but are primarily internally imposed (by the students themselves). Years of academic failure, due to lack of reading proficiency, have damaged students' self-esteem. Many students have lost confidence in their ability to learn. Students have developed coping mechanisms, such as reading survival skills e.g., audio books or peer/parent readers, or behavioral problems, or the "Whatever... I don't care attitudes" to avoid the tough work of learning how to read well. High school teachers need to be extremely mindful of student self-perceptions. A few talking points may be helpful:

• "Unfortunately, some of your past reading instruction was poor; it's not your fault that you have some skills to work on." a.k.a. "blame someone else"
• "You can learn in this class. If you come to class willing to try everyday, you will significantly improve your reading, I promise."
• "I know you have tried before, but this time is different."
• "You will be able to chart your own progress and see what you are learning in this class."
• "Some of my past students were like some of you. For example, ___________ and he passed the high school exit exam after finishing this class. For example, ___________ got caught up to grade level reading and is college right now." Personal anecdotes provide role models and hope for high school remedial readers. Any former students who have been successful will provide "street credibility" to the teacher and the class.
• "You aren't in this class forever. As soon as you master your missing skills, you are out."

Mark Pennington is an educational author, presenter, reading specialist, and middle school teacher. Mark is committed to differentiated instruction for the diverse needs of today's remedial reading students. Visit Mark's website at http://www.penningtonpublishing.com to check out his free high school learners teacher resources and books: Teaching Reading Strategies, Teaching Essay Strategies, Teaching Grammar and Mechanics, and Teaching Spelling and Vocabulary.

Classroom Technology Learning

Classroom Technology

We all know that learning plays a major role in each person's life and it's mandatory to lead a successful life in this competitive world. Learning has the ability to make you a perfect human. Learning is nothing but sharing or gaining knowledge from others. That's why, nowadays schools and colleges are trying to implement the latest technologies in their school classrooms to make the learning more easy and efficient.

Science and technology has improved and acquired a unique place in all fields because of its specific features and functions. So all educational institutions are implementing advanced classroom technologies in their schools and colleges to provide the education in a modern and professional way so that the student would learn with interest and enthusiasm.

Today, implementing the technology into the classroom is very easy and it is the best way to provide healthy education to students. The following are the tips to insert the latest technology into classrooms.

Use Smart board technology

Smart boards, are Interactive whiteboards in which you could teach your students, using the contents which is saved in a computer. The projector which is connected to a computer will display its content onto a screen. So teaching is very easy and students would be able to understand the concepts very clearly. A study says that students are acquiring more interest in studies while teaching through smart board and there is gradual development in their studies. It is stated that in two or more years, one of the seven schools all over the world will have smart board in their classrooms.

Streaming videos

Normally human mind would understand the concepts easily when it is explained using the related pictures or videos. When you are explaining, the student's mind will imagine to a particular level. For example, let's say, a teacher is explaining her/his students about the function of digestive system. If she/he recalls the food intake by the person, which will reach the stomach, and into small intestine and into large intestine, the minds of the students will travel somewhere else. In this case the students will know the process. However they will not have any idea about how the stomach and intestine looks like. So it is a blind learning.

However while using smart boards, you could show the whole digestion process as a picture or video by surfing through the internet. You could thus make your teaching meaningful by adopting classroom technology.

Teleconferencing

Communication is the best way to share your thoughts and information you know to the other people. It is the most valuable way to develop your general knowledge. So another important classroom technology is teleconferencing. So let your students communicate with each other. Not only with their class mates but also to the other people beyond their school, nation and even country. Use teleconferencing technology like skype, to conferencing with other people so that they could share something they know and also could learn from others. Using this kind of technology, not only within country, you could also make your students to communicate with people all over the world.

Modern Teacher Resources

Not all teacher resources are based on knowledge. Some of them are based on abilities and imagination. The judgment method is a very good one in order to learn a new skill, like writing an essay, a laboratory report or a new computer program.

• The pupils work individually, or in groups, in order to find criteria or exercising skill. Alternatively, They can use the grade method. However it is important that They Should work on its extension and interpretation. It is very important that your pupil must be impartial if he is giving one anothers grades.

• Present the pupils some examples and letting them after evaluation Their scales are a very good idea. It is better to include examples wrong here. An example of this can be the content of the essay, not matching with the title.

• Pupils will talk about thesis examples. They will try to find the weak and the strong points of one another. You Could Also Work on Improving the weak ones or individual pupils.

• The teacher presents the real weak and strong points of the topic. Let every pupil compare HIS points with the good ones.

Another one of the teacher resources important methods is the contrast method. It is perfect for the pupils to understand the theme. This is a great method to use When one of your kids can not understand the topic The pupils are working in individual or small groups. Give them a list with two similar topics and with resemblances and differences. Let's say Communism and capitalism.

The resemblances that Can Be Both have no king, a single party governing the country. The differences are: free-market capitalism in, and controlled market in Communism. The communist state takes care of the people, while in capitalism people must take care of themselves and so on. Use roles to maximize the Involvement of the pupils. Based on surveys, this method is appreciated by pupils, and They are learning it very fast. Be sure that every pupil or the group has at least one role.

The professor-he has the role to study an aspect or a section of the theme and explain it to the other pupils. He will be the only one in the group studying this issue so he or she will have to be very careful. The controller-the "professor" will choose random pupils to ask questions from the group. The Teachers Should Given the pupils, limited time for the activity.

The scribe make sure the pupils write down everything They can, During the conversation. Other pupils can have different roles in this exercise. Just be sure that all of them are involved. If you are smart enough to drive them WHERE you want, you Might find yourself with a nice class and dedicated pupils.

If you are looking for a wide range of Free Teacher Resources, please check out the Promethean Planet website. Teaching resources, teaching software and Interactive Whiteboard Resources are available. The Promethean Planet website contains killed a huge range of Free Teaching Resources.