this is a great post and the apprentice idea of modelling resonates with me. It strikes me that for a teacher to be a “Master Learner” and engage students in a different way, the teacher needs to be aware of their ego and how they need to set it aside. Perhaps good teachers always do this, but it becomes even more imperative as we shift into this new collaborative world. The teacher has to set their ego aside, and join their students as inquisitive learners who model how you find what you need to learn, how you acquire skills when you need them, not how they know everything already. I hate to be ageist, but as the more traditional teachers retire, I think we might see a shift like this.

Once students understand the process, they can apply it to any reading (in theory, at least). I’ve found that children struggle most when my model is not sufficiently clear—and it’s difficult to anticipate where the disconnect between teacher and student understanding might occur. Another roadblock to comprehension occurs when the teacher model is too smooth; if it appears that I do not have to work very hard to discover the answer, then students expect to gain the same results with minimal effort. I’ve found that it can be very effective for me to work through a process “cold”; allowing my students to see me struggle to create meaning using a given process shows them that it IS work (even for the so-called expert) and that they should expect to grapple with the process as well.