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.