Hello All!
Today, I wanted to take a couple of minutes to recap again what is going on in my brain, including all of the topics from this week. Basically, in the most simple of terms, the thing that I took away from this week was the fact that while we think that we are doing right by students, I really think we are going about it in the wrong way. As teachers, we mean really well and come up with these grand ideas of how to convey our teaching but I am realizing over time, how important it is to connect what students learn with the real world. We give them tons of info but are slacking on the use of it. I think that was what I most learned from doing the designs this week and talking about others designs. I also noticed that while it SEEMS to you like you are being crystal clear in your design plan, that translating these ideas to others is not always as easy. I think that is something for all of us to learn from. Be explicit in your design language- the more detail the better (in this context)!
This all being said, we focused on students as designers this week with our new design principal. This led us to: "good learning designs engage students in using content to construct meaningful outcomes by comprehensively scaffolding students' ability to design." The most helpful part to understand this idea was when we read the article about Gainesville high school building a Makerspace. Now, I found some flaws with this idea because I am not sure why we need a space to be making things, but I did like the concept of the kids leading the design of what they are making. It means that the activity is much more authentic because it is a design of their own. They connect to real life because they are physically doing it!
Great- so what does this mean to me and in my library? To me, this means that I need to let loose of my control a bit more and have my students be able to be the designers of their own projects. They do not always need a prompt! We perpetually underestimate kids, and I think that giving them the right scaffolding would really help them in making great choices for their authentic activity and whatever they would be making. This is a weird connection, but it reminds me of legos. When I was a kid- there was no such thing as a lego kit. You bought a tub of legos and used only your imagination and that was it. Now, you can buy loose legos of course, but it is much more common to buy a kit with directions for the kids to build. Where is the creativity? Where is the build your own attitude? It actually is pretty depressing. We are selling kids short! We need to really stop doing that, and let them spread their creative wings.
Your Legos analogy is apt. But I think we could look at the kit as a model of what is possible which is then disassembled to make ready for a more student-directed creative use of the materials. We call it scaffolding when we are teaching - how do we do this in the real world?
ReplyDeleteWe just had our field trip to Camp Highroad yesterday. I don't think there is anywhere more appropriate to show teachers both how hard it is to step back and let students work it out and the amazing rewards of doing just that. While the students are working together trying to solve all the problems they are presented with at camp, the teacher in me wants to offer suggestion: have you considered? why don't you? etc. The counselors at the camp though are more Socratic in their methods--that didn't work. What will you try now. What do you know. Etc. By keeping myself removed so that they could function as an independent unit, I was able to observe them persevere through problems and come out successful on the other side. Sure, it might have taken longer than if I would have just said try this, but the results wouldn't have been as empowering for them. And that is what we are after, right?
ReplyDelete