Meaningful Learning Experiences

There are many different ways for a teacher to conduct a lesson or introduce new material
to students. For example, they could give lectures, hand out worksheets, or ask students to take
notes from their books. However, before applying these methods, teachers should ask
themselves, Does this type of instruction promote deep understanding of the content I am
presenting? Will it help my students gain more than a superficial grasp of what I am teaching?
In order to enhance meaningful learning experiences in our classrooms, we as teachers should
move away from these traditional approaches, which mainly promote rote learning, and find new
ways to design and conduct lessons that provide enriched learning.
One way to make a lesson truly beneficial is by using a Project-Based approach. One of
the main goals in this type of lessons is to relate the material to the real world, which deepens
student understanding because it helps students realize how it is used outside of the classroom.
Entry documents, which are handed out to students before the lesson starts, present the problem
while making this relation. For one of my own lessons over the application of logs and
exponents, I applied this approach and used an entry document to both engage and relate the
material to the real world. In my entry document, I announced that the population of zombies
was increasing after an outbreak of the Zombie Disease and that is was up to the students to
determine which world regions needed antidotes first. This helped students realize that the
number of people infected after an outbreak of a disease increases rapidly, which can then be
represented by an exponential equation and then even graphed.
Another aspect of this Project-Based lesson that helped students gain a deeper
understanding of the material was the group work involved. Throughout the entire lessons,
students worked together and helped one another whenever they were stuck or confused with
something. This was useful because I noticed that whenever they were unsure of something, they
were a bit shy or embarrassed to ask me for help. However, they felt comfortable asking their
group members. This was very useful for students because they were able to find clarification to
their misunderstandings, which is key to deeper understanding.