How Do I Love Thee...Modeling

http://reading.ecb.org/teacher/makingconnections/mc_studentvideo.html


How Do I love Thee...Modeling

Modeling is how I teach. I am constantly "modeling" what to do, how should it look, the steps to complete a project. My students learn through the visual and audio experiences I provide during each of my lessons.

The link provided above it how modeling is used in my classroom when making text-to-text, text-to-world, and text-to-self connections. I try to provide my students with as many opportunities of their new experiences as possible.

Models can be smaller than life, life-sized, or bigger; physical or mathematical; realistic or not, depending on their intended uses... In all cases the point of a model is to make accessible something that is difficult to experience easily" (229.)

When students are learning something new or doing something for the first time it can be difficult for them. Modeling provides them with the opportunity to develop their thought process and accomplish their new task. It is a thinking skill that I and my students already utilize so much. I often have my students model how to do things. They are required to consider what aspects were particularly difficult to grasp or conceptualize and gear their modeling towards their peers.

 

How Do I Love Thee...Embodied Thinking

 

 

Embodied thinking attaches the empathizing and kinesthetic thinking. Body thinking involves  muscle movement, posture, balance, and touch (161).  Moreover, the process of body thinking is exercised when an unfamiliar skill is initially being learned (161).  As a skill becomes familiar, however, the process of body thinking becomes automatic and the body completes the skill without thinking (162).  For example, when you first learn how to ride your bike, your mind and body have to focus on the completion of the task.  As the skill becomes familiar, however, your body goes through the motions of riding your bike automatically without your mind having to think about how to complete the task.

Thinking with one’s body is frequently utilized as a means to express oneself across various artistic domains.  For instance, dancers, painters, and musicians all claim utilizing their bodies to create their works of art.  

 Watching this video allows one to view the body/thoughts take over and become automatic.