After reading Chapter 1 and 2 in Wagner's "Global Achievement Gap: Why Even Our Best Schools Don't Teach the New Survival Skills Our Children Need--and What We Can Do about It", I feel it is true that teachers, even the best ones, have a certain expectation to "teach to the test". Many teachers would like to be able to provide a more student centered, discovery type classroom, but with the required standards, it is hard for the teachers to justify the time put into the discovery lesson with the time it takes to do direct instruction. I am a firm believer that students learn more by doing, rather than being told the answer. We do produce bright students who are able to take a multiple choice test, but cannot critically think through a problem. We need a way to adjust the standards, or a change to the way we assess them, so that teachers can feel like they have more wiggle room in their lessons, or at least give them more time to accomplish the goals of a inquiry, student centered classroom.
In the reflection, take a position on one of the two types of school reform presented in the essay. Which of the six unlearning/relearning ideas for educators could you commit to? Which ones might be a struggle? In Will Richardson's "Why School?", the author discussion a few different kinds of school reform that needs to happen to benefit students going into tomorrow's market. With the use of technology, and having devices that can answer standard test questions, it seems that the old school way of "doing school" has become obsolete. The standardized test, multiple choice, regurgitated information is the thing of the past. Students can Google answers quicker than a teacher can deliver the information. So, with this change, the idea of school has to change. Instead of a teacher centered classroom where the teacher is the source of information, we should be teaching student how to use that information to answer their own questions. To teach student how to use the information they can find off of the information, rather than asking them just to find the answer to simple questions. Richardson came up with six different unlearning/relearning ideas for educators: 1. Share everything (or at least something), 2. Discover, don't deliver, the curriculum, 3. Talk to strangers, 4. Be a master learner, 5. Do real work for real audiences, 6. Transfer the power. Out of the six different unlearning/relearning ideas, I feel like I would do well with #2. As a future science teacher, I feel that students retain much more information if they were the ones in charge of their learning. To be able to discover an answer rather than to be told. Students will not only learn the concept better, but will learn the process of discovering new answers of other topics as well. The idea that I would have the most trouble with would be the final, letting go of power. I know that having students discover the curriculum and letting go with power seems like it would go hand in hand, but there is still something very unnerving letting everything go and letting the students take control. I know it would be difficult for me to release all power and just watch the learning happen with my students. |
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May 2015
Kyle HutchinsTeacher Candidate at Cal State San Marcos. Currently doing clinical practice at Orange Glen High School in Escondido. Categories |