Tuesday, July 10, 2012
Sunday, October 2, 2011
Education Paradigms
I came across this AMAZING RSA Animate video called "Changing Education Paradigms". Worth a watch.
The Others
Viewer warning: Please do not jump down my throat upon reading the first half of this post, LOL. I was required to think about how we tend to “other” [(v) – using 'they', 'them', etc as a means of discrimination... not necessarily negative, but highlighting that a difference exists]. It was important for me to become fully aware of and really acknowledge my own "othering". It was a challenge for me to not only come to terms with having these types of thoughts and ideas, but to put them out here for scrutiny.
An “other” I use way too much (mostly just in my own head, in my own thinking) is “primary teachers”. This bias started right from my first day of PDP. There was “us”, the STEP (Secondary Teacher Ed Program ) students, and “them”, the ETEP (Elementary Teacher Ed Program) students. We, of course, thought we were better than them ,and they thought they were better than us. Our argument always revolved around our academic "superiority" over them in that we already held specialized degrees and were adding Education to that. To top off that already negative and über-judgmental attitude, I was in the Math and Science cohort, so “we” though we were not only better than the elementary teachers-in-training, but also than the Arts and Trades secondary teachers-in-training.
Wow.
As my fingers stroked each of the keys of the keyboard in typing that last sentence (and again in re-reading it), a feeling of embarrassment overcame me and I struggled to fight the urge to not go back and erase it or re-word it in a less offensive way. But I won’t, because that is the true start of how my bias developed. A bias that even though I am aware of it and have matured past thinking like that, has affected both my attitudes towards these educators and my practice in general.
I no longer think of secondary specialist teachers as better than primary generalist teachers. I think that the two ends of the spectrum are different from each other in many ways, but are similar to each other in many ways as well. In fact, I would say that there are more meaningful similarities than there are differences. I hold huge respect for primary educators and have no problem acknowledging that it is a job that I simply could not do – not because it is ‘beneath me’, but because I do not think that I possess the qualities that it takes for one to be a successful educator of young children.
So how am I different from my “others”? I guess I think about teaching an academic core at a secondary level to be more challenging, to be more rigorous, and to require more expertise. I know that the curriculum in these areas tends to be very specific and often quite linear, and that factors like time constraints and standardized assessments add to this challenge.
How are my “others” different from me? To start, they deal with small children. Children that need to be constantly watched, coddled, entertained, engaged, and nurtured. They require a mother’s-like love, attention, validation, reassurance, and patience. Creating that short list alone was exhausting for me – the prospect of having to do those all at the exact same time with not one, but 25-30 students is a feat that I don’t fully understand and have huge respect for those who do it on a daily basis. And this is just in dealing with the students! On top of this, primary educators have to teach the children the basics like reading, writing, and number sense, in addition to the development of many other skills that we as secondary teachers take for granted.
How are “us” and “them” similar? To list just a few of the many, many ways: We all have a passion for learning; We are interested in how people learn and cultivating our own communities of learning; We care about students and their education; We are advocates of today’s youth; We care about ‘raising’ students who will be positive contributors to society.
These similarities are far too powerful to allow any differences to be of significant importance. Allow me to make a food analogy (as for some reason that always seems to make a nice conclusion that, while being over-simplified, can act as a concept clarifier to both myself a
s the thinker/writer and to you as the reader). So secondary and primary educators are kind of like comparing berries to melons in that they are not the exact same thing, but that they are both fruits (no pun intended). But in fact, there are many types of berries and each of those brings something unique to the table. One is not necessarily better than the other, but each has qualities that add diversity to the mix. The same with melons. So it really isn’t about “us” versus “them” (or “berries” versus “melons”) as there is a wide diversity among the individual groups and characterizing the people by their jobs is not really fair. What we should do is make a delightful little fruit salad where we can recognize the contributions of each of these fruits in a way that compliments the others instead of isolating them.
An “other” I use way too much (mostly just in my own head, in my own thinking) is “primary teachers”. This bias started right from my first day of PDP. There was “us”, the STEP (Secondary Teacher Ed Program ) students, and “them”, the ETEP (Elementary Teacher Ed Program) students. We, of course, thought we were better than them ,and they thought they were better than us. Our argument always revolved around our academic "superiority" over them in that we already held specialized degrees and were adding Education to that. To top off that already negative and über-judgmental attitude, I was in the Math and Science cohort, so “we” though we were not only better than the elementary teachers-in-training, but also than the Arts and Trades secondary teachers-in-training.
Wow.
As my fingers stroked each of the keys of the keyboard in typing that last sentence (and again in re-reading it), a feeling of embarrassment overcame me and I struggled to fight the urge to not go back and erase it or re-word it in a less offensive way. But I won’t, because that is the true start of how my bias developed. A bias that even though I am aware of it and have matured past thinking like that, has affected both my attitudes towards these educators and my practice in general.
I no longer think of secondary specialist teachers as better than primary generalist teachers. I think that the two ends of the spectrum are different from each other in many ways, but are similar to each other in many ways as well. In fact, I would say that there are more meaningful similarities than there are differences. I hold huge respect for primary educators and have no problem acknowledging that it is a job that I simply could not do – not because it is ‘beneath me’, but because I do not think that I possess the qualities that it takes for one to be a successful educator of young children.
So how am I different from my “others”? I guess I think about teaching an academic core at a secondary level to be more challenging, to be more rigorous, and to require more expertise. I know that the curriculum in these areas tends to be very specific and often quite linear, and that factors like time constraints and standardized assessments add to this challenge.
How are my “others” different from me? To start, they deal with small children. Children that need to be constantly watched, coddled, entertained, engaged, and nurtured. They require a mother’s-like love, attention, validation, reassurance, and patience. Creating that short list alone was exhausting for me – the prospect of having to do those all at the exact same time with not one, but 25-30 students is a feat that I don’t fully understand and have huge respect for those who do it on a daily basis. And this is just in dealing with the students! On top of this, primary educators have to teach the children the basics like reading, writing, and number sense, in addition to the development of many other skills that we as secondary teachers take for granted.
How are “us” and “them” similar? To list just a few of the many, many ways: We all have a passion for learning; We are interested in how people learn and cultivating our own communities of learning; We care about students and their education; We are advocates of today’s youth; We care about ‘raising’ students who will be positive contributors to society.
These similarities are far too powerful to allow any differences to be of significant importance. Allow me to make a food analogy (as for some reason that always seems to make a nice conclusion that, while being over-simplified, can act as a concept clarifier to both myself a
s the thinker/writer and to you as the reader). So secondary and primary educators are kind of like comparing berries to melons in that they are not the exact same thing, but that they are both fruits (no pun intended). But in fact, there are many types of berries and each of those brings something unique to the table. One is not necessarily better than the other, but each has qualities that add diversity to the mix. The same with melons. So it really isn’t about “us” versus “them” (or “berries” versus “melons”) as there is a wide diversity among the individual groups and characterizing the people by their jobs is not really fair. What we should do is make a delightful little fruit salad where we can recognize the contributions of each of these fruits in a way that compliments the others instead of isolating them.
Sunday, September 25, 2011
Analyze That.
The results of taking the time to actually comb through my philosophy (previous post) and analyze it AND my practice (not always one in the same) was indeed interesting. When learning about the three curriculum perspectives as described by Miller & Sellers (1990), I though I knew where I as an educator, would fit. I feel that John Dewey summed it up best: “Education is life itself”. I knew that I wasn’t “zen” enough to embody the transformative perspective fully, and I hoped that I wasn’t “stiff” enough to embody the transmission perspective. The transaction perspective seemed like it was right up my alley… Or was it?
Upon taking a much closer look at the characterizations of each and going through each point in painstaking contemplation, I started making comments to myself like “well, I believe this, but don’t actually do it ”, as well as the reverse “I do this, but don’t really believe in it”. Red flag. I then went back over each point, highlighting:
- Ones that I practice, but don’t whole-heartedly agree with;
- Ones that I agree with, but don’t actually practice;
- And ones that I practice because I because it is what I believe.
Even in writing my philosophy I acknowledged that my philosophy is split between a utopic view where policy and mandate and curriculum specificity and classroom constraints do not play a role, and a more realistic one where they do (which I don’t necessarily agree with all of the time). So this of course, has an effect on my practice. Or, perhaps I haven’t forced myself to really analyze my philosophies and my practice together in a critically reflective way in such detail before/enough.
Some questions I had regarding the transaction perspective (and definitely more so with the transformative perspective, although I am less interested in becoming more of a “transformative educator” at this point) involve curriculum development, organization and evaluation. To me this idea of having any sort of control over the above factors would definitely impact the way I teach; however it seems that educators who specialize in higher-level, academic classes (in my case, mathematics) do not easily have this freedom as perhaps primary, generalist educators do. Being bound by constraints such as final exams and 50 minute blocks makes it challenging for teachers to “facilitate learners’ inquiry in directions the learners’ interest reflects”. I am not skeptical, but I am interested to see how this would be accomplished.
Sunday, September 18, 2011
Philosophising
My name is Laura. I spend over $5.00 on a single coffee. I spend more minutes per day on social media than I do having face-to-face conversation. I am a teacher who disagrees with the education system.
Let me ask you: which of those facts about me caught you off guard? I’m betting it’s not the ridiculously overpriced, border-line highway robbery cost of chain-restaurant coffeehouse beverages, nor the companionship that a networked piece of metal brings me. It’s the educator who has the beef with education, right? Allow me to explain:
My Philosophy of Education
Throughout the past two years – time I had spent on graduate studies in education – my Philosophy of Education has continued to morph. I have this utopic view of what I think it means to learn and to know something, and what roles ideally teachers and students (and administration and the public) should play in education. However, I also have this realistic view that is bogged down by curriculum and policy, and together they are kind of like the angel/devil characters that sit on my shoulders, fighting.
My Philosophy of Education involves constantly striving to create a community of life-long learners. The way it makes sense to me can be broken down and fleshed out into three components: (1) Individuality, (2) Community, and (3) Purpose.
Individuality
The process of learning varies from individual to individual, and I think it’s important that educators, and more importantly, policy-makers, recognize this and work to create learning environments that respect individuality and experiences that are meaningful. Students are not cookie-cutter clones who learn A-Z in the same way, so we shouldn’t treat them as such.
Community
While individuality is important, that fact is that we are constantly surrounded by community. Communities of learners, communities of friends, communities of family – and with that comes a need to take advantage of what community can offer, and how we can function optimally in a community setting. I feel while humans can act in manners that are altruistic, we are also selfish at heart (at times) and benefit from moral education. I think educators work hard as it is to include this in their practice, and it is one example of where I feel the “hidden curriculum” holds more value than the actual one.
Purpose
I believe learning to be a process that is cyclical and not linear as our current system has it laid out as. In thinking about the goal of formal education, I think that we should focus more on how to learn, rather than what to learn. The education system we have in place in Canada and the US is like a pendulum that swings dramatically from one idea to the next, without thinking through the repercussions or looking at it from a long-term perspective. It is drastic and standardized and short-term, all of which seem to go against the purpose of education.
What Should be Taught in Schools?
Excellent question. And one I fear is not easy to answer. We live in a culture of quick-fixes and generalizations which, in my opinion, are hindering the education of today’s youth. This is where my battle of “utopic” vs “realistic” comes into play. I understand that there has to be policies and frameworks and that budgetary constraints exist. However, extraneous factors like hidden agendas and politics play a profound role in what constitutes best practice and what is expected of educators. Much of my problem lies with the curriculum itself…
What is the Role of Teachers and Students?
I think that a fundamental role of teachers is to inspire learning. I don’t see teachers as these containers of knowledge, where students are simply vessels waiting to be filled. I see the process of learning as more organic and more of a construction rather a demonstration. I see teachers as facilitators who assist students in realizing and achieving their potential, and I see students as active members in the process rather than passive recipients. I don’t see this happening in classrooms filled with +30 students and several IEPS. I don’t see this happening the way things are now.
Let me ask you: which of those facts about me caught you off guard? I’m betting it’s not the ridiculously overpriced, border-line highway robbery cost of chain-restaurant coffeehouse beverages, nor the companionship that a networked piece of metal brings me. It’s the educator who has the beef with education, right? Allow me to explain:
My Philosophy of Education
Throughout the past two years – time I had spent on graduate studies in education – my Philosophy of Education has continued to morph. I have this utopic view of what I think it means to learn and to know something, and what roles ideally teachers and students (and administration and the public) should play in education. However, I also have this realistic view that is bogged down by curriculum and policy, and together they are kind of like the angel/devil characters that sit on my shoulders, fighting.
My Philosophy of Education involves constantly striving to create a community of life-long learners. The way it makes sense to me can be broken down and fleshed out into three components: (1) Individuality, (2) Community, and (3) Purpose.
Individuality
The process of learning varies from individual to individual, and I think it’s important that educators, and more importantly, policy-makers, recognize this and work to create learning environments that respect individuality and experiences that are meaningful. Students are not cookie-cutter clones who learn A-Z in the same way, so we shouldn’t treat them as such.
Community
While individuality is important, that fact is that we are constantly surrounded by community. Communities of learners, communities of friends, communities of family – and with that comes a need to take advantage of what community can offer, and how we can function optimally in a community setting. I feel while humans can act in manners that are altruistic, we are also selfish at heart (at times) and benefit from moral education. I think educators work hard as it is to include this in their practice, and it is one example of where I feel the “hidden curriculum” holds more value than the actual one.
Purpose
I believe learning to be a process that is cyclical and not linear as our current system has it laid out as. In thinking about the goal of formal education, I think that we should focus more on how to learn, rather than what to learn. The education system we have in place in Canada and the US is like a pendulum that swings dramatically from one idea to the next, without thinking through the repercussions or looking at it from a long-term perspective. It is drastic and standardized and short-term, all of which seem to go against the purpose of education.
What Should be Taught in Schools?
Excellent question. And one I fear is not easy to answer. We live in a culture of quick-fixes and generalizations which, in my opinion, are hindering the education of today’s youth. This is where my battle of “utopic” vs “realistic” comes into play. I understand that there has to be policies and frameworks and that budgetary constraints exist. However, extraneous factors like hidden agendas and politics play a profound role in what constitutes best practice and what is expected of educators. Much of my problem lies with the curriculum itself…
I think that we waste way too much time and energy filling kids’ heads with useless and often irrelevant information. Do they really need to know what we teach them? Is having them be able to regurgitate it back to us on a test or a project really a sign of them learning anything at all? Perhaps we need to find a way to start over again and figure out what it means to be a “knowledgeable” member of society and THEN figure out how to educate to achieve that. I feel the answer lies in simplicity – basic skills such as questioning, sorting, organizing, hypothesizing, verifying, criticizing, applying, etc. Maybe the focus should switch from “what”, to “how and why”. (Excerpt from my blog post August 2010 on “Knowledge, the disciplines, and learning in the Digital Age” (Jane Gilbert, 2007) http://thoughtsandviewsoneducation.blogspot.com/2010/08/knowledge-disciplines-and-learning-in.html)True, it’s harder for students to do, harder for teachers to assess, and harder for the higher-ups to regulate, but since when is education about taking the easy way out? I don’t have answers on how this should look or how it should operate; I just feel that our current system is not optimal for inspiring and engaging student learners.
What is the Role of Teachers and Students?
I think that a fundamental role of teachers is to inspire learning. I don’t see teachers as these containers of knowledge, where students are simply vessels waiting to be filled. I see the process of learning as more organic and more of a construction rather a demonstration. I see teachers as facilitators who assist students in realizing and achieving their potential, and I see students as active members in the process rather than passive recipients. I don’t see this happening in classrooms filled with +30 students and several IEPS. I don’t see this happening the way things are now.
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
What Exactly is Student-Centered Learning?
I came across this entry saved to my computer… I guess I forgot to post it! I meant to upload it prior to blogging about my trials and tribulations of this inquiry. My bad. Pretend the date reads January 30th :)
As I become more comfortable with the teacher-inquirer that I am growing into, I have learned that before diving into a field study I need to make sure I have clearly defined for myself the definitions of the terms/topics/situations of which I am inquiring.
What does student-centered learning look like in a 21st century mathematics classroom?
I’ve spent significant time in my graduate coursework examining what a “21st century classroom” looks like and qualities that they may possess. The most important thing for me to wrap my head around now is what it means to have learning be student-centered. Starting out, that was simple: learning was either teacher-centered (knowledge is imparted by the teacher and instruction is direct) or student-centered (knowledge is actively constructed by the learner and the instruction is indirect). Right? Hmm. That was a bit of an assumption. Seems that like most things in education, nothing is really black and white, and it’s investigating those grey areas where my “aha moments” tend to occur.So when looking for a definition, where does one go? Wikipedia of course ;)
“Student-centred learning (or student-centered learning; also called child-centred learning) is an approach to education focusing on the needs of the students, rather than those of others involved in the educational process, such as teachers and administrators.
Student-centred learning, that is, putting students first, is in stark contrast to existing establishment/teacher-centred lecturing and careerism. Student-centred learning is focused on the student's needs, abilities, interests, and learning styles with the teacher as a facilitator of learning. This classroom teaching method acknowledges student voice as central to the learning experience for every learner. Teacher-centred learning has the teacher at its centre in an active role and students in a passive, receptive role. Student-centred learning requires students to be active, responsible participants in their own learning.”
Okay, so the definition I originally had has been somewhat expanded. Looking at that, it made me think back to Educational Psychology 101, in my teacher-education days, and names like John Dewey, Jean Piaget, and Lev Vygotsky started swirling around my head. Oh yeah, I remember learning about that now – these guys practically came up with the idea of student-centered learning!
My next step was something I would not likely (correction = never) have done: refer to academic research to inform my understanding of student-centeredness. I came across one article in particular that caused such a shift in my thinking that I couldn’t
stop talking about it to my friends and family. They were not nearly as excited by it as I was. Whenever I become energized about something in math or education (or worse, math education), I am usually met with family members pulling out their imaginary calculators, punching numbers furiously, and pushing their also imaginary glassed up their noses whilst snorting. I think they’re trying to tell me something. I once got a T-shirt for Christmas that read “talk nerdy to me”. Yup.Back to the article. The citation for it is:
Elen, J., Clarebout, G., Lowyck, R., & Lowyck, J. (2007). Student-centred and teacher-centred learning environments: what students think. Teaching in Higher Education: 12(1).This study focused on the relationship between teacher-centered and student-centered learning environments from the perspective of a student. It identified 3 views of this relationship: (1) the balance view: the more teacher-centered a learning environment the less student-centered it is and vice versa; (2) the transactional view: continuous renegotiation of teacher- and student-roles; and (3) the independent view: teacher- and student-centeredness are independent features of learning environments. Literature research done by the authors seemed to favor the balance view. From a curricular perspective, the results from the study suggest that the development of “powerful learning environments” are more important than the transition from teacher-centered towards student-centered learning environments. “Student-centredness and teacher-centredness are not the opposite poles of one spectrum… According to students, student-centredness and teacher-centredness are not conflicting but mutually reinforcing features of a learning environment. When properly combined they jointly contribute to its quality” (Elen et al, 2007)
Knowing this has opened my eyes to what my student-centered mathematics classroom could be modeled after. It definitely gave me food for thought.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Journaling in Math - Success??
In my quest to promote student-centered learning in math, I started to use journaling as a tool for my students to demonstrate their understanding of mathematical concepts and pinpoint areas where increased scaffolding is needed on an individual basis. From the students’ perspective, doing so was a challenge – far more difficult than working through questions from a worksheet or text. It required that they comprehend their own thinking and be able to identify what they understand and what they do not. I was fascinated by their journals, and marking (while more time-consuming), I was provided with meaningful feedback to support my own teaching.
In many cases, students were able to demonstrate capability to compute an answer and in most cases how they reached it, but not why they chose that particular method for solving. A common response when asked orally was “I dunno… I just did it.” Had they been required to simply provide an answer with or without showing work (like on a traditional homework assignment or quiz), they may very well have gotten the answer correct and I may very well have assumed that they understood the concept. Journaling forced them to think about the process of coming to an answer versus just arriving at an answer. Ahh, that must be where that old cliché “it’s about the journey, not the destination” came from… a math teacher ;)
This idea of metacognition in math has definitely sparked something in me – something I think I want to explore in greater depth in my next inquiry.
In many cases, students were able to demonstrate capability to compute an answer and in most cases how they reached it, but not why they chose that particular method for solving. A common response when asked orally was “I dunno… I just did it.” Had they been required to simply provide an answer with or without showing work (like on a traditional homework assignment or quiz), they may very well have gotten the answer correct and I may very well have assumed that they understood the concept. Journaling forced them to think about the process of coming to an answer versus just arriving at an answer. Ahh, that must be where that old cliché “it’s about the journey, not the destination” came from… a math teacher ;)
This idea of metacognition in math has definitely sparked something in me – something I think I want to explore in greater depth in my next inquiry.
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