educators must create safe and trusting environments that are respectful of students’ culture. Teaching the neoindigenous requires recognition of the spaces in which they reside, and an understanding of how to see, enter into, and draw from these spaces
In order to promote equity, it is necessary to celebrate our students' diversities. #ED677
a distortion of the student’s self-image. This was the case even though the student mentioned that she liked the subject being taught and was excited about what she was learning in her science class. This teacher, who struggled to get her students engaged in science, had alienated one of the few students who liked the class
This shows how damaging it can be to not value the thoughts and perceptions of our students. #ED677
She responded that a friend shares her books with her and lends her something to write with whenever she needs it. For her, that made it obvious that she was prepared to learn. She then mentioned that she was always on time for class. “I’m always at the door when that bell rings. I’m always there.” The student saw herself as prepared and on time, but the teacher did not see the student the way she saw herself.
Wow. I must work with an amazing group of teachers, because I cannot imagine any of them lacking the sensitivity to be aware of our students' needs. #ED677
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.
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.