Via the most fantastic finding on Twitter of the past few days of the use of #edchat tag, the world of twitter and resource sharing has opened a new leaf. The amount of links and resources now flooding through my tweetdeck is almost too much to handle. However, with the vast array of resources, I have explored many quality links and have been able to explore more possibilities for my classroom.
I read in the recording of last week’s #edchat conversation the line:
"#edchat Why waste time on the slackers? If they don't care about educ., don't force it on them. Spend time on the smart kids, who care."
This really made me think. Do teachers actually believe this? And without sound harsh is this something that a teacher should be saying? Of course I realise how preachy I sound, and perhaps how naive considering as I haven’t been ‘stuck’ in a classroom with 30 destructive kids for a couple of years, however this comment has had a deep clash with my ideals. There are students who may not have the same kind of educational motivation that I have had, or the students who I have been teaching on practical experience. These student’s beliefs and actions, (I believe) are a result of their past experiences with education, their upbringing and other social factors both from within the student and from their peers. Does this mean we give up? Is that what educators do, just give up on students who show little attention or don’t want to contribute?
Short answer, I believe we do not give up on any student. So many ideas come to mind as to how we should be encouraging these students and putting more effort in, not less to inspire them and engage them in the process of education. This conversation arose from twitter, well do you think these students have myspace, facebook, twitter, youtube accounts? I would like to assume, that if these students have the financial ability at home, they are on these websites and spending a large amount of their time (like all other students) on these social networking sites. This gives teachers the opportunity to allow such students (all students) to explore their education, to learn and develop through using these great facilities. I was pondering last night as I was trying to fall asleep, a possible lesson plan. Having students search up the price of their favourite video game, let’s say the wii (which has become so popular over the past 12 months). Have students check the price of the wii across the world, see how it compares in China, India, America, UK, Canada, and Germany. They could go about this by asking students from all around the world on Facebook, twitter etc, or they could search for it. They could find out what video consoles people are using throughout the world. This activity would involve maths, English (communication skills both writing and oral) and perhaps geography if they were to represent their findings on a map. I would like to think that if any students were given this task, they would not consider it work, they would enjoy doing it, as it incorporates their world not ours and they are learning skills which they will be able to use in the real world.
I repeat, we should not be giving up on the ‘slackers’ in our class but spending more time and energy, trying to connect with them in their world. Learning is a partnership between teacher and students. The teacher therefore must be willing to give up some ground, listen actively to the student’s needs and wishes and use that information to get the most out of them.
I will step off my soap box now.
What more needs to be said.
tara.Ed is a program set up by a friend of mine at university. She is passionate about improving the quality of education throughout India. Jen has established tara.Ed as a charity which focuses on three things;
1. Linking Australian schools with Indian schools in the hope of advancing learning outcomes for both groups of students.
2. Offering teacher tours and enrichment programs to Australian Student teachers who are offered a sponsored opportunity to travel to India, learn through teaching Indian students and experiencing Indian education in the slums of Mumbai and other major centres.
3. An Indian Volunteer program where Indian University students have the opportunity to perform outreach activities relevant to the target population.
Jen works very hard at this program and her efforts are inspirational. She is really trying to make a difference and unlike most she is actually doing something about it.
One of the earliest things we get taught as teachers in today's socio-cultural climate of educational psychology is Blooms Taxonomy. Essentially blooms taxonomy a hierarchy of cognitive abilities which move from lower order thinking skills to the higher order thinking skills. When teachers are setting questions, or marking responses, they are persuaded to use blooms as a guide. This is what the Bloom's taxonomy looks like:
1. Knowledge - this is the lowest of the levels of understanding. It is the ability to recall facts, to memorise and use bits of information.
2. Comprehension - This involves making meaning of things, rather than just remembering them. This generally means translating information into your own words.
3. Application - This is the ability to use information and ideas in new situations such as solving problems that have a single answer.
4. Analysis - This is the ability to examine pieces of information. Take different meanings from the same information and find connections between that information and other information.
5. Synthesis: This is the ability to construct something new in the style of something else. This is the ability to connect two or more pieces of information to make one whole piece of information.
6. Evaluation - This is the ability to make judgements about the quality or value of a piece of information or something as a whole. This is the highest level of cognitive ability.
Anderson and Krathwohl (2001) however created a revision to this taxonomy by adding another layer to taxonomy and changing the previous nouns into verbs, so its the ability to do those things, not just understand what they are. It is shown in the picture above.
I was wondering, where does a students ability to use hyperlinks and construct information from many sources at the same time fit into this equation. I would imagine it is a higher-order thinking skill as most students are also able to make judgements on its value i.e. the credibility of the information. Using Interactive Communication and online medium is essentially allowing students to use all of the cognitive processes and then allowing them to create something like a blog will make sure all of the cognitive processes are being used. I think this is a great tool, and something which we will have to use ore of in the classroom.
That reminds me, we were told an interesting anagram in class yesterday. In class we want
HOTS not MOTS
Higher order thinking skillsMore of the same.