I found an interesting slide show this evening while I was exploring the web looking for more inforamtion about shifts in learning that should occur to meet the demands of our global digital economy. Check it out at the link below. Also check out Nussbaums website which you can access from the slide show. A number of valid points and observations are made on the slide show. For example, there needs to be a shift from an emphasis on teaching to an emphasis on co-learning. When I taught, my students were always much more engaged when they saw that I was a learner just like them. We often talk about modeling for our students but neglect that fact that we also need to model learning not just tell them what they need to learn. Another shift mentioned on the slide show was a shift from school improvement as an option to school improvement as a requirement. Unfortunately, so many people in our society are afraid of change and many a change agent has met their demise in school districts that are afraid of the accountability monsters. If school boards don't see immediate improvement or see a dip in test scores they revert to the old ways of doing things that are not helping today's diverse learners. It is amazing how much our world has changed in the ten years I have been in the education profession and how much we have stayed the same in education. The next ten years should be an interesting journey as the need for change will be unavoidable. Don't forget to check out this slide show.
http://www.slideshare.net/snbeach/shifts-in-learning
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It's easy to be proactive until you get scared! Fear produces reactive behavior; it's the old "fight or flight" response. School boards, supers, and principals are not immune to this since they are human. When schools miss the mark, it's just too easy to retreat back into the comfort zone of data-driven, accountability approaches. That makes it easier to blame the teachers for the problem....
ReplyDeleteI like the Co-learning concept. If I stop learning something each day from my kiddos, it'll be time to go work in a bank or start driving a truck again!
I'm totally on board with the idea of co-learning. The teacher-centric model of education is a major tenet of the factory model that we all know we need to try and get away from (<- never end a sentence with a preposition at). Kids (especially secondary students) have a real potential to look at the world around them and recognize things they need to be taught. If we let them do it, they could really inform we the educators what to focus on teaching while engaging them to help us learn it as well (since a lot of it likely to be stuff outside of our knowledge base and not in the teacher's edition).
ReplyDeleteNaturally, fear of the time it will take and the impact on test scores holds us back like you said. Our 5th graders did their exhibition projects last year and several groups wanted to do videos. I had some time in my schedule and ended up being the de-facto video director/producer for about 7 groups. I was afraid of the time if would take to teach them to work the camera, pick the shots, import the files to a Mac, and put it all together in iMovie. So I did it all for them. Not exactly practicing what I preach but it demonstrates the impact of that fear we educators have of taking too much time on something not tested on the TAKS.