http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Q75KhAeqJg&feature=player_embedded
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“innovation must be part and parcel of the ordinary, the norm, if not routine.” If education at its foundation is about understanding, than what is understanding? And how does technology fit into this discussion? Carl Bereiter talks about the need for a rethinking of what we mean by understanding. He connects understanding to becoming producers of knowledge. He asks, ” … one must think of a developmental trajectory leading from the natural inquisitiveness of the young child to the disciplined creativity of the mature knowledge producer. The challenge, then, will be to get students on to that trajectory. But what is the nature of this trajectory and of movement along it?“ The past 10 years has seen an incredible growth in the belief of foundational knowledge. You learn the basics first. You are tested to see if “got it”, with remediation for the poor souls who don’t. Even more telling is the practicve of teaching “subskills” to develop competencies in curricular havens of specific content goals. The pursuit of the acquisition of these component subskills are pursued as ends unto themselves without connections to purpose. This is very popular in education now under the label of 21st Century Skills. Large publishers of education software claim to have programs that “build skills upon skills until the student reaches mastery”. What ever mastery is. “Uh oh I see this one coming.”. That is what you are thinking. Another old guy swimming upstream against the NCLB flood of “Test, Test, Did you test them? and Test them again? Test until mastery!” Who defines mastery? Do we ever reach Mastery? Really? As for technology use in the classroom, why do we need to develop ANOTHER set of skills as teachers. Isn’t it enough to “know” my content! As teachers who become equipped with technology tools that allow students to research, question, theorize, and rethink their theories we become guides to true understanding. Why do we need to in a world that pushes canned solutions?
I started my EDTP 504 class today. A wonderful bunch of folks. REALLY looking forward to being with them. So here’s the thing. We were talking around the idea of sociual networks: bad, good, or indifferent. I was hearning mostly bad. And it made me think about this weekend. A young friend of my son’s posted on her Facebook page a Twitter site that represented to be a legit reporting of what was going on in Iran.
Kuhn did NOT see paradigm shifts happening in other fields except hard science. But we see shifts in approaches to education change all the time. The basic paradigm has not changed. We still function under the agrarian calendar of “school”. Will technology change this paradigm? Students can take classes in the summer through online courses. There is usually a face to face meeting with a teacher, but the majority of coursework is done through online encounters. Would you want to teach that way? Would discipline issues go down if students worked in surrounding less threatening? Would the quality of education remain high? Tell me what you think. Click on “pig” link to hear/see a paradigm story. |
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