It is a critical topic discussed in this article, arbitrary and necessary.
According to this article, arbitrary is in the realm of memory and necessary is in awareness. I feel it is interesting that the curriculum content is divide by arbitrary and necessary, which I have never thought about. However, In my heart, I agree with the point that teachers need to inform the arbitrary, don't need to inform the necessary; instead, we need to educate students necessary even though sometimes I can not help to tell the answers without giving enough time for students to try. As new teachers, we need to have more patience for our students and let students control their learning. We need to let students work on the problems and struggle a bit and get the solution by themself. We can assist students but can not give the answer directly.
I feel it is important for unit planning or lesson planning. As new teachers, before we start, we need to figure out what is arbitrary knowledge we need to inform students in the class and what is necessary to know how to figure out. We need to know where the students are in terms of the topic they will be learning. If many students don't know the previous necessary knowledge of this topic, I will have at least a review session to fill the gap. At the beginning of the lesson, it is critical to review the previous necessary knowledge and make sure students get it before the new topic.
Beautiful. You are right, Megan -- the hardest part is letting students have the time to keep working on figuring out the pattern or the puzzle without just telling them! It can be difficult to be patient, but that kind of timing and 'orchestration' is at the heart of what it means to be a teacher. We need to judge when it's best to tell, and when it's best not to tell (yet)!
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