“Work” Sheets But They Don’t Work
Written by: Jazzmin Bernal Illustration by: Ali Teufel
A big issue here at EHS is our worksheets. I dread going to class knowing it’ll be another day of my teachers lecturing for most of the hour and then handing us an assignment with only five minutes left in class. By the time I get home, I will have already forgotten what we were talking about and how the worksheet is supposed to be completed. It usually leads to teaching myself certain subjects like chemistry or algebra.
I see friends asking each other for help and hanging out after school to try and understand the material better together. When it leads to nothing, they both feel stuck, which causes them to search up the answers. When they do, it’s just filling in the blanks. This will only harm them in the long run since they aren’t learning; just mindlessly copying word for word, switching a few things so they don’t get caught cheating.
There are a few details I’ve picked up on when teachers introduce subjects differently. They interact with their students and greet them as they walk in and this changes their mood in a positive way. When going through their lecture, they will ask questions for the class to answer or have someone come up to the board to help write the notes down. Not everyone learns or works in the same way, which is why at the beginning of the year, teachers should have their classes fill out a Google form to inform them of the way most of their students learn. This lets students tell teachers how they want to be taught without feeling embarrassed to express it.
I tend to need visual examples or more hands-on experience for information to actually stick. This can be with small drawings or questions done together as a class. For visual learners, teachers can add more graphics and visual aids to their presentations. They will still be able to keep their bullet points of the main ideas being discussed, which will continue to help out the auditory learners. To help with the read/write learners, have them work together in small groups, read the material together, and then discuss what it’s about. Students who work in groups and have small conversations can help them catch onto their mistakes and learn from the experience. It may be embarrassing for them, but we all have times when we make mistakes. The way to help the kinesthetic learners (hands-on) is by having them do skits about what they are learning. These are all just little ways that will help make everyone feel more involved and engaged when learning in class.
