their reflections that week posted to their own blogs were filled with connections they made between Dewey’s work, John Seely Brown’s, and the research report/agenda for Connected Learning
Awesome. Is it possible to connect with some of these posts and perspectives?
scaffolding between the texts and supportive approaches
This is important, and in my teaching I've been careful to include web annotation in both private (group) and public modes so that learners find comfort with different approaches and can come to appreciate some of the scaffolding that you describe.
Amazing
You're very welcome, and we're appreciative of your willingness to merge formal course activities with the more open-ended and interest-driven approach to educator learning via Marginal Syllabus.
to highlight things they noticed and that raised questions for them
A publicly visible and annotated syllabus is a great practice, and something I'll incorporate into courses - great idea!
about the power of annotation
This is quickly going to become a bit meta... :)
“add up to a sense of mastery—or perhaps better, a sense of participation in determining the content of life”
I find that this point ties in nicely to our discussion of play from last weeks class. We can fully participate when we are at "play" or in "flow".
Ambiguities, uncertainties, and unpredictably [sic] are the substance of teaching”
This is where effective teachers find comfort in pushing themselves to develop their practice.
“why of teaching: why teaching methods work in particular ways in particular settings”
I find this point to be extremely applicable to the study of the application of behavioral analysis.
good teachers, novice and senior, live their class-room lives, maybe out of necessity, in a domain between principle and un-certainty”
Well stated! For me, this is what makes teaching engaging and exciting as an educator.
That which was once this is moving slowly—at least at first—toward becoming tha
I love this quotation to describe the slow and positive process of change.
showed more significant gains in their ELA growth than any of the seniors Antero had taught previously
This links back to the quote about how an artist might end up with a product they hadn't specifically planned for.
as the art emerges, they may make countless adjustments and new decisions that result in a product they probably didn’t imagine from the start
In the quote by Csikszentmihalyi that follows this one, this result is framed as a bad conclusion due to lack of set goals. I disagree with that. True, the end product might not be what you intended, but that should not detract from any inherent value.
relaxing the muscles that are stretching and the muscles that do not need to work in the pose.
I read this as focusing intently on the muscles that will transform the wobble into a steady flow.
Figure I.2
This graph is odd in that it seems to indicate that flow moves you backwards instead of forward. I get the idea, but I don't care for the graph.
address each new teaching experience
Every new group/class of students is unique, and teaching them should feel unique in its own manner.
He also got permission to provide instructional continuity for his students by “looping” the class the subsequent year. This meant that his AP classes included many seniors whom he had taught the previous year. He was thus able to teach his current juniors for two years in a row—once during their junior year and then again during their senior year when a new group of 11th-graders was encouraged to advocate for participation in AP classes in their senior year.
It is unusual for teachers to find such flexibility in their administrative team. Antero was very lucky and was able to recognize what an opportunity this could be.
When wobble occurs, you may feel as if nothing in your teach-er education program has prepared you for this, and you may very well be right.
I've learned more about my students and myself in these moments than when things are still and calm
After years in the profession, shouldn’t teachers eventually figure out how to get it right? Maybe not.
A good teacher is never done growing and changing. We should constantly be getting better at our practice and have a mindset that we can continue to do this better and better to serve our students
pecial responsibility to teach from a social justice perspective, tack-ling issues of privilege, problems of equity and access, and the possibilities inherent in social and civic action.
Yes! 100% agree that it is every teachers responsibility
In some cases like the one above, it’s possible to work within the system and simultaneously maintain your commitment to a given pose. Some instances, however, call for the more radical approach of “working the system” in-stead. Especially early in your career, when you choose to react to wobble by working the system, it’s essential that you have a very firm rationale that is grounded in theory, research, and/or the recommendations of professional organizations, so that you can justify what you’re doing and why to those in positions of power over you
Learning when "work the system" or "work within the system is a very nuanced special skill that takes a few years of professional experience to master but nevertheless vital to progress.
By using an active pose as a touchstone, you’ve maintained your agency as a “deliberative intellectual” (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 2009) capable of posing yourself rather than being posed in the expected ways implicit in a particular constraint within your teaching context.
Too many constraints may lead to a lack of understanding and learning, as the previous "Crucible" example illustrates.
Ultimately, “this is the way the self grows” (p. 42) because individuals become more capable
and skilled as a result of the flow experience" It does indeed promote a sense of mastery.
The poses you take up in your career will have profound implications for the kind of teacher you intend to be and the impact you and your students will make on the world. The commitment it will take to sustain them will often lead you to wobble.
It is similar to learning a new language, or learning to ride a bike. I do find this reference to teaching interesting.
Although the word pose often has a pejorative connotation (i.e., one poses in an attempt to trick, dissemble, or cloak true intentions),
...or a "poseur" someone who pretends to be something that they are not...
Like yoga practitioners, teachers who are committed to professional growth also take up stances (or poses) toward their practice, and reflect on areas in which they wobble with the intent of attaining flow—those provisional moments that mark progress in their teaching.
We pose and wobble in most areas of human activity, if we want to be successful.
These three terms function in a metaphorical sense that reflects the practice of yoga.
Yoga is a perfect analogy
Rather, students have considerable freedom to determine the content and form of their project and to work with others or by themselves.
Differentiating here automatically creates equity. Our students demonstrate their knowledge in their own way. What is manageable and realistic for them.
within
Could this be geared towards standardized testing? It is mandated, we need to address it, but we can make it more engaging and manipulate it?
low experiences are so intense that we lose track of time and temporarily escape other everyday concerns
How satisfying! to work so hard towards a goal and see it successfully unfold!
Wobble occurs routinely in the classroom when something unexpected emerges
This is what makes a teacher a better teacher. When unexpected changes occur we are forced to reevaluate, therefore address the needs and face reality.
pose conveys the dimensions of mindfulness
Being mindful makes us aware of equity in the classroom.
Wobble occurs routinely in the classroom when something unexpected emerges, such as an unpredictable question that neither the students (nor you, for that matter) can adequately address
I had to laugh about this a bit - as an early educator, I feel all to often kids ask questions that I'm stumbling and bumbling to try and answer in the most appropriate way. But when I unpack this type of situation and put it in the context of a wobble it makes sense. Next time a student asks the same difficult question, I'll have a better idea of how to answer. It's all a process.
While wob-ble may initially cause frustration, it also signals a commitment to increased discipline and deepened practice.
I really enjoy the yoga metaphor. It really reinforces the try, try again methodology that we as educators preach to our students. We need to take a bit of our own advice and recognize that we're human and learning is fluid.
not about an endpoint;
I think it's so important to focus on this. There is never an endpoint. We must keep experimenting, reflecting and evolving!
centered on re-evaluating the educa-tional needs of all students in order to challenge assumptions of equality in pedagogical design and educational reform.
I think this is something that a lot of teachers oversee..in a room of 30 students it can become difficult to consider all of the different needs, but through consistent reflection it can be done.
culturally proactive teaching and the thinking and teaching practices that accompany them.
While teaching our students is our goal, we cannot be successful until we understand their culture, discover their interests and connect.
o teach from a social justice perspective, tack-ling issues of privilege, problems of equity and access, and the possibilities inherent in social and civic action.
It would have been so meaningful to actually discuss these issues during methods courses and student teaching rather than the "how." The "how" was indeed the most important secret to unveil when "learning to become a teacher."
remember that react-ing is not the same as being reactionary
Reacting = using formative assessment to guide our instruction to suit our students' individual needs.
In other words, when you wobble, it doesn’t mean that you’re failing. Rather, it signals that you are pursuing worthwhile poses that require learning, reflection, and professional growth.
This is reminiscent of the benefits of allowing students to struggle through a math problem. The struggle may feel uncomfortable at first, but the perseverance will allow them to grow as learners.
experienced practitioners not only expect to wobble, they welcome it:
Teachable moments stem from wobble.
Wobble occurs routinely in the classroom when something unexpected emerges, such as an unpredictable question that neither the students (nor you, for that matter) can adequately address, or a spat that breaks out be-tween students that has absolutely nothing to do with the academic subject at hand. When wobble occurs, you may feel as if nothing in your teach-er education program has prepared you for this, and you may very well be right.
You could plan out every detail of a lesson, and students will still always surprise you. I am reminded of this tweet: https://twitter.com/ddmeyer/status/741841370202050560
a pose is far more than a “best practice,” which, as we pointed out earlier, is an idea that relies on the myth that some teaching techniques are so foolproof they will work with all students in all contexts for all time.
So a pose requires an awareness for equity and looking out for the individual needs of the students who are in front of us.
/W/F cycles most successfully when we collaborate with colleagues who provide moral support and at the same time challenge our thinking.
I completely agree. I am experiencing this with a colleague this year. We plan together everyday, reflect on our experiences, and bounce ideas off of one another in order to improve our practices. Collaboration among teachers is just as important as collaboration among students.
for the often frustrating feelings of uncertainty inherent in the re-cursive process of improving one’s practice.
P/W/F places this uncertainty or risk-taking in a positive light. It is a necessary component of growing as an educator.
But we can say from experience that even teachers whose practice is apparently seamless to the outside eye will continue to wobble in response to changes in their teaching contexts.
I foresee a lot of wobble as we continue to integrate technology into classroom instruction.
we know that though our uncertainties and apprehensions differ from those we experienced in our early years of teaching, we have them all the same. What’s changed is that we don’t view them as liabilities, but as challenges that can further our pro-fessional growth.
There is always room for improvement, always new ideas to try, etc. The students that we have in front of us today will have different needs than the ones that we will have in front of us 5 years from now. As society changes, so do the needs of our students
teachers have a special responsibility to teach from a social justice perspective, tack-ling issues of privilege, problems of equity and access, and the possibilities inherent in social and civic action
This is the basis for connected learning.
the change in the moral school atmosphere, in the relation of pupils and teachers—of discipline; the introduction of more active, expressive, and self-directing factors—all these are not mere accidents, they are necessities of the larger social evolution.
This is so true when considering equity in education. Teachers need to connect with their students and understand how they experience the world both in and outside of school.
but that the scientific insight thus gained becomes an indispensable instrument of free and active participation in modern social life
I reflect on this in light of behavior science and how it is a set of principles which becomes meaningful through application of social importance.
In critical moments we all realize that the only discipline that stands by us, the only training that becomes intuition, is that got through life itself.
The goal of a quality educator should be to create a love of life long learning. This love of learning is experienced through living daily life.
A spirit of free communication, of interchange of ideas, suggestions, results, both successes and failures of previous experiences, becomes the dominating note of the recitation.
Learning is a communal process. In today's age communities connect through the use of technology.
In all this there was continual training of observation, of ingenuity, constructive imagination, of logical thought, and of the sense of reality acquired through first-hand contact with actualities.
Learning takes place through interactions between individuals and individuals now interact across mediums of technology.
One can hardly believe there has been a revolution in all history so rapid, so extensive, so complete.
I believe the revolution that occurred during this time, the industrial revolution, parallels the technological revolution that has occurred more recently.
So thoroughly is this the prevalent atmosphere that for one child to help another in his task has become a school crime.
Challenging notions of "cheating." What does it mean to cheat? Is helping each other and learning together something we want to see?
It is actively moving in all the currents of society itself.
In our networked age, knowledge is more mobile (note: I edited) than ever before and activity moving in all currents of society. What are the implications then for our institutions of learning?
Verbal memory can be trained in committing tasks, a certain discipline of the reasoning powers can be acquired through lessons in science and mathematics; but, after all, this is somewhat remote and shadowy compared with the training of attention and of judgment that is acquired in having to do things with a real motive behind and a real outcome ahead.
But can't mathematics and science lessons be designed to have "real motive" and "real outcomes?" I feel as though this is the goal of project based learning where we are today--students use the content in order to reach some meaningful outcome. Not to mention, these content areas have authentic applications in today's society. Is it better for students to explore academic content through real-life tasks or to explore real-life tasks through the scope of academic content?
The modification going on in the method and curriculum of education is as much a product of the changed social situation, and as much an effort to meet the needs of the new society that is forming, as are changes in modes of industry and commerce.
I think that this exact sentiment holds true today. The recent dawn of the 21st century, deemed by John Seely Brown as the Internet Age (vimeo.com/49645115), has an entirely different set of societal needs from those of the 20th century. In a new fast-paced and globally connected world, students need to be able to problem solve, communicate, collaborate, and create. Schools should aim to allow students to develop these 21st century skills.
The result has been an intellectual revolution. Learning has been put into circulation.
Very similar to the age of the internet in which we are living today. The internet opens access to learning even further and thus promotes equity in education and provides a basis for connected learning.
everyone has a calling and occupation, something to do. Some are managers and others are subordinates. But the great thing for one as for the other is that each shall have had the education which enables him to see within his daily work all there is in it of large and human significance.
I think that this does a great job of summarizing the need for equity in education.
But if the end in view is the development of a spirit of social coöperation and community life, discipline must grow out of and be relative to this. There is little order of one sort where things are in process of construction; there is a certain disorder in any busy workshop; there is not silence; persons are not engaged in maintaining certain fixed physical postures; their arms are not folded; they are not holding their books thus and so. They are doing a variety of things, and there is the confusion, the bustle, that results from activity.
This reminded me of the John Seely Brown video in which he notes that classrooms 5-10 years from now should not look the same as they do now (vimeo.com/49645115).
I think that Dewey is making a similar argument here--classrooms will look differently to meet this goal of fostering collaboration and active learning--and that is okay.
Where the school work consists in simply learning lessons, mutual assistance, instead of being the most natural form of coöperation and association, becomes a clandestine effort to relieve one’s neighbor of his proper duties. Where active work is going on all this is changed. Helping others, instead of being a form of charity which impoverishes the recipient, is simply an aid in setting free the powers and furthering the impulse of the one helped.
The power of collaboration! This connects to the need for connected learning, which emphasizes the value in working and communicating with others.
We must conceive of them in their social significance, as types of the processes by which society keeps itself going, as agencies for bringing home to the child some of the primal necessities of community life, and as ways in which these needs have been met by the growing insight and ingenuity of man; in short, as instrumentalities through which the school itself shall be made a genuine form of active community life, instead of a place set apart in which to learn lessons.
According to Dewey, the purpose of education is to contribute to the functioning of society at large.
Consciousness of its real import is still so weak that the work is often done in a half-hearted, confused, and unrelated way. The reasons assigned to justify it are painfully inadequate or sometimes even positively wrong.
I think that this is still a problem today, across all content areas. In mathematics, for example, students may be able to solve the types of problems being taught, but are they able to apply that knowledge across different situations? Are they aware of why the mathematics they are learning is important? Or are they just learning it so that they can pass a test?
But the point of view is, upon the whole, unnecessarily narrow.
I think that this idea connects to the modern viewpoint of seeing the purpose of learning in the academic subject areas as being to prepare students for college. Yes, college preparation is important, but it is not the ultimate goal--ultimately, we want to prepare students for life.
we cannot overlook the importance for educational purposes of the close and intimate acquaintance got with nature at first hand, with real things and materials, with the actual processes of their manipulation, and the knowledge of their social necessities and uses.
This highlights the importance of authentic learning experiences. When students are able to relate to content and see a purpose in learning it, then they are able to construct knowledge meaningfully. This connects to the idea of connected learning being interest-driven.
It is our present education which is highly specialized, one-sided and narrow.
aha! connected learning is needed.
Plato somewhere speaks of the slave as one who in his actions does not express his own ideas, but those of some other man
so true
The world without its relationship to human activity is less than a world.
don't mention this to a geologist.
worthy, lovely, and harmonious
Love it!
Barely made it to the end. Thank you all. Looking forward to continuing these conversations. xo
The unity of all the sciences is found in geography
Indeed!
It is this liberation from narrow utilities, this openness to the possibilities of the human spirit that makes these practical activities in the school allies of art and centers of science and history.
and funding for the arts seems to be on the back-burner in many districts...
It gets a chance to be a miniature community, an embryonic society.
succinct and to the point.
The mere absorption of facts and truths is so exclusively individual an affair that it tends very naturally to pass into selfishness. There is no obvious social motive for the acquirement of mere learning, there is no clear social gain in success thereat.
absorbing facts and truths is indeed individual ..why is this bad?
Upon the playground, in game and sport, social organization takes place spontaneously and inevitably. There is something to do, some activity to be carried on, requiring natural divisions of labor, selection of leaders and followers, mutual coöperation and emulation. In the schoolroom the motive and the cement of social organization are alike wanting.
wanting? in what sense?
How many of the employed are today mere appendages to the machines which they operate! This may be due in part to the machine itself, or to the régime which lays so much stress upon the products of the machine; but it is certainly due in large part to the fact that the worker has had no opportunity to develop his imagination and his sympathetic insight as to the social and scientific values found in his work.
I believe this was written before mass-production in factories began, and Dewey would have never thought of robots.
The common needs and aims demand a growing interchange of thought and growing unity of sympathetic feeling
This sense of common needs is similar to "shared purpose" in connected learning.
I love the chapter on shared purpose in this book btw: Teaching in the Connected Learning Classroom (http://www.nwp.org/cs/public/print/books/teaching_in_the_connected_learning_classroom)
instead of a place set apart in which to learn lessons
radical (see above :)
It is radical conditions which have changed, and only an equally radical change in education suffices.
looking up "radical"
Google says: relating to or affecting the fundamental nature of something; far-reaching or thorough.
educative forces
implications of thinking of educative forces ... energies ... push/pull ...
That this revolution should not affect education in other than formal and superficial fashion is inconceivable.
So what are the impacts of a changing media ecology and globalization on education today?
is the industrial one
The one that comes to mind for me today is our rapidly changing media environment.
But why should I make this labored presentation? The obvious fact is that our social life has undergone a thorough and radical change. If our education is to have any meaning for life, it must pass through an equally complete transformation. This transformation is not something to appear suddenly, to be executed in a day by conscious purpose.
I like that this calls for transformation, which is obviously necessary now. AND this is suggesting that it cannot happen in a day. I think Dewey's biggest claim here is that he wants to see the educational system evolve. While education has evolved and continues to evolve I think it's important to realize that educator, philosophers and technologists have tried to implement too many changes too fast.
renewed. It has a chance to affiliate itself with life, to become the child’s habitat, where he learns through directed living; instead of being only a place to learn lessons having an abstract and remote reference to some possible living to be done in the future.
And now...we have project-based learning, school to industry connections, and small learning communities - and even professional learning communities...
The radical reason that the present school cannot organize itself as a natural social unit is because just this element of common and productive activity is absent.
Is this still true? I think it is dependent upon the individual school or district. My students produce activity, but it through translation and conjugation. Is that really a productive activity?
When we turn to the school, we find that one of the most striking tendencies at present is toward the introduction of so-called manual training, shop-work, and the household arts—sewing and cooking.
Is this a bad thing? We have so many students who thrive in these types of settings. They are able to demonstrate skill and understanding when manipulating, not by sitting in a desk with a pencil and paper. I wish more students had more opportunities to take classes like these where the can model their understanding via creation rather than reciting or recording memorized knowledge on paper.
Indeed, almost the only measure for success is a competitive one, in the bad sense of that term—a comparison of results in the recitation or in the examination to see which child has succeeded in getting ahead of others in storing up, in accumulating the maximum of information. So thoroughly is this the prevalent atmosphere that for one child to help another in his task has become a school crime.
I see this is Dewey's critique of human capital (as measured by high-stakes tests) and the offering of social capital as a contrast (i.e. "one child to help another.")
he school itself shall be made a genuine form of active community life, instead of a place set apart in which to learn lessons
Along with "...society keeps itself going," this is another phrase that opens the door to green, healthy, and sustainable schools.
the girls to be more efficient house managers, if not actually cooks and sempstresses; the boys (were our educational system only adequately rounded out into trade schools) for their future vocations.
We cannot dismiss Dewey's writing because he fails to connect democracy with feminism.
how shall we retain these advantages, and yet introduce into the school something representing the other side of life—occupations which exact personal responsibilities and which train the child with relation to the physical realities of life?
Green, healthy, and sustainable schools. If we consider the larger social aims of education, then it makes sense that students and staff deserve to attend beautiful schools that conserve energy and water -- and that student know why this is a local and global issue.
Healthy schools advance wellness -- personally and socially (and physically). Being a free individual and respectfully relating to others is democratic. What experiences should students have so that they can exercise their creativity within the arts, sciences and humanities?
Sustainable schools advance opportunities for students to study and experience the equity between people, planet and prosperity.
Verbal memory can be trained in committing tasks, a certain discipline of the reasoning powers can be acquired through lessons in science and mathematics; but, after all, this is somewhat remote and shadowy compared with the training of attention and of judgment that is acquired in having to do things with a real motive behind and a real outcome ahead.
He is drawing a distinction between behaviorism and constructivism. High stakes standardized tests focus on the former; portfolios and student-generated artifacts focus on the latter.
How many of the employed are today mere appendages to the machines which they operate!
Dewey does not ignore Marxist conceptions of "alienation." He implies existentialism, however, not only through social consciousness, but in the liberation of the individual.
It was a matter of immediate and personal concern, even to the point of actual participation.
Love this sentence. What would we say today is a "matter of immediate and personal concern, even to the point of actual participation."?
in shops which were constantly open to inspection and often centers of neighborhood congregation
I love thinking about this potential here as sites of learning.
Let us then ask after the main aspects of the social movement
Connected Learning report starts in a similar place. They write "We begin with an analysis of current economic, social, and technical trends that frame the educational challenges faced by many countries, especially in the Global North – including the contraction of economic opportunity, growing inequity in access to educational and economic opportunity, and the risks and opportunities of media engagement."
Can we connect this “New Education” with the general march of events
Key question here and also in ED677.
the separation of theory and practice
I have real concerns about this separation and its implications for learning and for democracy. I think it separates learners in our systems as well as thins the learning that is possible for all. It strikes me that it also gets more at the heart of what Dewey is writing about than examples that could otherwise be described as practical versus intellectual -- that whatever our pursuit we must integrate theory and practice.
Knowledge is no longer an immobile solid; it has been liquefied
Knowledge is no longer an immobile solid; it has been liquefied.
(Highlighting this quote because I like it! :)
growing, one former is worth a thousand re-formers,”
I love the description of growing and forming together in contrast to something being re-formed or someone who re-forms.
Yet the range of the outlook needs to be enlarged. What the best and wisest parent wants for his own child, that must the community want for all of its children.
The challenge.
www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/53910
Exciting what we can do with texts (in this case a lecture) like this that are shared and/or in the public domain.
Thank you to the folks at Marginal Syllabus, specially @remikalir and @onewheeljoe for their support for this discussion.
John Dewey
In 2012 I heard John Seely Brown give a keynote at the DML Conference where he said that "perhaps John Dewey (and Marie Montessori) were 75 years ahead of their time" when driving models of education that brought the learner into the flow of what they were learning. Maybe, he posits, "their intuition was right but their toolset was wrong."
I was so excited by this thought and have been wondering it ever since. So how might we do what JSB does in his speech and recast some of John Dewey's work here from 1907 in today's networked age?
JSB described his goal is to create an "arc of life learning that scales." I am wondering about equity in connected learning and teaching.
See: http://dmlcentral.net/the-global-one-room-schoolhouse-john-seely-brown/
Here are some questions we are playing with via ED677 this week:
Note: I have been inspired by colleagues of mine to think more about tools like hypothesis that let us create small private groups in which we can annotate articles together and then you can choose to make those comments public or not.
Maybe an inspiring text and the conversations your class has around that text in the margins could be the picnic blanket, or the sets of tables pushed together.
Now, checking myself here, I realize that ED677 is a graduate class and that one of the “deals” with school, is that we have safe spaces for talking through complicated ideas without always being subject to public scrutiny. And I also know that educators today are under enormous pressure and public spaces are not always safe and supportive (to say the least).
"Public or private?" is decision we all make regularly working online, so "public" and "private" are important concepts to for all of us to understand more deeply. These students will gain practical experience these concepts.
Most recently I have been learning from two new-to-me online communities of practice – Wattpad for Writers and DeviantArt for Artists. Their online designs and supportive networked ways of working prompt me to continue thinking about the power of open ways of working in such communities.
So powerful to look at people engaged in networked learning "in the wild" in order to design interest-driven learning in classroom settings.
I like to think of this type of experiment as a form of "blended learning," where you're blending elements of 3rd space learning into formal schooling.