Thinking about this class has made me reflect on my own high school's standards for education:
"Our mission is to educate each student to be self-directed learners, collaborative workers, complex thinkers, quality producers, and community contributors through the application of student-owned learning strategies."
and I have been trying to relate them to our new applications of the Developmental, Social, and Constructivist learning theories. I do think that complex thinkers relates to DLT, the idea of taking something concrete, and letting the students transform it into something as abstract as they can; the idea that a student should try to bridge the gap instead of expecting a teacher to create the scenario for them. I had an English teacher who was successful at this idea in many of our units. We would read books and take them for what they were, and then she would ask us to do a creative interpretation of some aspect of the book. You could write a story, poem, rap, dance, make a facebook profile for one of the characters, WHATEVER is inspirational and meaningful to that individual student and will let them expand on the topic. I was always big on poetry and would interpret a scene or a character in a complex way, use metaphors to describe them, dive into the layers of their character. Since it was something I chose to create, I also would be very proud of my work as a piece without realizing that I had deepened my understanding in the process.
Other connections that I thought of are more simple to group, like Collaborative workers and community contributors to the Social Learning Theory. The more knowledgeable peer would hands-down be a community contributor.
I do struggle with the mission's statement regarding self-directed learners a little though. Obviously, kids should not be spoon-fed information or forced to sit in the classroom until their homework is done, but how can you expect a student to be a self-directed learner in relation to the Constructivist learning theory? A student cannot just be expected to connect and develop schemas out of thin air; they must be stimulated, challenged, and related to by someone (an educator). If students could grasp new ideas on their own, I think all teaching would just be online, reading and memorizing concepts without ever needing to experience them. I think the term would be better stated as self-motivated.
note: this is not part of the classroom assignment ( i was on the comment end) these are just stray thoughts/ reflections.
stray thoughts and reflections are good! Your last paragraph is a very important insight. How do we help kids develop skills and knowledge necessary to be "self-directed" since just letting them do whatever they want won't likely result in any progress. The key here is what you said about challenging and stimulating student thought (something we'll talk about shortly).
ReplyDeleteOne concern, your first paragraph talks about DLT, but then talks about reading and then let students create their own products. I think this is a fine strategy, but am unsure how DLT relates.