Southwest Educational Development Laboratory
SEDL

Classroom Compass
Volume 1, Number 1
Spring 1994

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Mud Slide: The Teacher as Facilitator



Even the youngest children have observed and experienced enough of the world around them to discuss erosion and deposition processes. By tapping into their prior knowledge through guided instruction, you can encourage thoughtfulness and speculation.

Begin by asking for their previous experiences. Such questions as, "What have you observed during thunderstorms? What washes down driveways and streets?" strengthen children's confidence in their own abilities to observe and learn. Start with local conditions and expand to predictions of what would happen in different seasons, in different terrains. Open-ended questions encourage higher level thinking and help avoid the "guess what the teacher wants" game. The facilitating teacher places the student in the role of a scientist who uses knowledge, observation, and prediction to draw a conclusion about an event.

Let the students use their own words. Learning such terms as erosion and deposition is not a prerequisite for the experience. Vocabulary introduced at appropriate times will take on meaning in the context of its use.

The facilitator should elicit a variety of views from the students - there may be different explanations from the group about the reasons and results of erosion and deposition. Allow those variations to surface, guiding the discussion with questions and invitations to speculate. Continue to refer back to what the students observed in the activity and the conclusions they can draw from what they saw.


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