Journal 14 | Alternate Pedagogies | Wendy Wu

After looking at Burkhardt's, Dewey's, and Montessori's teaching methods, I've been thinking about the way I've learned. For me personally, Montessori's teaching method has been the most effective because it helps me engage with the material and how it applies to my experiences and life. Not only does it help me build a deeper connection with what I'm learning, but I also tend to remember the material after the course. However, I was not very fortunate to take many courses where the professor or teacher applied real world experience to the classroom. Many of the classes I took were like Burkhardt's teaching method. I just took tests, and many of them were multiple choice questions. It's not to say that I didn't learn anything at all because I did. However, I felt it was just a bunch of memorization and reflecting back on my education, that was the majority of it. For math, I learned the most when I actually had to solve the problems and write down the process. It helps me look at the bigger picture and forces me to really understand the material. When I do multiple choice tests, I have a 25% of getting an answer correctly, so I might not even know what I'm doing and have the possibility to get the answer right. Therefore, I don't really like multiple choice tests, but I can see why teachers prefer them because it makes their lives easier. I think Dewey's teaching method is interesting, but I don't think teachers can give that much attention to each student. If it were possible, then I think that would be amazing because each child could reach their full potential. That might be possible in a very exclusive private school where 1-on-1 attention is possible, but for public schools, that's just not practical. Therefore, looking at my education and considering practicality, I wished every class incorporated Montessori's teaching method. If my classes did, then I think I would remember more than I know now. All I did was regurgitate information, but I didn't really understand the material at times. That's why after the class, I forget everything because I didn't really learn that much to begin with. Montessori's teaching method helps me see things on a larger scale and how I fit into this scale.