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03 March 2005: A Nice Gesture (2 of 5)
After reading the article a few times, I became curious as to the researcher's background. Sure enough, she's a Psychology professor. It struck me that what this researcher called "teaching with gestures" has a different name in the education community: modeling.
The teacher discribed a problem-solving procedure, simultaneously demonstrating a different problem-solving procedure. Is there a teacher education program on the planet that isn't sold out for modeling? Teacher modeling is often regarded as by far the most effective method for teaching things such as procedures and values.
Some examples from the classroom: Teacher models paragraph organization in front of the class. Teacher models love of reading through sharing books and stories and reading to, with, and in front of their students. Teacher models respect for students by not raising her voice or making derrogatory comments. Teacher models the use of a math algorithm to solve a problem.
Teacher modeling is so central to accepted methodology that even very scripted elementary school curricula have pre-written the strategies teachers are to model!
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