Tuesday, October 21, 2014

My View on Reciprocal Teaching

Reciprocal Teaching
is an instructional activity that takes the form of a dialogue between teachers and students regarding segments of text for the purpose of constructing the meaning of text. Reciprocal teaching is a reading technique which is thought to promote the teaching process.


After reading Palinscar and Brown, I actually really like the idea of reciprocal teaching. I like that it focuses on the individual student and can be accommodated based on each students needs. However, there are some obvious issues executing this in a classroom.

Reciprocal teaching can be very time consuming. Doing this over an extended time span with every student could take hours and teachers just don't have that amount of time to work on one skill. 
In addition, it can be frustrating for both the student and teacher because reciprocal teaching is such a slow process for some students. At times, it may seem like no progress in being made.

Despite these issues, I think that reciprocal teaching is well worth the effort. The benefits outweigh the challenges. The skills learned with reciprocal teaching are essential skills that can be used for the rest of the students' lives. In the long run, it will teach them how to better absorb and learn information. To absolve the issue of time, there can be a time limit set for how much is done each day and how often. I believe the long term skills are worth the accommodation.

Here's the full journal article:

1 comment:

  1. Lindsay,

    You seem to have a clear understanding of what reciprocal teaching is and how you feel about it. As future teachers, it's important to have opinions on teaching methods and activities. You did a good job of listing the issues of reciprocal teaching, but what are some of the benefits? You say that the benefits outweigh the issues, but when the benefits aren't listed, someone who is not familiar with reciprocal teaching would question your knowledge about the concept.

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