In chapter 9 of her book, Darling-Hammond starts off with a quote from John Dewey, which, in part reads: "What the best and wisest parent wants for his own child, that must the community want for all of its children..." In an ideal world, we would all agree on these "wants," and even what it looks like to be "the best and wisest," but, we all know that agreement upon anything is a difficult achievement. Education is no different. In her third principle for creating quality and equality in education, Darling-Hammond pushes for equitable and adequate resources for schools and students. The difficulty with creating equity, which is seen in society as a whole, is that districts which have more (like basic-aid/community-funded districts) would not be willing to give up the funds and resources they have access to in order to help "level the playing field" for those in need. Although this aspect of her approach seems highly unlikely to come to fruition, there were a few other areas in which progress does seem to be occurring. For example, in terms of establishing meaningful learning goals, it does appear that Common Core is addressing this. Clearly, they don't go as far as the "international standards, curriculum, and assessments," that Darling-Hammonds is pushing for, but it's a start in the way that she discussed only a handful of topics being studied at length in high-achieving countries. Now, with Common Core, U.S. schools should be doing similarly.
The Teaching Channel's video "Conver-Stations: A Discussion Strategy," followed high school English teacher Sarah Brown Wessling and her students as they worked with Joseph Conrad's novel Heart of Darkness. This strategy was used to have students consider an essential question as it pertains to the novel: Is evil ever justified? Working collaboratively, students engaged in re-examining parts of the book to find evidence and support for their opinions, going on to analyze the meaning of the passages they chose. Several times throughout the period, a few students from each group were asked to move to a new station, taking with them the knowledge and insight they had gained (or provided) in the previous group's conversation. This was definitely a lesson I would use in my ELA classroom, as it provokes critical thinking, collaboration, communication, and creativity in terms of how students might have interpreted words from the excerpts. I would give this a 4 out of 5 as a 21st century lesson. Although no technology was implemented, I saw no way that it would have added to the work. Perhaps they went on to create a Google document in which to post and share all of the evidence and insight.
http://fcit.usf.edu/matrix/lessons/collaborative_adaptation_languagearts A second video I viewed was from the Technology Integration Matrix site. The clip "Poetry Exploration" was found within the 9-12 Infusion section. In it, students worked in collaboration on a poetry lesson that would be taught to the rest of the class. They did research to choose a poem and learn about the author. Then, by using a technology site such as imovie, students put their analysis/interpretation with images and author information together. One group even corresponded with the author they chose, allowing her to provide feedback on their lesson. This lesson gets a 5 out of 5 because it was collaborative, creative, engaging, and required communication and critical thinking. I have done something similar in my classroom, wherein students used Animoto and the SOAPSTone reading strategy. http://fcit.usf.edu/matrix/lessons/collaborative_infusion_languagearts The final example of 21st century teaching I explored was also on the TIM site, and it was titled "Communicating With Mentors," under 9-12 examples. In what seemed like a science class, student groups were conducting research for a project in which they were asked to find a mentor in the related field. They were given email addresses and deciding which group member was going to contact the mentor for possible contribution to or for feedback on the projects. This project clearly allowed for collaboration, critical thinking, communication, and utilized technology, but in terms of creativity, I don't know where I saw that. Obviously, with just a glimpse into the lesson, we never have all of the information, but I would give this lesson a 4 based on that. This definitely seems like an ambitious project, for both teacher and students, but one day I hope to get there! In reading chapters 1-3 of Beverly Falk's The Power of Questions, one of the first statements that caught my attention was, "Teachers who are new to research may feel confused by all these different conceptions and choices of research. Don't worry"(19). This certainly applies to me, having gone 13 years without being a student in any official capacity. Getting back into the routine of being a student was a bit difficult, but delving into a research project as part of that makes the whole situation feel incredibly daunting, so I'm hopeful that this book will continue to guide us through the process, gently, as it seems to have done thus far.
Earlier in chapter 1, Falk pointed out that, "John Dewey wrote of the need for education to begin with 'learners' passions and questions' " (2). As adult learners doing our own research, this makes perfect sense; however, in applying this concept to my 9th and 10th graders, I already question how this would work, since so few of my students demonstrate any sort of curiosity at all, let alone the kind of intellectual curiosity I hope to help them create. In essence, this thought lead me to wonder if I could use this as my research question, or, perhaps a sub-question. Some of the thoughts I wrote in conjunction with this idea included ideas about student motivation and drive and how to engage them without making the lessons about them, not wanting to "cater" to their whims. I then began to wonder about how I can help create a culture of homework-doers rather than students who prefer to simply copy off others, knowing I don't collect and read it. In chapter 3, Falk asks teachers to consider their own biases about their research topic. One of the biases of my own that I will have to face when looking at the use of technology for engagement, should I choose to focus on this, is feeling that technology often seems more game-like than I'm comfortable with.. Perhaps I chose the wrong tools though. It's very easy to see technology being used for playing and exploring, but I don't always see it paired with rigor that promotes in-depth critical thinking, which is my goal. |
Kirstin
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