Week 6 - EDC 533

Post 1 July 23, 2014
I finished my second round of bailing hay yesterday. Hopefully we have lots of hay in for the sheep and horse. A bit of an incident with our horse Cisco today. I heard a noise and looked outside to see him running down the field dragging a gate. Somehow he managed to get his bridal stuck in a new gate that was standing against the barn. Thankfully I was home and was able to cut his bridal cut off and free him. A scary and stressful few minutes. Other than a few scrapes, he will be fine.

Thankfully an intense storm cell slid just North of our house and missed us. hopefully I won't have any more distractions and can focus on EDC 553. :-)

Just finished reading the article by Howard Gardner. I am a huge fan of Howard Gardner. I agree with his conclusion that a uniform education system would not be successful in the US. We don't have a uniform education system in Canada. New Brunswick students attend school up to two weeks less than other students in Canada. New Brunswick students tend not to be successful when attending out-of-province universities. Howard refers to three types of schools. This is an interesting observation. My question is, how does this observation improve student learning?

The Bracey paper reminds me of a saying that "Students who received an A in school often work under other form students who received a B in school owned by companies owned by former students who earned an C in school. It certainly is a bonus to have students who have high test scores. However, i don't believe there is a direct correlation between test scores and scores on summative assessments. I love this quote from Bracey "Only the foolish would think that 13-year-olds’ skills at bubbling in answer sheets would mean much for a nation’s well being."

The Learning Funnel paper was a bit confusing. One interesting quote was "Schools treat students' minds as one big etch-a-sketch for memorizing huge chunks of algorithms and code for a test, then wiping the slate clean for more." Students "learning" in a standardized test environment are being treated like this. I sometimes wonder if I am not doing the same thing sometimes. I do understand the theory behind Big Picture Schools. However, from what little I read, I did not see a clear connection regarding science and math. I connected with another quote "Accomplished learners are able to think, learn, make, and perform in and across complex problem areas. Working the learning funnel, particularly in creating and understanding algorithms -- rather than memorizing them..." I try to avoid asking students to memorize anything. I ask students to learn. yes, we all have to memorize things, but lets keep it to a minimum.

I did take a few minutes to watch a video on Roger Martin. Interesting short video on designing. As teachers we need to find a way so students love what they are learning.

I found the article MIT Curriculum for your High School to be personally interesting. I hope to explore this website in detail when time permits. This appears to be a good site for students who are interested in attending university and which to study science or engineering.

Post 2 July 28, 2014
I just signed on to my Twitter account for the first time since 2012. Heidi Hayes Jacobs made a comment during the SIIS 2012 meeting that all educators should be on twitter. I enjoy Facebook. However, I have not made a connection to Twitter.

Post 3 July 29, 2014
#2—Do a short summary of your persistent issue assignment for everyone to read. Two or three paragraphs should do it.
I identified two persistent issues in curriculum related to New Brunswick. The first is New Brunswick is not ready to deliver 21 century curriculum. The department had started a program call NB3-21C. This program was cancelled. We also had a funding program call Innovated Learning Fund (ILF), which was also cancelled. Both of these decisions occurred after a provincial election. Most new or revised curriculum that has been developed patched on technology and did not base curriculum around technology.

The other issues is the mental model of curriculum. We seldom question curriculum in New Brunswick and we tend to be slow updating curriculum. If students are not engaging with the curriculum, then the teacher needs to change their approach. The Department of Education is focusing on Universal Design for Learners (UDL), Universal Accommodations (UA) and Differential Instruction (DI). If teachers employ these strategies, all students will learn, even if the curriculum is twenty years old and does not embed technology.