The Push and Pull...Fueling the Passion, and Giving Students the Basics to Achieve those Dreams9/16/2016 In reviewing the content for this week's class it was striking to me how passionate each of the speakers were about the importance of our Education system. The theme throughout was the sheer amount of choice and information that lives in our world. To quote Ken Robinson, "Students lay their dreams at our feet..." and we must carefully handle those. That along with Adora Svitak's thinking that "Kids don't think of limitations", leads us to how vitally important our job is to protect those dreams and passions and help guide them into something that will ignite and energize their learning.
One of the biggest challenges that I think about daily is how to achieve that balance. The balance between igniting the passion for those students, and ensuring that they learn the vital skills they need to pursue those passions. Being a primary grade teacher I am foremost thinking about the foundational reading skills and math skills these students need to succeed in future grades. How do we teach those explicit skills and still let students explore what their passions might be? We are a Project Based Learning District and we have recently focused on Inquiry. Getting students to inquire and the basic theory of Constructivism. Student's construct their own understanding of knowledge. We give them some content and they construct their own learning in the way that suits them best. I love everything about this, but struggle with how to balance giving students this experience along with the basics they need to participate in this experience. In order to construct their own knowledge, they need to know how to have a collaborative conversation, read a partner's writing, and respond to an opinion piece. When I think about elements to prepare student's for the future; which is full of unknown, rigorous jobs that will require them to process through reams of information, I want to retreat to the basics. Teach them how to think critically, speak and listen to each other (work collaboratively), how to process through a dense piece of text, and how to write effectively. These are the places I want to start, and having them do this with rich pieces of literature, information text, poetry and pieces of art. This feels right to me, but I want to be more mindful of those passions and make sure to help build those instead of squelch them.
3 Comments
9/18/2016 01:53:46 pm
You've put it so articulately, Karly! That "push and pull" is what I wrote about in my blog as well. It feels right, as a teacher, to position students so that they can learn by doing and follow their own inquiry. Moreover, it's encouraging to see that the countries that are leading the world in education foster this kind of deeper thinking as well. However, there are certain basic skills that they have to know- and, as you said, those math and reading skills are all the more important in primary grades. Your post, and mine, makes me wonder if there's a model out there that blends inquiry and direct teaching in different ratios as kids progress through the years. For example, rely on a 50% inquiry curriculum in elementary school, ramp up the inquiry more in middle school, and trust that their skills will carry them through to 100% inquiry in high school? Or is this the kind of reigning in that Adora Svitak would consider limiting? She clearly benefited from the kind of support at home that helped her build basic skills she needed for academic inquiry, but so many of our students do not...
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Becky Albertazzi
9/19/2016 04:38:35 pm
Well said! How do we fit it all in? I also have this struggle. How can we strategically teach foundational skills & engage students is deep, meaningful learning surrounding their interests. Not only, how do we balance the 2 areas, but how do we thoughtfully plan both? At a project based elementary school, teachers often feel torn between teaching standards & foundational skills and providing enough time to engage in meaningful projects. We have a lot of discussions at our school about deeper learning, collaborative conversations, and goal setting. In an elementary school, all of these protocols and pieces of deeper learning need to be taught, in a thoughtful way. Kids do not intrinsically know how to collaborate effectively in a team, or to reflect on their own work. All of these micro pieces of project work also have to mapped out by teams of teachers. It has almost become the foundational skills of deeper learning, or foundational skills of Project Based Learning. They need to be taught with the same attention to detail as teachers teach long vowels or prefixes. Like foundational reading skills prepare student for "Reading to Learn" in later grades. Learning to collaborate and effectively communicate will prepare students for deeper learning and Project work in later grades. Planning and teaching foundational skills and engaging in deeper learning practices in a strategic way is new challenge for our schools.
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Joseph Hall
9/19/2016 08:42:53 pm
I also agree in that it is very difficult to teach something amazingly interesting that sparks passion in student's eyes. There is a lot of explicit and sometimes rote instruction that is necessary and yet we all know that too much direct instruction will lose any student.
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