Oh, I need to know so much more!
Besides researching academic sources, I need data on my class.
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Keeping something simple that is not simple...
What can I do to support my students in developing quality questions? I do not mean only quality inquiry questions, which are certainly important as lifelong learners, but in the day to day classes and lessons. Too often many seventh graders settle for being sponges, absorbing information that they are given. I want to help my students become active learners who seek out knowledge, ideas, and, yes, even wisdom. How? Arts-Infused Project-Based Learning: Crafting Beautiful Work... this project based learning project description caught my attention. As I saw the collaboration through a project that ultimately required students to create a 5 minute audience inclusive theater product based in a historical event, I was reminded of the divergent thinking that Ken Robinson described in the RSA video (forward to 7:43). The students were given an open assignment with the expectation that there could be many possible ways to express their learning. Phenomenal! The Minecraft Cell: Biology Meets Game-Based Learning Using Minecraft to teach? Best question is "How can Minecraft teach?" I have said no to minecraft in my home for two years even though my children want to teach me. Maye it's time to see that this game and other games can, if I open my mind, be learning tools! Flexible Classrooms: Providing the Learning Environment That Kids Need What a great idea to help create the best learning environment! I am already moving towards this with standing table spaces and counters to sit on, but I now see that I can push this so much further! I know that student engagement can be so much more. When I first saw this I was skeptical of how it could work for 7th grade, then I saw Justin at 3:02. I am hooked! Students need to be allowed to create, experiment, and make mistakes! Students need to communicate beyond their devises. Students need to move, not sit.
All these videos remind me of the joy my students are expressing at coming into the 7th grade. Last year's teachers are very proud of their paperless classrooms. All work is done on Chromebooks. The students hate it, and their former teachers complain of their behavior issues- They wont sit still! Too bad these teachers are using technology just like Mr. Ditto from Teachers (a 1980s movie). My students rejoice at paper and pencils! Using technology just to use it is useless. I sometimes let slip that technology needs to be a tool, but this it wrong. Technology needs to be a stocked tool chest... allowing students and teachers to use the right tool for the right job. Don't forget that every good tool chest still contains paper and pencils. My notes as I watched the videos: Adora Svitak: Teachers should learn from students. Do not overly restrict, have high expectations! Support ideas. Let kids “grow up to blow you away!” Dalton Sherman: believe in the students and they will rise to the occasion. Ken Robinson: learning revolution… know your talent and let it flourish. Education squashes natural talents! Reform is no use, it is “improving a broken model.” We need a revolution. We are too often stopped by the “tyranny of common sense.” Education needs to feed our spirit, our energy. Human teaching needs to be like agriculture, make it so that students can grow! Ken Robinson RSA: ADHA… grows with our system… arts are losing and that leads to aesthetic experiences (fully alive) being lost. Divergent thinking: the capacity for creativity… an ability to see many possible answers, to see lots of possible answers. Most great learning happens in groups! A Vision From Today’s Students: loved the end with the chalkboard forcing the teacher to move… no, “encourages.” After reading, admittedly only four chapters at this point, I find this book to be well written, well documented, and depressing. When the author finally offers ideas to improve, I think the systemic changes are too big for me to tackle. I can and will do what I can for my students and the district that I work with, but a call for state wide or nation wide change seems too colossal for one person (or even the 10 in our cohort).
One main difficulty that I ask you, my reader, to help me with is how the author, in the first three chapters, seems to paint almost all of your school issues on race issues. More often than not, however, when I looked to her studies in the notes, I see that the studies point more to poorer classes rather than on race. I find this offensive. The focus on race seems a red hearing. If instead the focus is on creating a more equitable class system and helping to create a healthy middle class, I would not be as turned off nor as depressed about her findings. In fact, her race baiting does not seem to be supported until she shares the study by Oakes (57) about admittance into honors classes. This study shoes racial inequity, but was conducted in 1992. I question and truly believe based on my California experiences that this does not occur at such a level today, 24 years later! Does it still happen, yes. Does it happen often here in California? I doubt it. The change is happening and will continue. Change must happen, as Darling-Hammond begins to show in Chapter 4, in the states, not the federal government. I look forward to the author's analyses and possible solutions in the coming chapters. I do hope, however, that the racial focus lessens. |
About MeAfter teaching for 20 years, I've decided to pursue a master's degree! Archives
July 2017
CategoriesThis is me working on my classwork... usually at night after the heater is off.... sitting long times makes me cold!
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