My reading lately has had an interesting theme showing up over and over- We aren’t teaching students well.
No, that’s unfair. It’s not that we aren’t teaching them well. It’s more that we aren’t giving them the full set of skills they’ll need to survive once they move past their schooling. We make them sit in seats quietly and take notes, read dry (somewhat inaccurate, highly outdated) textbooks, and teach them how to regurgitate information in response to familiar situations.
And this somehow is supposed to enable them to apply what they learned when they walk out of school.
Our total knowledge is more than just the facts we cram into our heads to pass a test (those same facts that fall out a day or three after the test because they were never given a fair chance to sink in). It’s what we do, what we apply in situations because we recognize patterns. We should be teaching kids to see pieces of a puzzle, and recognize what bit of gained knowledge would best help them fill in the missing bits.
That should be the point in most classes, enabling students with what some teachers call a “toolbox” of skills to tackle a problem. That’s the point of cumulative research projects that have become so popular in the local high schools. The point of group work is to put students into teams where everyone’s gained knowledge can interact to figure out how to best approach a problem. The point of internships, volunteer work, and work studies is to help students both gain new knowledge and to learn how to apply their own knowledge.
Are you seeing a pattern here? We shouldn’t be teaching students to regurgitate. We should be teaching them how to recognize the patterns that would suggest when to use a particular skill or combination of skills. Rote learning is so twentieth century, so let’s move into the twenty-first by encouraging students to connect what they are learning to practical applications, to solving problems, to thinking critically.
Posted by Rebecca as Components of Learning, Knowledge Management, Teaching methods at 7:38 AM EDT
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Usually when we think about reading chunks, we think about bite-sized information. Apparently, though, this terminology is now being used to describe a way of presenting text.
The concept is an interesting one. Because our eyes can actually only see a certain area, a method has been developed that essentially uses white space to break up text into chunks that can be seen by the natural range of the eye without moving. Studies are showing that this method of presenting text has positive results on comprehension, which is always a good thing.
I tried a couple of times to read material presented in this method, and I just couldn’t do it. I can see where it’s useful, and I’m betting that it’s very beneficial for those who have a hard time staying focused on textual material, but my mind just can’t wrap around it yet.
Is this the future of online material? Broken into small phrases so our eyes can better process them?
Posted by Rebecca as Information Architecture at 8:12 AM EDT
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This post from Joyful Jubilant Learning really resonated with me. I am a fan of peer teaching. My own roots in teaching started because I shared what I knew with classmates as a tutor, or just to help them get past an assignment, so when I see my kids start explaining something to each other, it warms my heart.
Peer teaching is one of those authentic assessment methods that is so often overlooked. The idea is if you can teach a skill to someone else, then you have truly learned that skill yourself. It’s true. Even more than proving your own mastery, it also builds your own self-confidence when you realize that you know it well enough to share it with someone else.
Being able to share a newly learned skill is about reinforcing your own understanding of the skill. It’s about building your communication skills. It’s about being an active part of your community.
(The rest of the post is quite good, but I love anything that draws me back toward thinking about the uses of peer teaching.)
Posted by Rebecca as Components of Learning, Teaching methods at 8:05 AM EDT
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I’ve been doing a lot of research lately into resumes, portfolios, and networking, and one thing I’ve noticed time and time again is that employers are looking to hire people capable of critical thinking. They’re looking for people capable of analyzing a situation and reacting to that analysis in a reasonable way. They’re looking for people who can think three steps ahead, who can problem solve, who can think for themselves.
While the ability to analyze and synthesize are part of Maslow’s hierarchy, I wonder how many students are actually being encouraged to work to that level. High schoolers are confronted with a year-long project, but is that all there is to developing those higher skills?
The right answer might or might not be these culminating projects where the students are led through deadline after deadline. It may or may not giving them real-world situations to develop and solve math and science problems for. It may or may not be anything we’re doing in school.
Somehow, we have to convince children that it’s okay to have your own thoughts, that it’s all right to be original in your thinking, even if you’re backing up your own thinking with research. Somehow, we need to convince them that this is pretty much how they’ll be expected to operate as college students and in the work force.
We need to eliminate the question, “What’s the answer you want to hear?” from their repertoire by responding to it consistently with, “I want to hear what you think,” regardless of the student’s perceived level. We need to encourage students’ thinking through questioning and activities that force them to come at topics from their own personal worldview.
Posted by Rebecca as Responsibility at 8:24 AM EDT
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It often amazes me how many parents complain that schools aren’t doing anything to teach their child to be a responsible person. In all fairness, we see your child for anywhere from one to five hours one to five times a week (depending on their). We can encourage them to be responsible for the duration of our class, but we can’t control what happens to them the two to seven hours (weekdays) that they spend out of school.
We give them assignments. We give them deadlines. We can tell them what the consequences will be in within our own class if they don’t actually meet our expectations and invoke them during our own class time. That’s really all we can do.
When a child fails, and the school promotes them anyway, the child has learned that there’s no need to be responsible, that someone will just let them do what they want. When parents fail to expect anything of their child at home and give no consequences for a child’s lack of judgment, the child’s understanding that they never have to actually do anything is reinforced.
In this day and age, taking a child and turning them into a responsible citizen is becoming more and more the responsibility of the community…except it’s always been the duty of the community. Somewhere along the way, we’ve forgotten that. When we were children, we knew better than to mouth off to a teacher, because we knew Mom would be getting a call, and there’d be hell to pay when we got home. When we were children, we learned very quickly not to lie about our teachers because Mom would go talk to the teacher, and again, there’d be a world of trouble if our lie was discovered.
This is a community problem, not one to be pushed off onto others.
The schools have to do what’s in the child’s best interest, even if that means keeping the star quarterback from playing in the big game because he hasn’t studied for a history test all year. He’ll miss being scouted, but he has to understand it was his decision not to take his classes seriously that cost him that opportunity.
The teachers have to do what’s in the child’s best interest. If that means constantly emailing and calling parents to let them know their student isn’t turning in homework or is doing poorly on tests, then that’s what’s necessary.
The parent has to do what’s in the student’s best interests, even if that means taking away cell phones, the internet, and the ability to go out with friends for a period of time. Who cares if the child claims to hate you? They never mean it. They’re just upset. (Seriously, I have a number of students who have told me I’m mean and that they hate me, and then come running straight to me for everything because they know I’m going to set and enforce boundaries with them.) The child has to learn what it means to actually have consequences, or they’ll act like the world owes them a living they haven’t earned.
Bringing up responsible children is a team effort, and when one part of that team doesn’t do its part, the whole effort is an uphill climb that stands a very good chance of being lost. Don’t let a child get lost like that!
Posted by Rebecca as Responsibility at 8:10 AM EDT
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I spent last weekend helping a friend prepare her applications to teach in her local school districts. It really reaffirmed for me that 1. I am a real teacher, and 2. that I love my profession.
The problem, and I’ve been wrestling with it for months now, is that while working with my students can turn any bad day good, it’s just not fulfilling me. I love it, wouldn’t trade my kids for nearly anything, but I’m not completely happy, and I feel it rather keenly when I’m not teaching.
I’ve known that part of it is because the career path I originally picked for myself involved me developing a lot of educational programs, tours, outreach programs, and workshops. I did that fairly well, and I loved doing it. It’s something I really don’t get to do much now (Even I’m willing to admit working on Dead Bunny’s blog and upcoming book really don’t fit this same bill.)
Why do I teach? Because I don’t know how to do anything else. Teaching is like breathing to me. It’s just what I do, often without realizing it.
Why did I love developing educational programs? Why would I give my right arm to get into a job that would let me do just that? As much as I love engaging with my students and experimenting to find what’s going to reach them, I love the brainstorming, research, and creating that come with developing programming even more.
Developing educational programming is like solving a big puzzle, and I’ve always loved puzzles. You take a topic and an audience, and you think about you could best get that audience to leave the experience knowing what you want them to know…without you being right there to say, “Look! This is the point!” In that respect, it’s a lot like writing. You have to make someone understand you without ever realizing you exist. Once you have some possible approaches, you figure out what medium you can realistically deliver that nugget of knowledge in, and then you research. You research the topic. You research the audience if you know nothing about them. You figure out how to weave the topic’s relevance into the audience’s life. Then you create the experience itself. It’s an exhilarating process, and one that I became proficient in doing on a day’s notice in the museum world.
Teaching is my instinct. Program development is my passion.
Posted by Rebecca as Reflective teaching at 8:20 AM EDT
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I suspect I’ll be reading a lot on this while I try to figure out what path best suits my talents, but this PDF is full of good examples on what game-based learning can accomplish, and points to some more resources.
Good thing I enjoy reading, right?
What I perceive as one of game-based learning’s real strengths is that it does tap in to someone’s prior knowledge, and grips them on the emotional level that we hope to reach a student on in face-to-face teaching. It makes use of a hot technology to make that connection.
I’m finding myself slanting more toward educational media, and specifically serious games, the more that I read and think about what I’d like to accomplish, what I’d like to design. Maybe it’s because I’m from the video game generation. Maybe it’s because I’m an average gamer (who knew?). Maybe it’s because I like to challenge myself in my work.
Doesn’t change the fact that I’ll be gearing my reading more these interactive learning experiences.
Posted by Rebecca as e-learning, Games at 8:08 AM EDT
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I’ve been noticing a trend in education where various subjects are trying to move to a more authentic curriculum by having the student explore concepts in real-world situations. The theory is a good one: if a student can see where they might use a skill again, they might be more willing to tackle it. If they can apply it practically, they might have a better chance of remembering the skill on tests, and later on in life, too.
That’s great. Tying what we do in the classroom to what goes on in the real world is definitely useful for engaging students and keeping them motivated, but it forgets something.
Students sometimes don’t have a lot of real-world experiences when they come in to school. In fact, they might not even have the basic skills needed to stay afloat in class. Some curricula are starting to rely on discovery teaching methods, but that only works if the teacher uses the discovery element to explain why a basic skill works, to help the student understand the processes going on.
Most people, children and adults alike, find it very difficult to apply what they don’t understand.
Start with the basic skill. “Discover” it if you have to, but then talk about why the discovery worked. Talk about the concept. Talk about the underlying principles. Give the discovery component meaning. Then, give real-world related practice if you feel the students are ready to tackle it. Don’t let them move on if they don’t understand why they’re doing something, or what they’re doing.
Posted by Rebecca as Teaching methods at 7:42 AM EDT
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I spent some time last week trying to establish an order for Dead Bunny’s book. There are days when that seems to be a fairly simple task. You have to be able to add integers before you can add fractions. You should understand what an exponent is before you start simplifying rational functions.
Right now, I’m trying to work through graphing skills on Dead Bunny’s blog, and it isn’t going as logically as I’d hoped. I’ve already covered graphing in one dimension (the number line). I can address graphing in two dimensions (the Cartesian plane) by introducing the ordered pair. That only requires knowledge of how to use a number line. Thanks to the number line, I can also address the slope formula (which I believe I have covered already).
I can address both the standard form of an equation for a line and the slope-intercept form. To move between them, you have to know how to solve for a variable, which I’ve covered (after realizing that basic skill was missing from Dead Bunny’s collection).
The problem comes when I go to address the Midpoint Theorem and the Distance Formula. After much thought, I’ve realized that knowledge of the number line will actually suffice for understanding the Midpoint Theorem, but the Distance Formula is an entirely different story. I’ve had to help students memorize the formula, but because it’s just a formula they have to memorize, they struggle with it.
Really, the Distance Formula is simply an application of the Pythagorean Theorem, which is often taught much later. I could move it up in Dead Bunny’s line-up, but that forces a number of other skills up.
I’ve started trying to trace what prerequisites are needed for each skill Dead Bunny is covering, but it’s proving to be an interesting map. Hopefully, I’ll be able to straighten it out before too much longer.
Posted by Rebecca as Teaching methods at 8:25 AM EDT
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