WOW!, we have come a long way in educational theories. During my experience over the past 11 years I have seen many theories and strategies for learning come and go. It seems to me that the educational guru's are always trying to reinvent the wheel. I know that must sound negative but, I feel that these theories and I must state again "theories" are just that. The leaders in education use these theories time and time again, over and over but with a different twist each time. Now with technology becoming a demand in education, governments, districts, administrators find themselves jumping on the band wagon. I am all in favor of the implementation of technology in my classroom, but until they allow everyone with same opportunity and funding it is going to be impossible.
Constructionist learning is a theory I have been using for quite a while. This theory allows for freedom in the learning environment without restriction. It allows students to build upon prior and future knowledge and an avenue to which they can express what they know and have learned. I teach at an At-Risk high school. My students have a chip on their shoulders about education and they come to us primarily with a bad attitude. Our staff is always looking for new ways to present our curriculum to our students and strategies that our kids will be successful at. In my school we have very limited access to computers. Our lab has 15 working stations which is divided by 8 staff members with an average of 25 students per class. Other than our staff computers this does not leave us much time to create lessons that involve the use of technology. In a perfect world though, I am all in favor having a technology based curriculum and have a variety ways for each of my subjects I could use these theories in.
One idea I had would be for my students in my advanced physical education class that is primarily weightlifting and conditioning to incorporate technology via a spread sheet for their fitness journals. After a period of time I would have them chart their results and have them form a hypotheses of what their results will be by the end of the course. They could accumulate their data and make projections and formulate a conclusion for their final project. Students could also research diets, supplements and other physical fitness strategies or exercises to improve their own fitness. I already am using something similar, but not with the assistance of technology. I agree this would give my students a much easier and exciting way, plus it would give a break from gym.
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You bring up a good point that "theories" in education seem to be always changing. I totally agree with you. I think that they are always changing becuase our job as educators is to prepare our students to live in an ever-changing society. Think about how much has changed in our society in the past 15 years. Think about how much the students have changed with the changes in society. The theories that were from 15 years ago meet the needs of that time or of the time before that. I think one problem that I see is that b/c these "theories" become passe so quickly they should be written with a sense of future to them. But how can we predict the future? These are all points that show it is a catch 22.
ReplyDeleteI think that having an external artifact for the students to build knowledge is a good theory. It is one of those long lasting one's too. By doing this we can accomplish dual-coding and overlearning. While theories are changing I agree that this is a great that will stay for a long time.
Your point about learning theories being reinvented is valid. This was discussed in a previous class. I don't believe that you were with us then. One of the major points that was brought out was the fact that teachers can become stagnant. They get so used to teaching one way that they never explore the other options. Technology in the classroom is a way to explore those options. Will all teachers take advantage of this technology? Probably not. I think the purpose of administrations pushing certain learning theories for a few years and then pushing others is because there is no right or wrong theory. They are theories but the administrations are trying to make sure they have all of their bases covered. Students today are not the same as they were 25 years ago or even 10 years ago. They have been raised in an environment of instant gratification. They have all of their electronic devices and mass media to compete for their time. I think that using problem-based and project-based learning is a viable teaching theory for this student population. They are used to figuring out how to get to the next level for their games. If we can find a way to incorporate this into our lessons maybe the students will become more interested and engaged.
ReplyDeleteI share your concern about access to technology. To me, it seems we could be widening the achievement gap between more affluent students/school districts and less affluent sudents/school districts by the ease at which the more affluent districts acquire and incorporate technology into their schools. I am all for using technology to create successful 21 Century learners, but I want every student to benefit.
ReplyDeleteLike Gwen, I share your concern about technology. I think the most frustrating thing that I've noticed is that the schools that need the technology the most for their students are the ones that don't have the funding to afford it. For example, I taught in Charlotte, NC in the public schools for a while, and they had pretty much no access to technology. We had about 6 old Mac computers in the library and that constituted the "multimedia" section. This was for a public elementary school of about 4-500 students - most of whom were low income and on the free lunch program. In my opinion, these are the students that don't have access to technology at home and therefore need more at school. Now, I teach in a suburb outside of Madison where we have a very high median income. Almost all of my students have computers with internet at home. And, we have ample technology at school (I always think we could use more, but it's sufficient right now), including a lab with 30 computers, SmartBoards, Mimio systems, projectors, laptop carts, etc. It seems so wrong to me that the higher-income communities in our country have better access to technology at school, when it's our lower-income communities that would benefit most from it.
ReplyDeleteDo you have any ideas on how this could be alleviated or changed?