I have watched the "Changing Education Paradigm" RSA video many time, both in- and outside of class. I have great respect for Ken Robinson and believe he is somewhat of a visionary regarding educational policy. Of course, there are aspects that you may not agree; perhaps you have more direct experience with ADHD that supports the application of medication to improve student performance. I certainly have heard stories but have not seen outcomes. What I find interesting, stimulating and motivating is the prospect of change - clearly there are some issues with how we educate students as evidence by high dropout rates and low test scores. And, on a larger scale, how our society values different paths is certainly mirrored in our education system. It is my belief that large scale change starts in individual classrooms and I challenge my students, both those who are going to be teachers and those who are not (they will still be impacted by the educational system - and have been impacted) to get a little rebel in them. That is strive to be the kind of teacher that you remember as a great teacher. Stir curiosity in your students. Challenge them to think, to question, to investigate. Work within the system but put your fingerprint on your students' education. Your teaching should be more than test preparation - it should be developing that individual who might be the game changer. In our present environment there is nothing easy about the path you have chosen but it could be the most important one! As a class this semester let's use this learning opportunity to be enthusiastic learners ourselves so we can become fabulous teachers tomorrow.
Our connection to the video in class perhaps was subtle - I mean how do you connect a burning candle to changing the entire education system? However, what I hope you see and apply is that creativity, thinking divergently, is what we are trying to do by taking a simple object and framing an inquiry around simple processes. Essentially this is practice, which will be vital to our future efforts that are more content focused. And using something we are familiar and nonthreatening will build confidence and skills. But this is hard - developing interesting, testable questions (about a candle? - actually about almost anything) is very, very hard. So, if you are struggling with this, be patient with yourselves. Over the next 4 days or so you might consider reframing your question if it does not seem testable. It should not be just a yes or no question (closed). It should provide the opportunity to collect numeric data in order to answer your question. I will be emailing people/groups individually to shore up any questions about your questions.
I will end this post by including the Word Clouds (wordles) from our group observations. Have a good weekend and see you on Tuesday.
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| Word Cloud - Round 2 |
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| Word Cloud - Round 1 |
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