EDC 533 has ended. This has been a wonder and surprisingly interesting course. I am a bit sad that it is over. Our text Century 21 is sort of like reading the Bible. Everything I read it, I learn something new or see a subject from a different standpoint. I have summarized the first four chapters below and developed a few new ideas that will be implemented this fall. Hard to believe that I return to school in just under two weeks:
Chapter 1 to 4 Summary
Information and concepts discussed in
our text ‘Curriculum 21” by Heidi
Hayes Jacobs will have a both short and long term impact on my approach to
delivering curriculum in my classroom. I found the first few pages of chapter
one very powerful and thought provoking. Her first paragraph regarding the educational
generation gap hit the nail on the head. The education system needs to meet
students at their level in order to make productive connections. We need to
connect with learners in order for optimum learning to occur. From a
technological standpoint, we have tried to fix the educational generation gap
by incorporate technology and not to rebuild our curriculum based on
technology. This has not been the most effective approach.
In the second paragraph of chapter one she
asks “what it is we want students to know and be able to do?” One of the key
ideas I have discovered this summer as I progressed through this course and
EDUC 6153 “Assessment as an Instructional
Practice” is that I would like to reinvent how I teach my courses. Teaching
high school in New Brunswick is a bit mechanical. At the beginning of the
semester we provide students with a course syllabus. We go to our curriculum
outcomes and copy and paste the outcomes into our syllabus. We then provide
students with two progress reports which include outcomes copied and pasted
from the course syllabus. Has this process really answered the aforementioned
questions or have teachers simply completed a required process? I also like her
statement “…using curriculum on a constant replay button…”. Teachers need to recognize
that hitting the replay button in curriculum delivery may not be the best
approach for student learning.
Jacobs has a number a thought provoking
ideas in the first four chapters. However, I feel that if I can return to
school this fall and implement the following ideas that student learning will
improve:
1.
Review the essential outcomes
to my course and find opportunities to provide students with technology based
tools to learn these outcomes. I plan on using both the MIT and Coursera website to provide students with
supplemental materials.
2.
Provide students a more clear
understanding of what I want them to know and why it is important. Providing
them with a hard copy of a course syllabus and progress report documents is not
sufficient. This information needs to explain to them.
3.
I need to consider using a problem
based approach and not a content based approach to teaching curriculum.
4.
I am going to expand my use of assessment
tools an increase my use of 21st century assessment items (podcasts,
blogs ect…)
Hayes has made some great arguments as
to why we need to make significant changes to our education system in the first
four chapters of her book.
She provides some short-term steps regarding
the revision of assessment and skills to help prepare students for the 21st
century. Our education system needs to include 21st century proficiencies
and just not subject based standards and indicators. I respect the fact that she
states that these changes can occur slowly. Every school year in New Brunswick,
a new program will be rolled out which needs to be completely implemented. We
don’t have any recognition of the change process.
We need to re-evaluate our content. We
need to decide what should be kept and what can we eliminate. Can some topics
be eliminated altogether? Some educators need to change their mental model that
“the good old days are still good enough”. We tend to teach subject content in
silos and don’t make an effort to connect or integrate subject content. We need
to focus on replacing content and not simply integrating content. She provides
us with “A 21st Century Pledge” which provides us with steps to
helps us prepare education for 21st century learners.
She provides us with a vision of a new
school systems and steps required to implement this new system. She identifies
four structures that require major alteration: Schedules, how learners are
grouped, the configuration of personal and space (physical and virtual). In order
to make these changes, the entire school community must move forward
proactively. She provides the reader with seven tenets to upgrade or change curriculum.
She provides some ideas on how different subjects such as science, literacy/English,
social studies and physics education could be changed to meet the needs of a
changing society. I especially found her idea of students learning multiple
languages to be interesting.
Her suggestions of changing school structures
are significant and would have to involve teacher unions and associations. In
New Brunswick, collective agreements would need to be changed. Everyone’s
mental model of education from parents, educators, students and post secondary
institutions would need to change for this to occur.
In her book “Century 21”, Hayes has laid the groundwork to support education
reform. These suggestions can at the course level, teacher level, school level
and system level. Classroom teachers need to realize they can support this
change process.
Post #2 - August 13, 2014
I enjoyed creating my first professional
blog. I think this is a create way to keep an electronic record of what I have
learned in this course and future courses. A blog is also a running record of
my growth and knowledge. Sometimes we need to take a step back to see where we
are going. A blog provides me with an opportunity to do this.
I did add some entries into my blog for
EDUC 6153 this summer. I plan on using the blog in my next course as well.
I plan on working with my grade 11 students
and have them create their own learning blog. They will benefit from expressing
their own growth in writing. Our students can benefit from learning about other
Google+ applications such as hangout.
No comments:
Post a Comment