FOUNDATIONS OF TEACHING FOR LEARNING 1: INTRODUCTION ...
FOUNDATIONS OF TEACHING FOR LEARNING 1: INTRODUCTION WEEK 2: Thinking About Learning LECTURE 1: Revisiting Learning As a teacher from time to time we need to revisit what we know, what we think we know and what we don’t know about learning, as researchers are constantly pushing back the boundaries of knowledge.
QUESTIONS: What do we know about learning? → Learning is a process that takes place in the classroom (during lessons and through other interactions for example on a social level) as well as in different environments outside of it (at home, in peer environments, online). As a result, different or even conflicting ideas may sometimes be taught in these different environments. → Learning is not just the academic level of getting to know certain facts. It encompasses also social skills, personal abilities, and any proficiencies that a person can posess. → Learning is an ongoing process. We never stop learning and throughout our lives gather knowledge from books, lessons, life experiences and stories of others to complete and enrich our knowledge. → To be effective, learning must be encouraged and presented in a positive light to students and those in their environment, because selfmotivation is the best basis for learning. What do we not know about learning? → It is impossible to instantly know the particular learning style someone has. This is why it is important to get to know students and not force them to study in one certain manner, but rather present to them a variety of ways in which they can learn for them to choose from. → We often don’t know how to enhance learning. Students do a lot of the work on their own, and we rarely stop to think about how we can make the work maybe not easier, but more enhancing towards further learning. What would we like to know about learning? → Knowing what others think about learning. Through sharing learning experiences and strategies, we are able to devise new ones and come up with different approaches to learning, making both the teaching and the learning
experience evolve. → It is not so much what we want to know about learning, as what we can learn that will help us enhance the learning we provide our students with. THE JAHARI DIAGRAM. As teachers, we have to regularly reevaluate the knowledge that we already posess about teaching, learning and strategies. To do so, we can use the four Jahari windows, featured in the diagram.
It’s important for teachers to realise that they are constantly learning and never know everything. QUESTION: WHAT IS DISTINCTIVE ABOUT HUMAN LEARNING? → we construct abstractions → we store information outside the body → we think about thinking → we think about feelings → we make ethical decisions → we portay thoughts and feelings → we construct meaning from experience → we seek out problems → we learn in reciprocity all learning is social in some way * → we have a conscious attitude to the process of learning * → we have (practical) learning goals in mind * → we evaluate learned information * → we make educated choices about learning resources Things we know about learning: 1. Cognitive conflict (Jean Piaget) presenting students with something puzzling or unexpected, making them stop to “think again”. One of the main drives of cognitive development (being presented with only the easy does not stimulate the mind). 2. Leverage (Dewey) and bandwidth (Qvortrup) finding ways to bring our thinking to a higher level through the appropriate means and difficulty level of tasks. 3. Mediated by emotional centres (Damasio) all our learning is “processed” and opinionated by feelings, has to engage our emotions. 4. Attention to the learning moment (Perkins) finding the moment when challenge and skill meet. 5. Learning by teaching (Bruner) we learn by rehearsing ideas when we teach others. 6. A social activity (Vygotsky) we learn through, with and from other people (even when in isolation)
7. Context is critical (Gardner) taking learning from one context to the other (both between different classrooms and outside the school) All of these things require feedback formatively letting us think again of how we can think better. Teachers have to “read the room” to recognise signs of learning and use them to improve it. “Making learning an object of attention, Making learning an object of conversation, Making learning an object of relflection, Making learning an object of learning”. [David Perkins] → “Don’t just move through the curriculum stop to talk about learning in itself” is an important idea to keep the classroom dynamic and constantly improving. When we focus on the learning process, and not just on teaching, and work to make learning a more effective, natural and pleasurable process for students, we will make the work of future educators dealing with those students cut out for them. Organising the mind so as to facilitate easier learning should be the important AND urgent although definitely not to be rushed.
FOUNDATIONS OF TEACHING FOR LEARNING 1: INTRODUCTION WEEK 2: Thinking About Learning
LECTURE 2: Thinking about Thinking We all think all the time. Is it possible to think badly? What would it mean to think well? How much of our teaching is devoted to helping children and young people think well? To know how not just know what?.
Thinking skills mental processes we use do to things like solve problems, make decisions, ask questions, make plans, pass judgments, organise information and create new iedas. They often occur subconsciously, but through metacognition (thinking about thinking) we can become more efficient and creative with our minds. Cognitive thinking can be divided into different categories: → Information gathering sensing seeing, hearing, touching retrieving memory skills → Basic understanding organising gathered information forming concepts linking ideas together → Productive thinking using information and understanding it creating, deciding, analysing, evaluating The cognitive thinking skills that are most important for success are: atetntion, working memory, processing speed, longterm memory, visual processing, auditory processing, logic and reasoning. Figuring out what students are thinking is very difficult but a useful routine developed by David Perkins called MYST can help with that: ME YOU SPACE TIME
How do I model thinking? How do I make thinking visible? How do I make my students’ thinking visible? How is the classroom setting organised to help facilitate thinking? How can I give thinking more time? How does it change over time?
Another useful routine is See Think Wonder by the same educator. What do you see? activates cognitive thinking What do you think about that? activates cognitive conflict What does it make you wonder about? activates analytical thinking It may be beneficial to use a circle of viewpoints in the context of seethinkwonder taking different points of view and implementing them into the seethinkwonder method.
I am thinking from the viewpoint of … From that viewpoint, I think that... A question I have from this viewpoint is... It is good to know some of the thinking questions: Why? What do you think? How can we think this out? What? Is it better than...? How do you want to think? When?Is it worse than...? Can you teach it to someone else? Where? What are the problems? Can you split up the problem? How? How do you feel...? What are the good sides? Who? What are the facts? Can you do it differently? What if...? Do you understand? How do you want to learn this? The basis of all these activities is that making students think makes them think creatively. They are then able to use the I used to think → Now I think schematic to notice a change in their way of thinking or in their knowledge, making them realise the cognitive conflict they started with has been resolved.
FOUNDATIONS OF TEACHING FOR LEARNING 1: INTRODUCTION WEEK 2: Thinking About Learning LECTURE 3: Teaching for Learning How could we teach at all if learning wasn’t always at the heart of things? As you watch consider the notion of ‘sticky knowledge’ and how we might need to reconsider the simple transmission model. “Teachers teach and children learn. It is as simple as that.” [Chris Woodhead, Class Wars] “We must pursue the connections with aggressive curiosity and healthy scepticism” [Judith Warren Little]
We must always question the relationship between teaching and learning. Knowledge, as it is passed on from the teacher to the student, has to negotiate past a number of problems and misconceptions, both on the side of the teacher and the student. selfdoubt (I’m not good at this subject) misconception lack of prior knowledge inappropriate medium peer norms (it’s not cool to learn) “How can I learn something new when I know nothing about it?” [Jean Jacques Rousseau] → Learning an entirely new concept is different from learning something that pertains to a topic we already have some idea about. A new subject is much more challenging because it requires us to back up to the very beginning of the learning process and start with the core, the basics, of what has to be learned. → This is especially difficult for intermediate learners, who are used to adding to their already possessed knowledge instead of starting an entirely new branch advanced learners such as university students taking courses in new fields are more familiar with “starting afresh” on a new subject because they deal with it every semester, but students just going into high school, for example, might not be familiar with strategies they last used (unconsciously) in early grades of elementary school.
→ This is why the introduction of new concepts should be accompanied by a thorough and varied reintroduction of learning strategies, especially when dealing with older learners and in case of new learners, with a very thorough explanation of what the topic covers (background), where it comes from (reasoning) and why it needs to be talked about at all (practical application). Questions that we have to ask ourselves when dealing with students: → Do they ever doubt their ability or intelligence? → Do they talk themselves down? → Are they influenced by what their peers and friends say or do? → Am I aware of the prior knowledge my students bring with them into the classroom? → Do I understand o check out their misconceptions before going on? → Am I using the best medium for communicating with them? Key principles for presenting new information: Connect how does it connect with what you already know, think, can do? Extend how does it extend, build on what you already know, think, can do? Challenge how does it challenge what you already know, think, can do? Some routines that can be used are: Thinking questions (What makes you say that?) Think, pair, share first work alone, then talk it over with a partner, finally bring up the subject in the classroom I used to think... Now I know All learning is social, emotional and intellectual. → How do we engage students? “There is always one moment in childhood when the door opens and lets the future in” [Graham Greene, The Power and the Glory] “When the timing is right, the ability to learn a particular task will be possible. This is referred to as a ‘teachable moment’. It is important to keep in mind that unless the time is right, learning will not occur. Hence, it is important to repeat important points whenever possible so that when a student’s teachable moment occurs, s/he can benefit from the knowledge.”
[Robert Havighurst, Human Development and Education, 1952] → I partly disagree with this statement. I think that the teachable moment can be created within themselves by students who are willing to learn. For example, when in elementary school I was able, when I put my mind to it, stay focused for the entire lesson (even at a young age!). I would go home having memorised almost everything that was talked about not word for word, of course, but was able to explain all topics discussed and all reasonings given. → In later years, my learning did not depend so much on how the teacher conducted the lesson as on how much I was interested in that subject and how much importance I put in not so much doing well in it, as in having permanent knowledge about it. For example, I knew I had to pass Geography on my high school finals, so I made myself get interested in the subject and still remember the majority of what I learned. On the contrary, I found no use for Biology in my future plans, so I only put the facts given there into my shortterm memory, enough to get good grades on tests. → Conclusion: The teachable moment cannot be FOUND in students, it has to be created and turned from a moment into an extensive interest in and passionate approach towards the subject and learning in general. The spot check a way to diagnose whether or not children are going through a teachable moment in that particular time. Teachers often discover that their time frame is not the same as the time frame of the students it could be interesting to open it up for discussion with students.
RON RITCHART: MAKING THINGS VISIBLE Ron Ritchart, Senior Research Associate at Project Zero, Harvard Graduate School of Education, talks about visible thinking and how this is used by a teacher to explore truth and reconciliation in South Africa. Children also comment on each other’s work. How does this extend your thinking about learning? [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQTYcZf40ag] Documenting the students’ thinking allows them to use those materials as models. → Observers from outside are able to assess thinking (what students are beginning to understand) → Students are able to observe their own progress or progression from topic to topic → Students’ ideas are discussed and cared for in the classroom environment
The “Chalk Talk” Routine grab a question that can engage in conversation and students all can write down their comments in a common place (a large piece of paper, a forum etc).
FOUNDATIONS OF TEACHING FOR LEARNING 1: INTRODUCTION WEEK 2: Thinking About Learning LECTURE 4: Thinking about Curriculum We may think of curriculum as what we plan to teach. We may also think of it in terms of a process in which we create a climate for students to engage with the big ideas or essential concepts that matter. “To learn tigerscaring, it is very useful to have a real tiger” we often do not make our teaching relevant and engaging. Finding that connection to reality is important to make what is being taught something that students will want to learn. Where people still equate curriculum with a syllabus they are likely to limit their planning to a consideration of the content or the body of knowledge that they wish to transmit. It is also because this view of curriculum has been adopted that many teachers have regarded issues of curriculum as of no concern to them, since they have regarded their task as being to transmit bodies of knowledge. [Kelly, 1985: 7] The curriculum isn’t something that is handed down and then delivered, but a process. It is something that has to be revisited and rethought, a plane in which teachers are engaged and creative. Five key trilogies for considering curriculums: → Formal the handeddown basis for teaching and learning, → Informal not prescribed but happen outside the formal one (extra activities) → Hidden the lessons that students take about the nature of authority, order etc. → Romance playing with imprecise ideas → Precision tying down the ideas, defining particular elements → Generalisation bringnig ideas into other contents, and going back to romance → Enactive doing things (games, practical examples etc)
→ Iconic picturing things → Symbolic abstract ideas → Knowing → Doing → Feeling → Intended expectations about learning outcomes, plans for what will be taught → Implemented waht happens in clasroom, processes, pedagogy → Attained actual achievements in relation to standards Principles in creating curriculums: 1. Selection of content what is to be learned and taught 2. Development of a teaching strategy how is it to be learned and taught 3. Decisions about sequence in what order will we follow with the material 4. Diagnosing strengths and weaknesses of individual students what point of focus do we have to choose and how to differentiate the first three principles. “Curriculum in action” principles: 1. Studying and evaluating student progress what the students work on and learn 2. Studying and evaluating teaching progress how am I developing and working on my own teaching 3. Reviewing adaptability of the curriculum in varying contexts school, pupil, peer groups, environments flexibility and complexity of what we teach 4. Evaluating variations in effects in differing contexts on different pupils and causes of the variation understanding a bit more of why some learn quickly and some find it difficult to learn what seems like a simple idea Moving from delivering the curriculum to a partnership in learning: Delivering the curriculum Discussing purposes and objectives of learning what are we going to get from this? Why are we learning this? pupils devising indicators of achievement how do I know when students are engaging and learning well? Pupils as assessors of their own and others’ work Pupils as determiners of learning Pupils as learning partners they discuss with the teacher how they learn, what and in what ways they learn, they talk about the process of their learning. Since the real purpose of education is not to have the instructor perform certain activities but to bring about significant changes in the students’ pattern of behaviour, it becomes important to recognize that any statements of objectives of the school should be a statement of changes to
take place in the students. [Tyler 1949: 44] → The curriculum a teacher or a school creates cannot be disconnected from the real world. It must meet a few key requirements: be realistic (set achievable goals so as not to make the students lose faith in themselves, but not be too easy so as not to waste the students’ motivation), be wellplanned (so as not to confuse the students instead of explaining the subject to them), be flexible (so as to make possible changes in case of the need to go back to a previously taught topic or one assumed to be already known, or to skip over something that is already known well), be interesting (involving different teaching techniques and materials so as to not bore the student and make him or her disinterested in the subject) and be based on materials that bring a variety of viewpoints (so as to make the student think critically about the subject).
INTERVIEWS CONSIDERING THE FUTURE OF UNDERSTANDING: DAVID PERKINS David Perkins, Professor, Harvard Graduate School of Education, considers what’s worth learning and how to educate for the unknown. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7UnupFuJk] QUESTIONS: What’s worth learning? How much of what we teach is worth learning? → This is one of the most important question that we face now in education and it is not discussed enough. Instead, we focus on method (“how are we going to get youngsters to learn what we think they ought to learn”). → We should educate for the unknown → A lot of what we teach is “knowledge that kids will never encounter again in a significant way again in their lives”. We need to find ways to convey important knowledge. This means that we need to discuss the disciplines like Physics or History. → One idea is to use “understanding of wide scope” instead of focusing on the difficult details, we have to focus on the discipline in itself and be able to connect between different aspects of that discipline and others. In that aspect, the curriculum is “one of the most resistant fronts of education”, remaining unchanging in spite of changing educational needs and expectations set forth by and for the younger generations. What are ‘nimble ways’ of thinking and understanding? → They involve “educating for the unknown”, opening up minds to be able to process and come to understand new information that will come up. → With the development of a variety of sciences at the speed that they develop at
now, the information we now pass on as the newest news will soon become common knowledge or obsolete factoids. People that are now schoolchildren will need to learn to quickly go through a lot of new information, filter what is significant and process and understand it in the most efficient way possible therefore education in schools should shift from teaching facts to teaching a way of thinking about facts that allows to understand them and use our knowledge about them in the disicpline they are from, as well as implement them in other areas of our lives.
QUESTIONS: What do we know about learning? → Learning is a process that takes place in the classroom (during lessons and through other interactions for example on a social level) as well as in different environments outside of it (at home, in peer environments, online). As a result, different or even conflicting ideas may sometimes be taught in these different environments. → Learning is not just the academic level of getting to know certain facts. It encompasses also social skills, personal abilities, and any proficiencies that a person can posess. → Learning is an ongoing process. We never stop learning and throughout our lives gather knowledge from books, lessons, life experiences and stories of others to complete and enrich our knowledge. → To be effective, learning must be encouraged and presented in a positive light to students and those in their environment, because selfmotivation is the best basis for learning. What do we not know about learning? → It is impossible to instantly know the particular learning style someone has. This is why it is important to get to know students and not force them to study in one certain manner, but rather present to them a variety of ways in which they can learn for them to choose from. → We often don’t know how to enhance learning. Students do a lot of the work on their own, and we rarely stop to think about how we can make the work maybe not easier, but more enhancing towards further learning. What would we like to know about learning? → Knowing what others think about learning. Through sharing learning experiences and strategies, we are able to devise new ones and come up with different approaches to learning, making both the teaching and the learning
experience evolve. → It is not so much what we want to know about learning, as what we can learn that will help us enhance the learning we provide our students with. THE JAHARI DIAGRAM. As teachers, we have to regularly reevaluate the knowledge that we already posess about teaching, learning and strategies. To do so, we can use the four Jahari windows, featured in the diagram.
It’s important for teachers to realise that they are constantly learning and never know everything. QUESTION: WHAT IS DISTINCTIVE ABOUT HUMAN LEARNING? → we construct abstractions → we store information outside the body → we think about thinking → we think about feelings → we make ethical decisions → we portay thoughts and feelings → we construct meaning from experience → we seek out problems → we learn in reciprocity all learning is social in some way * → we have a conscious attitude to the process of learning * → we have (practical) learning goals in mind * → we evaluate learned information * → we make educated choices about learning resources Things we know about learning: 1. Cognitive conflict (Jean Piaget) presenting students with something puzzling or unexpected, making them stop to “think again”. One of the main drives of cognitive development (being presented with only the easy does not stimulate the mind). 2. Leverage (Dewey) and bandwidth (Qvortrup) finding ways to bring our thinking to a higher level through the appropriate means and difficulty level of tasks. 3. Mediated by emotional centres (Damasio) all our learning is “processed” and opinionated by feelings, has to engage our emotions. 4. Attention to the learning moment (Perkins) finding the moment when challenge and skill meet. 5. Learning by teaching (Bruner) we learn by rehearsing ideas when we teach others. 6. A social activity (Vygotsky) we learn through, with and from other people (even when in isolation)
7. Context is critical (Gardner) taking learning from one context to the other (both between different classrooms and outside the school) All of these things require feedback formatively letting us think again of how we can think better. Teachers have to “read the room” to recognise signs of learning and use them to improve it. “Making learning an object of attention, Making learning an object of conversation, Making learning an object of relflection, Making learning an object of learning”. [David Perkins] → “Don’t just move through the curriculum stop to talk about learning in itself” is an important idea to keep the classroom dynamic and constantly improving. When we focus on the learning process, and not just on teaching, and work to make learning a more effective, natural and pleasurable process for students, we will make the work of future educators dealing with those students cut out for them. Organising the mind so as to facilitate easier learning should be the important AND urgent although definitely not to be rushed.
FOUNDATIONS OF TEACHING FOR LEARNING 1: INTRODUCTION WEEK 2: Thinking About Learning
LECTURE 2: Thinking about Thinking We all think all the time. Is it possible to think badly? What would it mean to think well? How much of our teaching is devoted to helping children and young people think well? To know how not just know what?.
Thinking skills mental processes we use do to things like solve problems, make decisions, ask questions, make plans, pass judgments, organise information and create new iedas. They often occur subconsciously, but through metacognition (thinking about thinking) we can become more efficient and creative with our minds. Cognitive thinking can be divided into different categories: → Information gathering sensing seeing, hearing, touching retrieving memory skills → Basic understanding organising gathered information forming concepts linking ideas together → Productive thinking using information and understanding it creating, deciding, analysing, evaluating The cognitive thinking skills that are most important for success are: atetntion, working memory, processing speed, longterm memory, visual processing, auditory processing, logic and reasoning. Figuring out what students are thinking is very difficult but a useful routine developed by David Perkins called MYST can help with that: ME YOU SPACE TIME
How do I model thinking? How do I make thinking visible? How do I make my students’ thinking visible? How is the classroom setting organised to help facilitate thinking? How can I give thinking more time? How does it change over time?
Another useful routine is See Think Wonder by the same educator. What do you see? activates cognitive thinking What do you think about that? activates cognitive conflict What does it make you wonder about? activates analytical thinking It may be beneficial to use a circle of viewpoints in the context of seethinkwonder taking different points of view and implementing them into the seethinkwonder method.
I am thinking from the viewpoint of … From that viewpoint, I think that... A question I have from this viewpoint is... It is good to know some of the thinking questions: Why? What do you think? How can we think this out? What? Is it better than...? How do you want to think? When?Is it worse than...? Can you teach it to someone else? Where? What are the problems? Can you split up the problem? How? How do you feel...? What are the good sides? Who? What are the facts? Can you do it differently? What if...? Do you understand? How do you want to learn this? The basis of all these activities is that making students think makes them think creatively. They are then able to use the I used to think → Now I think schematic to notice a change in their way of thinking or in their knowledge, making them realise the cognitive conflict they started with has been resolved.
FOUNDATIONS OF TEACHING FOR LEARNING 1: INTRODUCTION WEEK 2: Thinking About Learning LECTURE 3: Teaching for Learning How could we teach at all if learning wasn’t always at the heart of things? As you watch consider the notion of ‘sticky knowledge’ and how we might need to reconsider the simple transmission model. “Teachers teach and children learn. It is as simple as that.” [Chris Woodhead, Class Wars] “We must pursue the connections with aggressive curiosity and healthy scepticism” [Judith Warren Little]
We must always question the relationship between teaching and learning. Knowledge, as it is passed on from the teacher to the student, has to negotiate past a number of problems and misconceptions, both on the side of the teacher and the student. selfdoubt (I’m not good at this subject) misconception lack of prior knowledge inappropriate medium peer norms (it’s not cool to learn) “How can I learn something new when I know nothing about it?” [Jean Jacques Rousseau] → Learning an entirely new concept is different from learning something that pertains to a topic we already have some idea about. A new subject is much more challenging because it requires us to back up to the very beginning of the learning process and start with the core, the basics, of what has to be learned. → This is especially difficult for intermediate learners, who are used to adding to their already possessed knowledge instead of starting an entirely new branch advanced learners such as university students taking courses in new fields are more familiar with “starting afresh” on a new subject because they deal with it every semester, but students just going into high school, for example, might not be familiar with strategies they last used (unconsciously) in early grades of elementary school.
→ This is why the introduction of new concepts should be accompanied by a thorough and varied reintroduction of learning strategies, especially when dealing with older learners and in case of new learners, with a very thorough explanation of what the topic covers (background), where it comes from (reasoning) and why it needs to be talked about at all (practical application). Questions that we have to ask ourselves when dealing with students: → Do they ever doubt their ability or intelligence? → Do they talk themselves down? → Are they influenced by what their peers and friends say or do? → Am I aware of the prior knowledge my students bring with them into the classroom? → Do I understand o check out their misconceptions before going on? → Am I using the best medium for communicating with them? Key principles for presenting new information: Connect how does it connect with what you already know, think, can do? Extend how does it extend, build on what you already know, think, can do? Challenge how does it challenge what you already know, think, can do? Some routines that can be used are: Thinking questions (What makes you say that?) Think, pair, share first work alone, then talk it over with a partner, finally bring up the subject in the classroom I used to think... Now I know All learning is social, emotional and intellectual. → How do we engage students? “There is always one moment in childhood when the door opens and lets the future in” [Graham Greene, The Power and the Glory] “When the timing is right, the ability to learn a particular task will be possible. This is referred to as a ‘teachable moment’. It is important to keep in mind that unless the time is right, learning will not occur. Hence, it is important to repeat important points whenever possible so that when a student’s teachable moment occurs, s/he can benefit from the knowledge.”
[Robert Havighurst, Human Development and Education, 1952] → I partly disagree with this statement. I think that the teachable moment can be created within themselves by students who are willing to learn. For example, when in elementary school I was able, when I put my mind to it, stay focused for the entire lesson (even at a young age!). I would go home having memorised almost everything that was talked about not word for word, of course, but was able to explain all topics discussed and all reasonings given. → In later years, my learning did not depend so much on how the teacher conducted the lesson as on how much I was interested in that subject and how much importance I put in not so much doing well in it, as in having permanent knowledge about it. For example, I knew I had to pass Geography on my high school finals, so I made myself get interested in the subject and still remember the majority of what I learned. On the contrary, I found no use for Biology in my future plans, so I only put the facts given there into my shortterm memory, enough to get good grades on tests. → Conclusion: The teachable moment cannot be FOUND in students, it has to be created and turned from a moment into an extensive interest in and passionate approach towards the subject and learning in general. The spot check a way to diagnose whether or not children are going through a teachable moment in that particular time. Teachers often discover that their time frame is not the same as the time frame of the students it could be interesting to open it up for discussion with students.
RON RITCHART: MAKING THINGS VISIBLE Ron Ritchart, Senior Research Associate at Project Zero, Harvard Graduate School of Education, talks about visible thinking and how this is used by a teacher to explore truth and reconciliation in South Africa. Children also comment on each other’s work. How does this extend your thinking about learning? [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQTYcZf40ag] Documenting the students’ thinking allows them to use those materials as models. → Observers from outside are able to assess thinking (what students are beginning to understand) → Students are able to observe their own progress or progression from topic to topic → Students’ ideas are discussed and cared for in the classroom environment
The “Chalk Talk” Routine grab a question that can engage in conversation and students all can write down their comments in a common place (a large piece of paper, a forum etc).
FOUNDATIONS OF TEACHING FOR LEARNING 1: INTRODUCTION WEEK 2: Thinking About Learning LECTURE 4: Thinking about Curriculum We may think of curriculum as what we plan to teach. We may also think of it in terms of a process in which we create a climate for students to engage with the big ideas or essential concepts that matter. “To learn tigerscaring, it is very useful to have a real tiger” we often do not make our teaching relevant and engaging. Finding that connection to reality is important to make what is being taught something that students will want to learn. Where people still equate curriculum with a syllabus they are likely to limit their planning to a consideration of the content or the body of knowledge that they wish to transmit. It is also because this view of curriculum has been adopted that many teachers have regarded issues of curriculum as of no concern to them, since they have regarded their task as being to transmit bodies of knowledge. [Kelly, 1985: 7] The curriculum isn’t something that is handed down and then delivered, but a process. It is something that has to be revisited and rethought, a plane in which teachers are engaged and creative. Five key trilogies for considering curriculums: → Formal the handeddown basis for teaching and learning, → Informal not prescribed but happen outside the formal one (extra activities) → Hidden the lessons that students take about the nature of authority, order etc. → Romance playing with imprecise ideas → Precision tying down the ideas, defining particular elements → Generalisation bringnig ideas into other contents, and going back to romance → Enactive doing things (games, practical examples etc)
→ Iconic picturing things → Symbolic abstract ideas → Knowing → Doing → Feeling → Intended expectations about learning outcomes, plans for what will be taught → Implemented waht happens in clasroom, processes, pedagogy → Attained actual achievements in relation to standards Principles in creating curriculums: 1. Selection of content what is to be learned and taught 2. Development of a teaching strategy how is it to be learned and taught 3. Decisions about sequence in what order will we follow with the material 4. Diagnosing strengths and weaknesses of individual students what point of focus do we have to choose and how to differentiate the first three principles. “Curriculum in action” principles: 1. Studying and evaluating student progress what the students work on and learn 2. Studying and evaluating teaching progress how am I developing and working on my own teaching 3. Reviewing adaptability of the curriculum in varying contexts school, pupil, peer groups, environments flexibility and complexity of what we teach 4. Evaluating variations in effects in differing contexts on different pupils and causes of the variation understanding a bit more of why some learn quickly and some find it difficult to learn what seems like a simple idea Moving from delivering the curriculum to a partnership in learning: Delivering the curriculum Discussing purposes and objectives of learning what are we going to get from this? Why are we learning this? pupils devising indicators of achievement how do I know when students are engaging and learning well? Pupils as assessors of their own and others’ work Pupils as determiners of learning Pupils as learning partners they discuss with the teacher how they learn, what and in what ways they learn, they talk about the process of their learning. Since the real purpose of education is not to have the instructor perform certain activities but to bring about significant changes in the students’ pattern of behaviour, it becomes important to recognize that any statements of objectives of the school should be a statement of changes to
take place in the students. [Tyler 1949: 44] → The curriculum a teacher or a school creates cannot be disconnected from the real world. It must meet a few key requirements: be realistic (set achievable goals so as not to make the students lose faith in themselves, but not be too easy so as not to waste the students’ motivation), be wellplanned (so as not to confuse the students instead of explaining the subject to them), be flexible (so as to make possible changes in case of the need to go back to a previously taught topic or one assumed to be already known, or to skip over something that is already known well), be interesting (involving different teaching techniques and materials so as to not bore the student and make him or her disinterested in the subject) and be based on materials that bring a variety of viewpoints (so as to make the student think critically about the subject).
INTERVIEWS CONSIDERING THE FUTURE OF UNDERSTANDING: DAVID PERKINS David Perkins, Professor, Harvard Graduate School of Education, considers what’s worth learning and how to educate for the unknown. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7UnupFuJk] QUESTIONS: What’s worth learning? How much of what we teach is worth learning? → This is one of the most important question that we face now in education and it is not discussed enough. Instead, we focus on method (“how are we going to get youngsters to learn what we think they ought to learn”). → We should educate for the unknown → A lot of what we teach is “knowledge that kids will never encounter again in a significant way again in their lives”. We need to find ways to convey important knowledge. This means that we need to discuss the disciplines like Physics or History. → One idea is to use “understanding of wide scope” instead of focusing on the difficult details, we have to focus on the discipline in itself and be able to connect between different aspects of that discipline and others. In that aspect, the curriculum is “one of the most resistant fronts of education”, remaining unchanging in spite of changing educational needs and expectations set forth by and for the younger generations. What are ‘nimble ways’ of thinking and understanding? → They involve “educating for the unknown”, opening up minds to be able to process and come to understand new information that will come up. → With the development of a variety of sciences at the speed that they develop at
now, the information we now pass on as the newest news will soon become common knowledge or obsolete factoids. People that are now schoolchildren will need to learn to quickly go through a lot of new information, filter what is significant and process and understand it in the most efficient way possible therefore education in schools should shift from teaching facts to teaching a way of thinking about facts that allows to understand them and use our knowledge about them in the disicpline they are from, as well as implement them in other areas of our lives.
