Week 7 Readings

"A method of teaching allowing the students to learn by discovering things by themselves and learning from their own experiences rather than by telling them things." (176)  This quote, I feel, explains how to activate intuitive heuristics.  Basically it is better to learn by your doing than by the doing of the teacher.  My fiance is a big computer nerd and when I need help with my computer, he won't help me.  He tells me I have to figure it out, he will sit with me and give me ideas on how to solve my problem but he never does it for me.  I think this has made my understanding of my computer much greater than if he were to come in and fix it and leave.  What would happen if the problem occurred again and he wasn't there?  I would be out of luck, that's for sure.  Kumaravaduvelu does a good job explaining how to activate intuitive heuristics.  He explains in the inductive approach to grammar, the teaching lies in helping the learner discover what the grammatical rules are.  In deductive teaching there is hardly any interaction between learners which Kuma states is necessary to create an environment promoting self discovery.  Like we have mentioned in class before communication between everyone involved in the learning process is essential to learning and better yet essential to learner discovery.  As a future teacher it is important for me to step back and reflect on my teaching to see if I am creating opportunities for my students to learn for themselves or if I am not creating opportunities but instead telling information.