Student 1:   Sharon . . . is aware of what she does or does not understand.  Sharon connects the material with her own ideas to construct new ideas about the topic.  I think this step shows that she somewhat builds a new understanding of the material.  She also builds new understanding by thinking about the questions being asked and putting it into her own words.  This shows that she can clarify material to others.  Yet I still believe that if she were given a new situation to the material, such as the coyote, she would not be able to relate it to what she has learned.  She has not reached this step in learning yet. I do not think Andrew can build his own new understanding of material.  He is very unaware of his thinking and does not seem to focus his attention on the importance of understanding the material.  His responses do not seem to make sense to any of the questions being asked.  He tries to relate the reading to things that were not relevant at all. Andrew also has a difficult time remembering examples and does not know how to translate information in his own words.

Student 2: Sharon appears to be to connecting some past ideas to new ones, hopefully building a larger connection to a deeper understanding of the concepts. The pieces seem to still be separate though, for she cannot move beyond only her interpretations of the subject matter from previous held knowledge. As we have seen, this previous knowledge can be, and often times is, not entirely whole, correct, or complete. This can in turn limit further understanding, for there is a wall of misinformation that is not easy to tear down. Andrew seems to not have much information to build upon about this material. His connections are very limited and few in occurrence. The information is still entering his brain as only fragmented pieces that make little to no connections or build unto anything. Each piece then becomes alone in the brain and difficult to recall or connect to for future use. The understanding is at a simple, routine level.

Student 3: Neither Sharon or Andrew have really built a new understanding of the material. Sharon was successful on a small surface level, by trying to connect what she learned of Darwin previously to the current material, and by creating examples and definitions in her own words; however, because she didn't make complete connections from the reading, and didn't understand the original definitions and examples, she had a difficult time trying to create her own based on those. Her foundation was weak, so the rest of her construction crumbled under scrutiny. Andrew was unable to create any solid connections that made sense to him, so the information just was in bits and pieces, floating around, often unattainable.

(You must close this window before opening other pop-up windows)