When I was an undergraduate student studying to become an educator, my peers and I took great pride in our lesson planning. When I was a graduate student (I completed my masters degree at the end of my 12th year as a teacher), my peers who had yet to teach wrote lesson plans with great care. When I was teaching Read More
Stop reading this sentence and imagine a school. In your mind, enter a classroom where students and teacher are present, and class is in session. Look around. See the teacher in the room, see the students, and see what they are doing. If you didn’t play along with the preceding sentence, recall a movie or television program in which a classroom, teaching, and learning was portrayed. It doesn’t Read More
Unfortunately for me (and all other educators and those interested in education), humans are variable creatures; cause and effect relationships do not exist in education. We cannot be assured “if I do this, then my students will learn that.” (Those who make their living selling “the next big thing” to educators will be disappointed to Read More
In the 2003 book Creating Significant Learning Experiences, L. Dee Fink described conversations with faculty that were focused by the question, “In your deepest, fondest dreams, what kind of impact would you most like to have on your students?” Faculty answers to this question did not mention remembering information. Faculty’s answers did include what they hoped students would do with their new knowledge, how they would solve problems, how they would interact Read More
To outsiders looking in, teaching seems a relatively simple endeavor. Even to some insiders who do not step back and try to understand what they are doing, teaching can be perceived to be a simple endeavor. The reality is that teaching should vary depending on the nature of the curriculum, the purpose of the teaching, Read More
If instructors and school leaders seek to create schools in which practices and structures are aligned with the realities of human learning, then they must work from two hypotheses: First, the students who arrive in schools are experienced learners. Their experiences are affected by their culture, motivation, academic, and personal experiences. Any list of the relevant Read More
Scholars who study knowledge transfer differentiate “near transfer” from “far transfer.” Near transfer describes applying knowledge in settings similar to where it was learned, and far transfer describes applying it to settings dissimilar to where it was learned. Transfer does exist along a continuum and it is difficult to measure reliably. In these ways it Read More
When the curriculum is organized around problems and complex tasks, it is inevitable that students will encounter situations that challenge their current knowledge. There will be ideas they do not yet understand, tasks they cannot complete with competence, and resources they cannot comprehend, and tools they are unable to use. It can be reasoned that students who do not Read More
Caine and Caine (2011) reviewed explored the cognitive engagement that has been designed into video games. They find “popular technology engages children and adults using challenging scenarios, exciting and relevant social issues, collaboration, ownership, relevant engagement, competition, and action” (p. 8); they find these features contribute to a situation in which natural learning occurs. Natural Read More
I found this when cleaning up files… in the thesis for my master of arts degree. He wrote it in 1980. I wrote my thesis in 2000. It still appears to be an accurate assessment of our situation. Twenty years ago, Papert perceived education to be on the verge of a technologydriven revolution that sounds Read More