Final Thoughts

I finished my reading the book today and was pleased to comforted about the possibility of using self-constructed learning in my classroom. It really works if you can frame it correctly. I feel that it may be the most efficient method of teaching because the student is the only who truly understood their own deficiencies.

There are flaws with this method, but that can be said of any method of instruction. Teaching is an art form, not a formula. I am so happy to know that there is another method out there for me to try and improve upon - a method that fosters student leadership. I think I had gotten to a place where I felt as if I was hearing the same methods of instruction over and over again, so this method is refreshing and much welcomed.

I do not mind that this method will take me out of my comfort zone, or that it will require me to release control. It is actually a little comforting to have more control placed in the hands of my students so that they can begin to learn how learning works in the adult world. We choose what we will learn, why we will learn it, and how we will learn it. I am thankful for this real-world method of instruction.

I will continue to research ways to implement SDL in high school classrooms so that I can find ways to harness the potential of this style in my classroom. I know there are flaws, but I am ready to tackle them and ready to offer my students the respect they deserve in allowing them to structure their learning in the way that will benefit them most. I will still have to struggle with motivating the unmotivated, but at least they have choice this time!

Left Out

I was pleased to hear the book acknowledge that some students may naturally get left out of the self constructed process today. This had always been a thought in my mind while reading the book. The book stated some might get left out due to lack of motivation, or lack of acceptance by their peers.

 Age seems to have a lot to do with engagement too, which might explain why I am having trouble incorporating the concept into my own classroom. The younger kids seem to have a more natural/stronger drive for learning while outside factors take a bigger tole on the older students.

I still believe in this style of learning and am ambitious to find other ways to make it work with my current teaching style.

A Task - constructed

So I took another stab at trying self-constructed learning in my class. This time, I took the book's advice and tried, "simple goals, and outcomes" to enhance the experience. We are learning how to write research papers right now. MLA is quite a challenge to learn and teach for the first time and my 10th graders always struggle. This year, I decided to try the advice of my book and see how much they could glean from self-constructed learning. I gave them a simple goal: Understand these concepts:

MLA format
Citation
Source material
In-text citation / Parenthetical citation
plagiarism

Then, I asked them to demonstrate that the understood the concepts. Most students chose to work alone. The products they created ranged from paragraphs, to copied definitions, to posters, to even just a printed article.

While they in no way mastered the material, they did acquire a base knowledge of the content --> something I have never had the privilege of relying on with a sophomore class.
All in all, I believe the experience was a success because my students came to my lessons with a new understanding and they knew the right questions to ask. Usually, my students stare at me wide eyed as I try to explain giving credit to the author for the first time!

Could this be self-constructed learning?

This image makes me laugh  little because it is so posed, but maybe this is the sight that awaits a self constructed classroom.

Now to just solve the problems of limited computer access.

The real kids

I wanted to provide an image of the actual kids learning from their "hole in the wall" in India.

The thing that really stands out in my mind just by viewing this image is the amount of engagement across genders, ages, and possibly abilities. One girl even scratches her head as she examines the content. Self-directed learning has the potential to open doors we never thought we could. Imagine merging grade levels and disbanding gender specific schools. Maybe the one room school houses of the past tapped into a resource we can't in our current four walls.

I wish we could see what they were viewing on the screen!

Crystal

Just a few hours?

Today's reading explained that the creators of the Kalkaji Experiment (Beyond the Hole in the Wall project) wanted to see just how important technology was, not self-directed learning. Their discovery that kids can learn without teachers was a happy accident.

I was shocked to learn today that the children who taught themselves to use the computer actually did so in just a few hours. The researchers explained that just a few hours after the children from the slums used the internet, they were surfing the web.

The  children went on to learn the full operations of all mouse functions, hardware and software operations after six months. That is probably the length of a school year when taking breaks into consideration. My thought is that self-directed learning is very effective, but it takes longer. I wonder if my classroom could be effective in a 100% self-directed environment being that I need my students to master more than one skill. But I will say that it is impressive that the students did not learn just how to operate the device, but they developed a full mastery of it. I cannot say that my students leave my room with a full mastery of the English language.

Technology

Our School Improvement Team has decided that increasing teacher use of technology should be our 2 year improvement goal. The past 2 years of my teacher life have been spent trying to utilize superfluous technology for the sake of my evaluation. Notice, I did not say for the sake of my students. To be honest, they know more about technology than I do, and I consider myself to be pretty advanced. So really, incorporating the technology is more of a nod to their abilities and a dog and pony show for my administrators. That is why I chuckled when I read these words in my book today:

"Are LCD projectors, laptops and PowerPoint slides educational technology? They weren't created as such. Laptops were created for rich company executives, Microsoft wrote PowerPoint for corporate presentations, and LCD projectors were invented for corporate boardrooms" (BTHITW 162).

The book goes on to explain that corporate salesmen convinced the schools to adopt these devices.

The bad teacher

My reading today addressed the concept that no teacher wants to hear: the problem of education lies in the teacher. Reading this chapter was like willfully going into an acupuncture therapists office and hoping that they decided to give you a massage instead.
I felt a slight sting as the book made overdone statements like:

• "There are, and always will be, places in the world where good teachers either don't want to go or are unable to go, and...the quality of education in these areas suffer as a result" (143).
• "remarkably, teacher training does not help" (144).
• When teachers move off to find the better schools, they leave "the worst ones behind" (144).

To a teacher like myself, all I hear when I read these statements is "We are going to delay your pay increase for the sixth year in a row because..." Statements, especially like the first one, make it seem as if the problem with education is all of those bad teachers. All we have to do is just get rid of them so that the good teachers can do their job. Oh, and you can keep training the bad teachers, but it is useless because they aren't going to get any better. They are just diseases contaminating the helpless youth of the world who will never reach their potential because we have allowed the bad teacher plague to infest their community.
I recoil at these thoughts. I do not believe in bad teachers. I simply can't. Sure, there are those that have made mistakes. But each of us started the profession with the same goal of helping children. It wasn't for the glory or the money. So when good teachers turn "bad", I have to believe it is because of circumstances outside of their control. If you have spent 1 minute with a teacher, you already know the list:

• lack of parent support
• low pay
• administrators who have no experience in education
• lack of quality instruction in the previous grades (in this case, even the teachers are blaming teachers)
• poor student attendance
• lack of funding
• lack of quality resources
• lack of "personal" time
• class size  
• no respect for the profession

I have to stop the list there because as a teacher, it puts me in a bad place to consider these ideas. However, I myself am a paradox of a teacher. I teach at what is considered to be an "inner city school system" in the largest metropolis of North Carolina (don't laugh). However, I teach at what citizens would call the 2nd best school (out of around 100) in the district. Our scores have risen to the top of North Carolina's due to an extreme amount of pressure from our administration to excel at all costs or to find another profession.

Still, I do not believe in bad teachers. I do believe in bad students. I know that sounds unfair. But the students have the scores. I know the teachers have a huge role to play in the student's performance, but it is the student that makes the final darkened oval on their standardized test, and as a teacher, there are some things that I cannot prevent that test morning: fights with their mom, having no parents at all, smoking pot before the test, deciding to bubble answer choice C all the way down because they did not feel like taking test number 2,304 out of 100,000. Then again, maybe it is my fault. I am a bad teacher because I did not solve the issue with their parents. I did not do enough to educate them about the negative effects of drugs. And, I did not do enough to entertain them into taking another multiple choice test.

Well, I think I will rest my comments about the "bad teacher" with one thought: they have not been given the correct motivation to be "good," just as their "bad students" haven't been given the correct motivation to be good either. Let's solve the problem of bad motivation, because calling the people bad just simply will not do. Enough has already been said and done in this arena to hurt the people involved and to discourage them from being successful. Let's work on motivation, not the destruction of the link between student and future.

I hope there is a light at the end of this tunnel because all of the "bad teachers" out there truly need our support, not our insults! I am still hopeful about this book and know that it contains true value. I also know that with any good growth comes a few growing pains. And possibly, one of those pains was just  witnessed here!

Crystal
"one of the good ones" I think.

SOLE

SOLE
This acronym stands for Self Organized Learning Environment.
The concept means putting complete control in the learner's hands. In my reading today, the author paints a portrait of a fictitious child named Maam who speaks about electrons in her self organized learning group and is confronted by new learning when she asks her group about their understanding of the concept. Later, the concept comes up again on the playground during recess and the group laughs about her comment, "My goodness, I didn't know that at all." The laughter is whole hearted and the group continues to play, seemingly interspersing their learning with their play. After all, it is self-organized.
I try to imagine what my tech-obsessed teen students would do in a self-organized learning environment. Computers...or possibly just smart phones, would be a must. They would probably speak of their learning and simultaneously text "their mom" during the entire learning process. It is difficult to imagine that work or learning would be accomplished at all. They would feel no need to practice because their maturity makes them think they they understand a concept if they think they understand a concept.
Yes, already, you can hear the sounds of my reluctance to try this method of teaching. Not to mention, school rules forbid the unadulterated use of personal devices in the picture I just painted. I am so engaged by the content of this book, yet I am struggling with my possibly jaded idea that kids will be kids, and though they might love learning, they might not love learning about Shakespeare as much as figuring out how to operate the cool new piece of technology installed in their walls. Shakespeare is this old guy that the world has told them is obsolete. The computer is the shining beacon of the future - who wouldn't want to self-organize their learning around that?
I have much to learn.
Crystal

A First Attempt at Self-Constructed Learning

I have been so perplexed by this story of the "hole in the wall" that caused illiterate children to become web surfers that I decided to create an opportunity for self-directed learning in my class this week. I gave my students a passage from our reading in Shakespeare to see if they could discover the meaning without me. They couldn't. I am sure I need to get further into the book so that I can learn more about the scenario by which self directed learning must take place. I am disappointed that my first attempt did not work, but at with most great new methods, it takes time and focus on the method, frame, and context. I am not discouraged, and I look forward to learning more about the book and trying another attempt at self-contructed/directed learning within my class.

Introduction to the Book

Today I am reflecting on the beginning of the book entitled "Beyond the Hole in the Wall: Discover the Power of Self-Organized Learning," by Sugata Mitra.

What I have learned so far:

In 2003, a team of researchers carved a hole into an Indian slum's wall and installed the village's first computer complete with access to the internet. What followed, was that the local illiterate village children discovered the computer and taught themselves to use the computer solely with the help of each other - and without the help of a teacher. The children grew to master the technology and connected to the rest of the world and learning via the internet. This event led to the creation of the movie Slum Dog Millionaire, which is based on a true story.

The author of this book begins his book by writing about how we need to accept that in the digitized world in which we now live, learning happens increasingly without the teacher. He states that there is power in self-structured learning and describes the book as a first step in a movement to place the classroom learning in the hands of the students - allowing them to use natural intuition and group collaboration to drive their learning processes.

What this means for educators like me:

Reading this book looks to be a journey that will challenge me to allow my students to have more control of their learning in the class room. The book will describe the power of learning in groups, and the power of allowing students to determine how they get to their end result.