Entry #6

What is learning, what is acquisition?  Some activities warrant both.  I looked at it in the sense that any activity where a student is being "taught" to do something or stating back information for a teacher (a product focused activity) would be learning.  When students are being encouraged to "acquire" information through authentic learning tasks, that is considered acquisition.  Some of the "learning" activities I categorized were looking up words in a dictionary, practice sounding out words, and using a variety of worksheets to teach different skills.  I felt these were all learning activities because students were doing rote activities that teachers directed them to do, looking for a correct answer.

Literature circles, doing a shared reading with a big book, or writing rhyming poetry and discussing spelling patterns are all acquisition activities because the students are doing authentic tasks that provide them choice, a variety of skills that can be acquired through them, and require higher level thinking.   I also felt that making alphabet books on different topics was acquisition if the students were allowed to create the alphabet books on topics of their choice.  If the teacher gave them the topic and the words to use then it would be more of a learning activity.  I also think that writing words that students dictate for a story and having students help with the spelling of difficult words would be a combination of both because they would be acquiring some parts as they come up with parts for the story, but it seems like some parts of the activity would end up falling under learning if words are dictated for them.