I will close out Chapter 2 this weekend, but I wanted to go ahead today and post the question for Chapter 3.
In this chapter about "Learning to Learn" we see 3 steps/stages of constructing knowledge. First, we gain knowledge for practice in "sit and get" traditional PD. In knowledge in practice, we take what we have learned and try it out and see if it works and then knowledge of practice where we reflect on successes and failures. I think we are all good in the knowledge for practice part of the scenario, but most of us fall down when it comes to the other two stages.
When we talk about Unlearning to Relearn, I agree - we must leave a lot behind in order to progress toward 21st century skills. Have you thought much about this idea of unlearning in terms of your teaching? As an educator, what do you need to unlearn and relearn? Take a look at the conversation on https://www.facebook.com/edutopia/posts/146746198731330. How would you contribute to this conversation? What do you need to unlearn? What is your strategy in doing this, if you have one? Share your thoughts on unlearning here.
"Sit and Get" When i thought of this phrase it made me think of the college courses we are/were required to take in order to fulfill requirements for licensure. I am so thankful for the opportunity to pick and choose what I want to learn and apply that to my personal growth points. I agree Angy we are probably best at knowledge for practice. I can think of many times that I have applied knowledge in practice however as I reflect back over my career I find that I do reflect on my successes and failures. With my kids, I need to recognize what works and what does not. It seems every year I am changing things in the room trying to make my classroom better for my students. A lot of it depends on the make up of the studnets that are currently in my room. (reflections) Some can handle change and others not so much.
ReplyDeleteWhen I went to the site on facebook, it asked that we start with the words...We need to unlearn.... that all students do not fit in a neat little mold. We need to unlearn that failure is not acceptable. It is a tool in learning. I cant begin to tell you how many times something i have tried, failed. However it made me stronger and even more determined to find a solution to a problem.
I found this chapter to very thought provoking and look forward to others comments.
We need to unlearn....that students can only learn from us as teachers; that learning takes place when students are quiet, orderly, and still; that learning can be measured by standardized tests; that drill and practice are the best way to learn a concept; that all students need to learn the same skills; that teachers have to be the main source of gaining information and new skills; that grades are important; students get only one shot to prove what they have learned....I could probably keep going on for awhile. As I think I mentioned before, I took a radical step this past year when I decided to flip my AP Calculus course. I was no longer going to "teach" during class time - at least this is what I thought at first. I know those first few days I felt out of place with the kids working and me not "teaching". I even said one day to them, " I feel guilty not doing anything". It turns out I did more teaching than ever. I got to talk with all the students on a individual basis almost everyday. I got to work with individuals and small groups. I got to answer questions and get into more detail than ever before. It was a more difficult adjustment for me than the students. My room was noisy, students were sitting in random groups, some were moving around the room, some sitting on the floor. Everyone was working on different assignments. I also got rid of due dates. They could turn in work whenever they had it finished--this was really radical for me! However, it seemed to work well. Instead of just a few students doing some of the work, I had all students doing all the work. I had to unlearn many of the traditional teacher and classroom rules to make the flipped classroom work. It wasn't perfect and I'm still thinking about ways to keep making it better. I had the students help me reflect on the positives and negatives and got many suggestions from them. It was scary at first to try the flipped classroom, but I'm glad I did.
ReplyDeleteThat is awesome sandy.
DeleteHow did you get rid of due dates and keep the pace going in your classroom? I have been considering trying to make my French classes more individualized, considering I have students with language IEPs and students who are AP-level in language. How do you address the school's (state's) need to cover standards and to assign grades?
DeleteDo they get a grade based on percentage of material mastered, on quality of work completed at the end of the grading period...?
I especially enjoyed reading all the "We need to unlearn..." posts on Facebook for this chapter. I quite agreed with Lucianna Michelle Martin Sanson's post. "We need to unlearn high stakes testing is the ONLY way to guage student learning and teacher effectiveness....." More and more this is what seems to be driving our curriculum. Another post I found interesting was by Mikki Black. "Since bonus points don't exist in real life and a fill-in-the-blank response is not helpful in most areas of learning, perhaps those are two of the items we should unlearn."
ReplyDeleteBut Sandy is the one that really hit it! I want to echo everything that she said we need to unlearn. I don't have a solidified strategy for unlearning at this time. However, summer is a great time to strategize for the new school year, and that is what I am doing.
Interesting chapter….. I need to unlearn…. Teaching the subject, not the student. It's pretty easy to learn a subject, and then present that knowledge to someone who is your captive audience. What's much harder, however, is to learn your classroom well enough to effectively teach the student. Everyone learns differently -- faster or slower, through words or by hands-on, so the better we know our students, the better we can teach them. Each day, I need to focus on teaching the student the subject, not teaching the subject to the student. Does that make sense?
ReplyDeleteI need to unlearn….. Not being a good listener. I can’t assume that just because I’m the teacher, I should be the only one doing all the talking during class. Learning to listen well is a powerful skill for teachers, but it’s also a skill that students need to learn before they leave school to go out into the world.
I need to unlearn…..Being quick to answer every question. We as teachers, assume that we are in the classroom to answer every question that a student might have. Sometimes, the most important part of learning something is learning how to ask the question. Then by guiding the student toward the answer, we have given the student ownership of that knowledge.
I also agreed with the post by Lucianna. “We need to unlearn high stakes testing is the only way to gauge student learning and teacher effectiveness…” There is so much more to teaching and learning. Teaching to the test is not the answer and should not drive our curriculum.
There are so many things that we need to unlearn, and we could all have lengthy lists in this discussion. What we need to relearn are the strategies to deal with all of these things. I’m hoping that these discussions and my own reflections over the summer will give me some insight!
We need to unlearn that there is a classroom pace, and relearn that there is a student pace. We need to unlearn that there is a way to teach material and relearn that there are multiple ways to teach for understanding. The variety of students in a classroom means that there is a need to teach to a variety of paces and ways of understanding. The relearning is the difficult part, because teaching to a full class all at once is so ingrained in how our schools operate and how students and teachers are evaluated. As Sandy says, we need to relearn the strategies to deal with the way learning is changing. We need to relearn how to assess learning when it takes place at different paces and in different ways for each student. We have to take into account not only the student, but also the ECAs and other state-required assessments. How do we prepare students for those exams and still teach them how to think? How do we assess the ability to think beyond test-taking? I would like to relearn aligning real learning with test-taking!
ReplyDeleteFirst...I apologize for taking so long to post the close for this chapter. I have been waiting for a few more folks to post before I close the chapter. If you haven't posted to this chapter, please feel free to catch up.
ReplyDeleteThis chapter was a little tough for me. Since I am not in the classroom, I have different views about what we need to unlearn. So..please bear with me....I think we need to unlearn that learning can only occur in the classroom. We also need to unlearn that students need "teachers" to learn. One more...we need to unlearn that students = kids. I think that anyone can be a "teacher" and anyone can be a "student". Students can learn learn from many different sources including teachers, other students, conferences, webinars, blogs, websites, publications... We also need to unlearn our dependance on others to "teach" us. We need to find our own learning styles and constantly learn through various means.
When it comes to teacher professional development, we need to unlearn traditional PD and make changes that work best for each personal individually. Here is an article that covers how PD can be changed and some new tools you can use to build your own PD network: http://www.schoolcio.com/Default.aspx?tabid=136&entryid=5923
I REALLY need to unlearn the importance of standardized testing! Since I teach one of the courses with a "high-stakes" test, this is often difficult to forget. I feel that I need to teach more to the ability to think(if you need examples, read HOORAY FOR DIFFENDOOFER DAY by Dr. Seuss and Jack Prelutsky. I read it to all of my classes the day before the start of the ECA). Many of the tools discussed throughout this book will allow students not only to learn the material, but also to learn about how to think about the world around them, which is far more important. I also need to focus on the different learning methods. Unlearning that one method is best is a difficult task when that was hammered into your head as a student!
ReplyDeletePosted by Jenny Laws