Vonnie20

URL: http://armandod.typepad.com/the_growing_pains_of_a_ci/2007/01/is_the_national.html?cid=88202850#comment-88202850

The Growing Pains of a City Academy aged 3

Is the National Curriculum too busy?

As we begin to look at deconstructing the National Curriculum in order to expand the course, some teachers ask me where we would find the room to focus on all the habits of learning, I want the students to develop.  "Our curriculum is already packed as it is".   My answer to this tends to be along the lines of this:

1.  The National Curriculum was designed at a time when teachers did have the monopoly on information.  Students didn't have access to the wealth of information they do now.   The tables have turned now and students have access to all the information they want.   If this is the case, why the don't we allow student who are able to do so, the opportunity to discover new information themselves.   If they are given pointers some assistance when required, this free's up the teacher to work more closely with students who for varying reasons are not yet able to access information themselves.   

2.  If we identify all the difficult concepts in the syllabus and deliver these (seminars on the course) discretely, then we create a lot more time for students to access the curriculum themselves, and by doing so develop good habits of learning along the way.   

All sounds easy really, but try deconstructing the National Curriculum and then reconstructing it in a way that allows this to happen - it's a massive job; especially when we do it in a cross-curricular way.   January 30, 2007

Now I am just a teaching scholar but from my experiences and observations I have found that curriculum is not busy at all but really constrained and limited. It feels that most teachers are pressed to make sure students know the information on various standardized tests. I feel that there is little wiggle room for teachers to present new experimental and potential advanced material to students because A. you have a schedule you have to follow B. you have to make sure all the students are caught up C. Administration limits the time spent and subject matter. Also it is easy for us to say that since children to have easy access and knowledge of the internet and other research materials you can't just assume that they can find out things for themselves. There is still so many advanced programs and websites that children aren't aware of. For example, I am an avid internet user and have even made a couple of websites but once I got to my Curriculum and Instruction and was introduced to Wikispaces, Delicious, and 21classes it was overwhelming and hard to understand. Though I believe you summed things up nicely by saying it sound easy but difficult to actually act on.

Shavon Coleman

Blog URL: http://123elearning.blogspot.com/

The Seven 'Cs' for Surviving a Flat Classroom Project

We are two weeks away from the official launch of the Flat Classroom Project for 2007. This year we have 7 classrooms and over 100 students! Already many students are on the Ning (currently private, soon to be made public) and finding their way around the pre-project material.

Today I shared some ideas via my class blog and via the Ning. This is what I call the Seven 'Cs' for Surviving the Flat Classroom Project, but essentially they are seven key modes of operating that will make online survival in many situations easier and more rewarding. I keep reminding my intrepid students they will only get out of a global project what they put into it, however there are some basic requirements for being in an online learning community and a digital citizen.

1. Connect

Your mission is to connect with your team members and the other educators involved in this project. Connections will take place asynchronously as well as synchronously. Some of your partners will be on the exact opposite side of the world so real-time connections will be a challenge. However you must make the effort to connect. That first contact and then follow-up messages are so important for reassuring your partners that you are there are willing to work.

2. Communicate

Once connected, now use your online skills for effective communication with your team members. Don't be afraid to say you do not understand something. Ask for their opinion and their advice. Discuss problems and reach solutions together. Being in different time zones brings its own challenges for communication and understanding. Communicate often and communicate clearly and responsibly. Use the Ning, use the wiki page and use other methods that you and your team can agree on, including email and MSN.

3. Cooperate

Consensus and conciliation can be reached through online cooperation. This takes the first two 'Cs' to be in place (connecting and communicating) and once you are doing these you can cooperate on building a knowledge base on the wiki share resources and ideas. Do not be offended or take it personally if by mistake your work is deleted temporarily off the wiki, this happens sometimes and we are all learning how to work in a wiki-centric environment. Work together on improving your space and cooperate by being active online and on the wiki.

4. Contribute

If you do not contribute to the online spaces provided for this project we cannot tell what you have done. This is not a project where you can hand in the finished essay on the due date. This project means you must be communicating, cooperating and contributing on a daily basis. Contribute to the Ning by sharing your audio and video files about you and your home/country and sending messages to other students. Contribute to the wiki by posting comments to the discussion forum and adding content to the wiki page for your topic. Contribute to your team by recording short video clips for your partners to use in their videos. Do not be a non-contributor and lurk somewhere in the darkness. Come out and be part of the construction.

5. Collaborate

You and your team members must collaborate on the wiki to show a combined effort in developing a knowledgeable page with lots of relevant hyperlinks and references for your topic. To collaborate means to work together to solve a problem and that is what you must do. This takes communication and cooperation. You cannot sit back and rely on others to do all of the thinking for you. You need to be in there as well collaborating with your team, sharing ideas and making suggestions.

6. Create

This project requires you to create a wiki page as a team. It also requires you to create an individual short video based on your topic and sub-topic. This is difficult, it is challenging and there is no easy answer for content. You decide, you use your creativity and design and plan your final video. Make sure you include clips from your team members as well to show a global perspective on your topic.

7. Celebrate

When the hard work is done you can celebrate your achievements. Part of this celebration is providing reflection and review to your partners and reflecting yourself on the many parts of this project. You will find that the success of this project will be in the underlying achievements, not always the academic ones. You will have found new friends around the world through your online interactions. You will also have made a difference to the world by synthesizing what you have learned into a multimedia event that can be shared globally. That really is worth celebrating!

Student Response:

 I am intrigued by the 7 Cs. They seem so basic but very much essential for any group to work. I am currently having issues with group work. Are these steps cyclical? Or can I instead skip one of these steps and be ok? I feel like I have been doing my best to connect and communicate but because of our distance and sporadic schedule I find it difficult to even set up a basic meet up time.

Shavon Coleman

Doug Belshaw Blog: http://teaching.mrbelshaw.co.uk/index.php/2007/09/19/rewards-rating-and-teaching/

Rewards, rating and teaching

Published 1 week, 6 days ago

Three items in my RSS reader stood up in a row for me to see the links between them. The first is a 1993 New York Times article linked to by lifehack.org entitled For Best Results, Forget the Bonus. It talks about the need to develop intrinsic rather than extrinsic motivation - something we should be doing in schools. How do we do this? Through students engaging in their learning! Take ‘Now I see the teacher's point of view' in the EducationGuardian this week: students should be encouraged to reflect on their learning, behaviour and life in general. And if you manage to pull this off in your classroom, you should have no problem with students rating you on various websites (see Let students rate their teachers).

I do agree with the idea of intrinsic motivation where students find motivation from within and try to learn the best for themselves but as always there are a few cons to that belief. What do you do when the child is not self-motivated whether from lack of understanding or outside problems? What do you do when the child has no concept of self-motivation or interest in school? This is very noticeable in urban settings. Do you have time in the school year, because teachers are given a very limited teaching schedule, to wait and judge self-growth and motivation? Also most would argue that extrinsic motivation works just as well. As always as educators you have to have the right balance, but as we know no form of teaching style is perfect.

Shavon Coleman

url http://123elearning.blogspot.com/

Teacher's Title: Considering the importance of Content or the Method

completely agree with you. If anything we as future or current educators should be worried about accommodating more knowledge into the curriculum not shrinking it. My only concern though is on of the pints you mentioned. "We are preparing children for a future we can not describe."
Let us not ignore the fact that in some officials' eyes some knowledge is "more" important than others. What I mean to say is that a CEO of a Fortune 500 would hire a student that just graduated in accounting and business administration than a student that graduated in the Arts as a Linguist. It angers me that we say we want broader teaching but there is a clear spotlight put on certain subjects that we deem are necessary in life. By doing this we alienate our students and put forth further insecurities to learning. Also while we put certain subjects on a pedestal we forget the fact that knowledge as well as our world is always changing. Who knows tomorrow we could wake up and all computers would be obsolete. And then where would Computer Sciences be? These are just a few things that I have found.


Shavon Coleman