#Wyoedchat Book study of Open hit the pause button for the month of July. To give everyone a chance to conclude this great book we, will take a new approach to the final few chapters.
Each chapter,6,7,8 & 9 will have a threaded discussion on the blog.
Please explore comments and keep the conversation going.
Chapter 6 Open Learning in Society
What where the ideas that stood out in this chapter to you? What ways will you use this information /idea to impact teaching and learning in your school?
Chapter 7 Open Learning at work
ReplyDeleteWhat where the ideas that stood out in this chapter to you? What ways will you use this information /idea to impact teaching and learning in your school?
Chapter 7 just pointed out to me all the things we do in education that are the opposite of what Price recommends in this chapter. We are just recently beginning to try to carve out time for teacher to work together in learning communities (I'd say the last decade or so), and most districts aren't very effective and efficient at creating those communities yet. And we educators are traditionalists in a lot of ways. So when Price writes "encourage unorthodoxy," I don't immediately think, "oh yes, that's what we do in education." Instead of flattening structures, we often see silos.
DeleteThe silos. The dreaded silos. When I watch my kids in their "play" they use what they know. They don't stop, use math, stop, use history, stop, use computer skills, stop, use grammar, et cetera. No, they just do the thing with the stuff. The disciplines all happen at the same time.
DeleteIt is very interesting that "learning how to be on a team" is often the same as learning to specialize. Can we allow students to enjoy practicing a specialty or discipline (within the proverbial machine-shop) in which they're not "naturals"?
ReplyDeleteChapter 8 Open Learning in Education
What where the ideas that stood out in this chapter to you? What ways will you use this information /idea to impact teaching and learning in your school?
As long as law-makers and leaders are off balance in favor of keeping costs down over doing what's right and needed, education will be designed for efficiency and "organised around the needs of the educators [or bean counters], not the learners".
DeleteI can think of at least three examples where I was involved in decisions that favored the educators over the learners and I've only been on the school board less than a couple years. I've regretted my role in each of those decisions and learn from those mistakes, I hope.
Although I can't prove it, I feel that I am more interested in an Open style of education than many others in my community. Not all, by any means. But many. I struggle with that. I want to buy multiple copies of this book and make it mandatory reading. Which of course would be ironic, if not hypocritical, right?
Second thought on this chapter: Something I'd not considered when hearing all the hoopla about educational "success" in other countries, is how the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. Maybe some nations have higher test scores, but what is that kind of success actually affording those nations? Do those students have a purpose? Do they help each other or just get better test scores? I don't know. But I'd like to.
Chapter 9 Open and you
ReplyDeleteWhat where the ideas that stood out in this chapter to you? What ways will you use this information /idea to impact teaching and learning in your school?
This book, and this chapter in particular, has strengthened my resolve to not look up (a.k.a. Google as a verb) every "factoid" my kids and I find ourselves wondering about. I force myself to sit with the question, with the wonder, with the not knowing. My kids' sense of curiosity seems to have perked up, filled out, expanded, as a result.
DeleteI was first inspired to consider this when I finally caught up with a Pete Holmes video last summer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQ4o1N4ksyQ
Factoid vs. Deep Knowledge. If one constantly satisfies the desire for factoids, does a learning, growing human brain strive to see bigger patterns and learn to analyse?
(where's Jack Handy and his deep thoughts when you need 'em??)
Clearly the center of chapter 6 is the list of the "do its." As a reader, you just have to pick out which "do it" seems most doable and relevant to your current work or position. But it seems unlikely that if you don't pick "do it now" and "do it yourself," it's pretty hard to do the rest:-) In education, it seems like we often put things off until someone else tries it (we are often risk averse!).
ReplyDeleteYes, the "do its" are the bulk of chapter 6. A point from the start of the chapter I also found valuable is the "why" or the motivation behind people's actions in the examples; the idea that being schooled "without the value of context or purpose" is antiquated.
ReplyDeleteAlso, the application of knowledge crossing over from one situation to another was interesting (c.f. inter-disciplinary curriculum). Movements, or mobs, if you will, re-purposing almost spontaneously. If schools examine the "why" kids will be learning (and why they'll be engaged) and teachers can help find some relevant context, our students may not only learn how to be better learners, citizens and employees, but they'll actually *practice* being those things before they are handed a diploma.